Low Poly Mountain Texture test

I decided to texture the low poly mountain model to experiment with how different texturing techniques may look, I began by mapping the model and then painting the texture in mudbox.

I then rendered this version and combined the smooth shading, and non smooth shading renders.

This seemed abit flat so I added a bump map using a photoshop normal map filter, normally I would sculpt the normals using mudbox but due to the low polys of this model it was difficult to create detail without subdividing which would change the shape of the model.

This didnt look great but the shading was more interesting, unfortunately my painted texture seems to have left some streaky marks but I will be aware to avoid painting it in such a way in future. I then experimented with a few other bump maps already existent in maya.

granite

 noise

 fractal

Finally I mixed a couple of the renders together to make a final render, It can still be much improved but it's given me a better idea of what works visually and what doesn't, I think that normal maps can work with low poly models but it is best when they are simple, and I believe alot of the appeal in low poly shapes is that the edges are very obvious and bump maps can detract from that if not created correctly.