Faking 3d

One important aspect to 3D art is optimization. What I mean by this is that, if you make something appear the same or similiar to a more detailed object then that greatly decreases rendering/computing time. This is certainly paramount in video games since the computer must make calculations on the fly but still important in movies because it cost money that is usually determined by rendering time. Without further ado, I will briefly introduce one method to "Faking It."

Normal Mapping

To surmise what normal mapping is, it is basically a texture image that tells how light should effect the object to simulate bumps, dents and other details. My emphasis is on texture because the deficient way to create surface details is to actually model them out using more polygons. Again, the key here is optimization, adding more polys tends to be more taxing on the computer as opposed to a simple texture image that is wrapped around an object. Moving onward, here is an example I made both the outcome and the actual sphere model I used without the normal maps. The illusion to the ripples on the sphere is created through a normal map instead of polygons allowing this image to be created in relatively no time at all!

These were created in blender, if you wanted to use blender to make your own, click here! (Assuming you have some knowledge of blender)