Perfect Normal Map!with Lightwave!

[TYROT]

dear TEAM

 

I was checking the NET for better NORMAL map making..ANd you know or you dont...know ID was not making the NORMAL MAP with Photoshop..

 

I was tweaking the textures and all of them making me crazy ..Black Theif knows what i mean..

 

So .. I learnt something today...

"see"

1- they are modelling the OBJECT in Lightwave...and triple it..

2- Putting the Doom3 engine and writing a CODE over there

3- Doom 3 editor creates a perfect Normal Map...for that object because it s using actual 3d reference from the 3d model.

4- they are recieving 2 perfect normal map tga

 

Am i the only one who learnt this just right now?

or is it a good news?

or this is happening because of my broken WATCH

 

this is the link

 

http://www.chainsaw.cz/clanky/normalmaps.php#

 

(of course there can be good results with Nvidia Plugin in photoshop but it s taking huge time for creating seriously convincing textures)

 

(I didnt udnerstand where im gonna write that renderbump code though ??)

 

BEST

Edited January 12, 2005 by TYROT

[sparhawk]

I read something about that a long time ago. So it's not exactly new to me. But I wouldn't know the details anwyway. If you need some code to support that we would need to know what it exactly should do.

[TYROT]

dear SPAR

Thanks God you are here

Actually im really trying to make it but the damn stuff is not writing NORMAL map.tga ..May be oDDity can solve the puzzle..

he can also say to me that normal map plugin in lightwave is the case but i dont know yet

 

I ll be checking doomworld3.org for further detail..

 

This means we will have great looking Normal Maps.. .ID quality..

 

BEST

Edited January 12, 2005 by TYROT

[sparhawk]

Actually im really trying to make it but the damn stuff is not writing NORMAL map.tga ..May be oDDity can solve the puzzle..

I hope that they left the code in there. Wreiting the texture should be no problem. I already have a lib installed that can do this (DevIL.dll) and I knew that it would come in handy for other thigns besides the lightgem. Generating the texture is another issue because we have no access to the render engine, which might be needed.

[TYROT]

dear Spar

 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic...=renderbumpflat

 

BNA shows how to make a NormalMAP ...

I made it and it worked flawlessly ... In a second I got my NormalMap.. without tweaking stuff. .

 

Dear BlackThief: from now on i ll be your officially texture assistant..I was twirling around the engine and everything was blurry.. I downloaded hundreds of free hi-res textures and couldnt find the make a cool Normal Maps.. No fucking more We can go insane normal maps on the generators, lamps, sofas...

 

I can guess oDDity's reaction "welcome to earth " but hey i came right ..somehow:)

 

BEST

[oDDity]

Yes, I knew about this already, I thought it was common knowledge. I decided against using the renderbump3d tool in favour of normal mapping in lightwave. For 3d objects it's just as good, and renderbump3d is very slow for very high poly objects. Obviously the renderbump flat would work better than the nvidia PS plugin, which is really just faking it.

You have to distinguish between normal mapping the textures and normal mapping the geometry though. Normal mapping the textures alone only works on certain objects. Anywhere there is a curved surface or anything organic it requires geometry normal mapping.

You can blend two normal maps together in the shader anyway, one for the geometry and one for the texture, if it's warrented.

[Fingernail]

I have used this...

[MRYS]

Did you try that?

 

http://engineering.soclab.bth.se/tools/177.aspx

 

I foud ORB program very useful and giving much more control.

 

I use many methods - depend on unique texture. Sometimes nvidia plugin works good enough (most times NO). But the best normalmaps of course are from hipoly objects. I am not familiar with Lightwave, but with Max and I use a little complicated method with four lights and layering four images. Results are good for me.