I created a prototype model to demonstrate what I have learned from my research.
Comparison of the high poly sculpt and the low poly boot with the normal map applied. High poly was around 2.6m tris, imported at 800k and optimized to 41k, normal maps were then baked from this. Low poly is 160 tris.
The low poly boot.
The boot rendered with only the normal map applied.
The boot with the diffuse and normal map applied. The diffuse map has an Ambient Occlusion baked in for extra depth.
The specular map added to create the fully textured boot.
I am impressed with the results, as the final low poly model looks like it has a much higher poly count than it actually does. I could improve the sillhouette of the model by adding extra polygons for the metal rings, but the purpose of this test was to use an extremely basic version of the high poly and still achieve a good result.
