Normal map resolution

[Yakub]

I've seen people make body textures that they call are 4k, which have 4k diffuse but with 2k normal map (specular aswell).

Is it worth it to make a normal map with the same resolution as diffuse, or is the difference too small for the 15 Megabytes more of size to be worth it?

[Alter Native]

Bigger is better, as always. 

Your hardware and your priories determine whether it's worth it to you or not.

[27X]

It's actually far more more important for normals to be as large and clear as possible than diffuse, and not just for Skyrim. The salient issue is large normals of good quality are work and art intensive, and most Skyrim modders are ass at them; that's partially bethesda's fault for using the normal system they do which virtually no one else uses for pretty obvious technical reasons.

 

SG and all the SG variants and 'fusions' are a prime example. Even at 19x10, you can literally see square pixels as plain as day, especially around eyes and lips and undershaded places like breasts and navels and running a blur pass in photoshop isn't going to unmake literal squares in your map.

 

The other gorillaphant in the room is screenspace resolution. Through the laws of Fuck You, most modders have potatoes and put out mods as if everyone else has potatoes as well, especially in the chinese modding scene where the best case scenario is modder A gets User B to make screenshots for them on his Taiwan based 4K rendering farm/youtube lookatmeandmyexclusivepaidprivatemodsfromthatKoreanMMO whoring channel, but you dl the mod in question and it features 1024s blown up from 512 by some lazy ass photoshop algorithm with noise and artifacts all over the place, but hey it looks pretty ok on this overbloomed and blown to fuck contrast ENB on a 1280x960 6+2bit color laptop, yay!

 

If you're using 4K maps on a 1080 screen, you're literally wasting potential and creating artifacts and shimmering. In a graphically ideal situation screen resolution and map size will roughly always match, aka 4K maps + 4K monitor, 2K maps + 1920 monitor. Using 4K normals on a 1920 lenovo laptop with shared graphics is very likely just wasting bandwidth.

 

Screenshots are not gameplay and should never be treated as if they are, especially in a niche where photoshop bullshit for those precious precious upvotes and likes is the norm.

 

DL 4K normals and look at them on your set up, if you can't tell the difference, then obviously there's no point in wasting resources for benefits your system can't provide.