The tesseract cube was a task we where set in which we created a normal map. A normal map is a map which gives the object it is on a lot of detail, even though the object has a low polycount. Normal maps are best used for games, as games need low polycounts to allow smoother performance and less to render.
First of all I started with a cube and beveled it to give it a simple shape. I now had areas where I could place the Normal maps. Normal maps are a 2D but they have so much detail they look 3D.
Once i had made the cube which was made by simple beveling and extruding i than had to UV my tesseract. this was done by selecting the automatic button under the UV tab. Due to how much more advanced Maya 2018 is compared to 2016 automatic UVing it is so much easier. As moving and sewing is done by simply selecting and than going to the UV tab and select the move and sew button. It will than move the edges together sewing the faces together.
Once the cube was complete I transferred it into mud box and this is where I began to add in the shapes onto each face. I would do this by selecting a filter in mud box and than placing it onto each face. once I had placed a filter onto each face I than transferred it back into maya 
I than created a normal map in Photoshop. I did this by opening the UV in Photoshop and than created a UV map be selecting the tab Create than Normal map. A normal map is used to give more detail to the object. They are normally used within games a s it allows the map to load faster. Once this was done i added in the Normal map into Maya.
The issues I had
Whilst making this model I was supposed to create two models one which is low polycount and one which is high. However I struggled heavily whilst doing this. As when I would place both the models in Maya and add the normal map it would look horrific. I kept on trying to get the other polycount in but it just simply would not work. I even asked for help from my teacher and even he was confused and couldn’t get it to work.
This piece of work is okay but I feel like I should have done better and completed the work completely. However, once rendered I do like the look of the work and it shows of my skills with a normal map. I think next time I would work hard on getting the high and low poly versions. This would have developed my skills even further and would have shown more of the work I can achieve.
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