DeepOmega

One thing. We want as few 90 degree angles as possible in normal maps - this is really, really important. Normals describe slopes, not heights, so unless we want a height map on it, you really want to make those details more.. curved, I suppose - sculpted, instead of just extruded polygons. That make sense?

Well, the FTP now isn't working with FileZilla. =P Files are too big to be uploaded as an attachment to a post. Any ideas?

Can you tell the difference? Because I can't. And guess how many polys? Go on, guess. 236. Niceness. Oddity, the main reason I like mapping this to a model is that it does add a lot more depth. Of course, this may not be worth it for something that we'll have many many copies of. If you want a flat texture, BT, let me know. Very easy to set up.

Well, I took it on myself to do it my way . Left is flat low poly model, right is high poly model, middle is normal mapped low poly. I made some changes, because those horizontal things wouldn't work too well as normal maps. 416 polys.

Ahh, ok, here is the source of my confusion. Atti, your lowpoly model is not complete. Is this the whole thing? Or did you send an outdated model?

Do you want that on a simplified model, or just a flat rectangle? It might make sense to do a superlowpoly model for it, since it has such depth.

Best of both worlds, my friends.

Is the PS-generated map lying around anywhere? Would be good if I could take a look at it.

Guess what came today? Bam. Will put the .tga files on the ftp, I guess? Edit: I didn't add any noise to it, so it's very smooth - but this is very fixable in photoshop. If you really want, I'll do it in 3D, but it's not necessary. Double Edit: Nevermind. Roughed it up myself.

Fair enough - but nonetheless, that nasty wireframe really has me worried. Would it be that hard to just hand-optimize?

You know.... you can probably normal map that, if you're interested. I'm looking at that.. terraced bit around the edges. If you make that a single, sloped poly, and then normal map it, it would work great. You'll never see that part in profile. Of course, might not even cut that many polygons. =P

Yeah, I thought it was a poly-reducing plugin... It really looks like it. While nobody's gonna be looking at the wireframe, If we end up wanting to do anything with facial animation, it really needs to get cleaned up. Polys reduced by hand and that sort of thing. I'm a bit concerned about the profile polygons, too, since it's got such a weird topology. For intance, here, the nose looks way zany. And in the wire.. if you can't see the shapes in the wireframe, them you're bound to run into issues, especially if you end up having to animate it. While using per-pixel lighting reduces the most obvious artifacts (none of this vertex lighting) there are all sorts of smoothing errors and such, which a clean wireframe will fix right up.

Tile floor. Same organization.

I like the idea a lot - but how's this for a bit of a (visual) twist. They float, but instead of, say, flying around like they're on an invisible hover board, it looks like they're dangling from an invisible string coming out of the top of their heads. Legs and arms limp, kind of trailing behind them.

Hey, Oddity - there seems to be some way crazy shit going on in the face of the low-poly. A jumble of triangles, and totally unsymetrical. Is this just a temporary model?

So, at Renzatic's request, I'm going through and making models to match up with some of the textures we have - these models will then be used to generate normal maps. Technology is sexy. Left: flat rectangle Middle: Untextured model Right: Textured model Since I'm running Max R6, I haven't generated the normal map yet, but this is two minutes of work once I have my copy of 7 again. More to come later.

The lootification will be entirely textural, I think. Uploaded to FTP, three files. Candlestick1.ase has a candle, Candlestick2 is just the holder. The Diffuse map is temporary (but I think the candle itself looks pretty good), and the UV map is included if anyone wants to use it as a guideline for new textures.

No shit =P No offense to the NV plugin, but it defeats the point of a normal map. It's a sketchy way to simulate 3D data - especially since we have so many talented 3D artists. What I like most about generating normal maps in 3D is that you can do post-work in Photoshop - or you can add features later - based on actual 3D models. For instance, I've started to compile a couple of nifty details that I can put on normal maps if I decide to change it later, things like that. Plus, a lot of shapes (the ribbing on the fountain model I made comes to mind) are very difficult to simulate using a heightmap. Conclusions: whoo 3D!

Since I have to wait a week till my copy of 3DS Max R7 comes in, I'm stuck with 6. This means I can't work on any of my models (most of them are in R7 format), nor can I work on character animation. Plus, no normal mapping allowed. So. As I see it, there are a few options. I can work on those five or so unclaimed models that are on the Milestone list (most of which won't be normaled, in all likelihood). I can grab some of the claimed ones that are totally unstarted (the chests come to mind). Or I can work on other small models that Just Need To Get Done. Any preferences or assignments, my friends?

Gimme a UV unwrapping and the texture and I'll make you a normal.

And another angle!

Here we go - this is about 4 horus of work, from download to import to rigging to animation. The animation isn't fantastic - I have some loose feet down there, and some stray sliding keys, but this is more a test of the deformation than anything else. Edit: By the way, Oddity, if you have normal/spec maps I can slap them on as well. :-)

Just FTP'd to the server. 8 images, two models. One model for the base, one for the center, and four textures each. They are as follows: Diffuse (dirty looking map) DiffuseCLEAN (er.. clean one) Normal Specular The model is ASE, natch. Edit: Just as a demo of why normal maps rock, here she is untextured:

Well, here she blows. No water yet, and I'm very uncertain about the texture - but the normal map is awesome. Plain, no diffuse or spec texture: A clean stone diffuse texture. A dirty stone diffuse texture A wide shot of the dirty stone About 1500 tris - a little on the heavy side, but it's a big object, and no more than 1 per map I figure.

Yeah, I'm pretty rocking at animations (if I do say so myself). Along with whack-a-mole, character animation is one of the few things I can just understand instinctively.