Normal Mapping for Games

[EricChadwick]

I'm not using Max7, so all I can suggest is looking at this section in the Help file...
Rendering > Rendering to Textures > Troubleshooting Normal Bump Maps.
... seems like they talk about red errors in there.

[dominicqwek]

Silentstep- your best shot would be at having a push modifier over the entire cage and an epoly modifier to tighten the areas like the face so that the raycasting is more accurate. I'm not sure if there's a faster work around, this is what I've been doing to generate my normal maps. You could try melody or orb.

[Dargon]

We use Max to generate Normal Maps, we used to use Kaldera, and at home I used to use the Normalmapper ATI thingy. OUt of the 3, I'd have to say that damn cage is the worst. We've had tonnes of troubles with it, probably because there's like ten thousand options, and about 35 of them you have to check every time, but aren't on by default. We're in the middle of writing our own tools for streamlining this.

Anyways, the cage sometimes just won't give you results, particularily if your high res sits underneath the low poly. If this is so, the best bet is to go to settings in the render to texture floater, and uncheck "use cage" and check either raytracer, or UV match. (I might be slightly out to lunch on those words, but similar are there)

Also under the settings tab, you can check (if you want to give the cage the college try) ray miss check OFF, and use working model OFF, and try that. I don't guarantee it will work.

Anyways, long story short, Max works best if you ignore the whole cage thing and just generate your normals the old fashioned way.

rant over.

[NeOmega]

sygoth I think it might be Edge Pad.

Miguelito any parts that use mirrored UVs will cause their lighting to appear to come from the wrong direction, causing a lighting seam if the mirrored parts touch, or merely causing incorrect lighting if they don't... unless your game engine (or previewer or rendering plugin) is specifically designed to overcome this. Most aren't AFAIK.

I don't know, I have read up to page 13... but I was wondering:

Why cant the red and green channels just be switched for the mapping on the mirror sides in a 2d editor? I can't think of any reason why this would cause problems.

[EricChadwick]

Duplicating the bitmap to invert one of them kills the video memory savings that you get by reusing the same bitmap for both sides.

[NeOmega]

Duplicating the bitmap to invert one of them kills the video memory savings that you get by reusing the same bitmap for both sides.

Not sure if I am ever going to get the luxury of a programmed in normal map mirror unfortunately...

[Dargon]

It would probably work, but you'll want to invert only one of the channels, red if you're mirroring left to right, yellow if you're mirroring up and down. It won't work all the time though, as the colours are based on the objects tangents. My guess is the middle will cause you some issues.

BTW, most game engines should be able to handle mirroring. It's relatively easy to add to the shader, and no more expensive to calculate.

[EricChadwick]

If you're stuck though, the alternative is fairly simple... never mirror. Give all surfaces of your model their own UV space (except things that can reuse the same bump, like fingers or teeth or whatever).

Only problem is you'll probably get some seams anyway, anywhere neighboring UV edges are aligned differently than the model's neighboring geometric edges. Anywhere on your model where the normal map seams show very different colors, you'll probably see a shading seam, unless your engine solves for mirrored maps. Or unless you're using object-space or world-space normal maps since the colors are continuous regardless of UVs. (but then you can't deform the surface, so character-mapping is out).

[Neox]

If you're stuck though, the alternative is fairly simple... never mirror. Give all surfaces of your model their own UV space

This is no real solution, especially if you have limited texture space.
There has to be a workaround, but i still didn't find, look at farcry they mirror the uvs alot and the normalmaps work pretty good.

damn should read the whole stuff... forget what i just wrote :shrug:

[CataFa]

I followed this thread and it has a lot of useful information that helped me with my first normal mapped model, thanks for sharing.
I have just completed the normal map and I was testing the rendering but I have noticed something strange.
Here is an image to show the error:

http://www.fiart.biz/temp/captainamerica/normalerror.jpg

the lower half of the boots is mirrored. It's visualized correctly in the viewport(top) but when I render it is different. Do you know what the cause is? I'm usin max7 to generate the map and render it,my computer doesn't allow me to do the preview in viewport, so that is the scanline render.Thanks in advance for the help.

[Dargon]

That's exactly the problem we're talking about just above. On the right, the model has properly calculated the tangent, and on the left, since it's mirrored, it's come out all wrong. If your game engine accounts for mirrored tangents, it might be fine, but likely in this case, it just won't work. Unfortunately, this means to either re-UV, or paint out that area with a neutral blue, so there's no normal info at all. It's a fairly minor detail, so it probably wouldn't look that bad without it. (once you put diffuse maps on, it tends to be a lot harder to see the normals)

[CataFa]

Thanks for the response Dargon. I thought that the issue was different because I have also mirrored the gloves of my characeter and there the map works fine.Fortunally I have mirrored only these two elements.

