Hi,
I’ve recently begun to learn to make low poly models for games and in the process I’ve been trying to learn to make good normal maps by making high poly meshes and then baking the normal maps and applying them onto the low poly meshes. I’ve been however having trouble getting a good result so I was wondering if you guys could point out any mistakes I’ve made and if you have any “rules of thumb” to follow while doing these sorts of operations I’d greatly appreciate!
Here are the wireframes for both the high and low poly meshes (the high poly mesh is actually split into 2 objects, the rings are separate from the ‘barrel’):
<-- Click me
And here you can see both the normal map (with the uv layout on top of it) and the the “final” render of the low-poly mesh with the normal map applied:
<-- Click me
Thank you 
P.S: If anyone is wondering, this is a Plasteel Cylinder from the KotoR games!