en Normal maps have become very popular these last few years, shown as a large improvement in the Game Industry but also in more traditional CG Industry and in the movie Industry, even if less obviously. Nowadays, solutions to sculpt models to an incredible level of detailing exist (ZBrush, Mudbox but also our beloved Blender, with its now famous Sculpt mode) but building normal maps to enhance the surfaces of our Blender models is still somehow lacking. Blender now has the capability to bake Camera Space Normal Maps directly from a higher level of resolution and apply it to a lower level of resolution, thanks to UVmapping and the Multi-resolution meshes. But the very last step, the one which will bring Blender up to the standards is still missing) : Tangent Space Normal Maps. If Blender now supports these maps, it still doesn't know how to bake them.

Read "Tangent Space Normal Maps for Blender"