Help with Normal Mapping

[Otaku Punk]

I've been browsing the forums for a while for advice and tutorials and have found it immensely helpful in getting my modelling skills to where they are today! Having said that, I appear to have hit a snag whilst teaching myself normal mapping that the tutorials I have read have failed to help with.

When rendering my tangent space normal map I can produce one without issue, but it appears to include some fine details from the high-poly but miss out some others. In the images attached notice how it picks up the texture on the grip, but misses out the logo in the centre. This is despite both raised details being the same height. Also it picks up the ridges to the rear of the slide but omits the text at the front. I've played around with a few options whilst creating the map with little success. I'm sure it's probably something quite simple I'm overlooking so I thought I'd post here and see if a fresh set of eyes could help me. If needed I can upload the max file.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[SkwigglesWorth]

Unfortunatly the attachment system isnt working and we can only see a thumbnail image. You need to upload your image to an image hosting site like photobucket or image shack, and then use the link they give you to post up here.

[Otaku Punk]

No problem are these better?

Normal Map:

Slide Detail:

Badge Detail:

[SkwigglesWorth]

I belive it is not picking up the details because it looks like they are exactly 90 degree angles, (so esseintially the low poly plane cant actually see any of the depth because it is look straight on at it).

So I would try making some angle like 87 degree if you can but I can see that being fun for soem of those bit.
Another thing you could do is do some beveling of edges on the top and bottom bits.

[Otaku Punk]

Thanks for your help, I'll give the tips a try.

[KrAyZiE]

it would be a better idea to add those details in photoshop, you would have much better quality details also if you did that

[Otaku Punk]

Originally Posted by KrAyZiE

it would be a better idea to add those details in photoshop, you would have much better quality details also if you did that

I hadn't thought of that, would anyone be able to point me in the direction of some good tutorials on how do do this? Closest I've found in the big tutorial thread is this