Gus_Rayvus Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 Does anyone here use them in production? What has your experience been? Any down side? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notamondayfan Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 i think u need to be slightly more detailed in your posts, like software, projects, etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus_Rayvus Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 Thanks Dean, I think they work the same across the board for any program that supports them. But I’m using max. I was just wondering if anyone has switched to normal mapping instead of displacement and bump mapping. It seems like it is become the industry standard in film and games. I’m thinking about trying to implement them in my work flow And I was wondering if anyone has come into any problems with this? Or any great results with it? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notamondayfan Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 http://www.bencloward.com/tutorials_normal_maps1.shtml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus_Rayvus Posted July 24, 2006 Author Share Posted July 24, 2006 Yeah, that is good tutorial; I’m not really asking how to make normal maps though. I was just interested if other people have started using them in their renderings or animations? It just seems like a great technology and I haven’t heard a lot about it on this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkletzien Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 Gus- What software are you using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Nelson Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 This should hlep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manta Posted July 24, 2006 Share Posted July 24, 2006 I doubt they're being used alot in film, I could be wrong, but as long as you're using PRman, displacements are a breeze, it cuts through them like a hot knife through butter, but for games I can certainly see it, it has to render in real time, I'm still using displacements for now, and bump maps when great detail isn't needed... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesTaylor Posted July 25, 2006 Share Posted July 25, 2006 i had a look at them a while back, trying it inconjunction with vray but version 1.47.03 doesn't seem to support them - from what i know great way to keep poly count down / yet detail up in a scene.......... if vray 1.5 supports them i'll be giving it ago again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus_Rayvus Posted July 25, 2006 Author Share Posted July 25, 2006 James, if you are using max then just put them in a "Normal Bump" map in the "bumpmap" slot of your material. Then add the normal map to that in the appropriate slot I haven't had any problems with them in vray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesTaylor Posted July 25, 2006 Share Posted July 25, 2006 in that case i'll give it another go! do you have any problems creating the normal map via vray or do you do that using the scanline render? also, do you know any good tuts for the complete process? what i've tried to do in the past was create a wall with displacement for the bricks / mortar and then capture that info in a normal map, so not to require the displacemnet modifier in a final render. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus_Rayvus Posted July 25, 2006 Author Share Posted July 25, 2006 Nvidia has a free photoshop(cs2) plugin to turn a greyscale bump into a normal map. Just save it as a dds then you can change to a targa or whatever you want. It works great. http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digital_Assassin Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 Your scene needs an omni light for the normal maps to work. I usually dump a skylight and a omni light into my scene before i render. I did the brick in this image using normal maps (wip made for battlefield 2 ...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesTaylor Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 does the omni have to be on or can it be inserted into the scene and then switched off? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digital_Assassin Posted July 29, 2006 Share Posted July 29, 2006 It needs the light on to get the normal map effect, Im not sure if it will work with directional lights or not but you can try it. Most of my renders are for ingame models and im just getting into architectural rendering, so some things i havent tested yet ... Is probally a good thing to experiment with. Just remember that normal mapping uses a blend of your scenes lighting to work. I think the formula is something like diffuse*normalmap*light in most shaders. Although in nvidia's FX Composer theres a sample shader that uses blending ive never seen and gets uncomparable results ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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