[TactMasterZero]

Can you do the "bump map to normal map" conversion with photoshop if you have an ATI graphics card?

I have an ATI FireGL 8800/8700 so I guess I can't use those Nvidia plug-ins, right?

Whatever shall I do?

[EricChadwick]

Works fine on my ATI card.

[CataFa]

I did it with an ATI too and it worked fine.

[EricChadwick]

I think it's Melody that actually requires an Nvidia card. Both the Nvidia Photoshop plugins (DDS and normal map) work fine on any old card.

[TactMasterZero]

Sweet.

So, I need to use the "ATI normal mapper" for generating those high-poly to low-poly maps, but I'll be able to use the Nvidia plug-ins with Photoshop to create the converted bump-maps.


Thanks for all the info, insight, and links provided in this thread!

[Miguelito]

I am not sure but I think I found a little workaround for mirroring problems in max (dunno if someone already found that out, sry if so):
So lets say u have ur finished model and u got mirrored parts. Then flip the normals of those mirrored faces and make the material 2 sided.
Now all should be rendered correctly (in MAX)

Maybe someone else could try that.

THX

Miguelito

[Lupus D'Scotia]

I think it's Melody that actually requires an Nvidia card. Both the Nvidia Photoshop plugins (DDS and normal map) work fine on any old card.

Melody actually works with ATI too (or some anyway). Been running fine with my Radeon 9800 pro :)

I just use melody to create the normal map and a coverter to switch the dds to a tga then go from there.

[Neox]

hey guys :)
we currently have the phantom omni device from sensable in house to test the workflow for creating normalmaps (it is fast as hell to work with that!)
however
we only rendered normalmaps in zBrush and Modely before and never did this in Max 7 itself, so having to do it in max we've got a big problem when rendering, working in direct X produces a maxscript error and sets the brightness of the material to white, but the rendering itself works

BUT

the render to texture renders a Wireframe over the Normalmap, which makes the normalmaps useless, so how do we turn off that wireframe rendering in the render to texture dialogue?

[EricChadwick]

I think I found a little workaround for mirroring problems in max Hey that's cool. I'll try it sometime, though I doubt it'll solve all seams... sound like maybe only the perfectly-horizontal mirroring. And then only for rendering, not for export. But cool idea nonetheless!

Melody actually works with ATI too Good news! Thanks for this.

how do we turn off that wireframe Does your UV have overlapping chunks? Move all overlaps off to the side exactly 1 unit on U or V, and the wires should go away. Thanks to Ben Mathis for the revelation...
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow.htm

[Neox]

ok we found out, that the wireframes came from the mirrored uv's we removed the mirrored half and the wire is away... now we've got a second problem, we've got 2 material ids, after we baked them, we got to maps, one is ok the other seems to have inverted normals. It looks almost as if max uses the 2d space of the final image to create the nromalmap and not the 3d direction of all the chunks in the uv space... hard to describe but it is obviously looking wrong and causing seams on every part where ID1 meets ID2

[EricChadwick]

Can you post an example image? Sounds maybe like the known issue of UV chunks getting different normals because they are in different orientations than the chunks of the model... a fact of life unfortunately, that must be solved by the game exporter. Or if Miguelito's trick works, you can solve it for rendering in Max (but not that way for game export).

[Miguelito]

Actually I found out that my little trick doesnt work 100%. The problem is that if you flip the normals of one side, the normals on the center seam try to orientate in an averaged direction. well and this causes issues. beside of that everything is rendered fine.
i am already playing around with edit normals and stuff but i dont think that i will find a solution.
The funny thing is that the issue doesnt appear completely down the seam! I dunno why!?!?!
Have a look!

Miguelito

[Dargon]

You know it might do the trick if you actually detached the two sides. If they had 2 verts in the middle, they'd find 2 seperate normals for them. This might cause a bit of a hard line though.

[Miguelito]

Well actually I want one piece cause that I want to rig and animate the character later. Shimmer gave me another tip: I'll try to make a multi/subMat (one for each side)and invert the X Value of one of the normal bump mat!

Miguelito

[Neox]

Can you post an example image? Sounds maybe like the known issue of UV chunks getting different normals because they are in different orientations than the chunks of the model... a fact of life unfortunately, that must be solved by the game exporter. Or if Miguelito's trick works, you can solve it for rendering in Max (but not that way for game export).

nope i can't post any example pixs, you know how NDAs work ;)
so how does an exporter solve that problem? i think this problem startes when generating the normalmaps without considering the uv directions and not with exporting the model.
Is there any chance to get more information about this problem?

[bcloward]

Neox,

My explaination for how the exporter solves mirroring is here: (in this thread several pages back)

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=129627&page=8&pp=15

It's the first post on that page. Hope it helps you understand things better. If not, I'll try to explain it in more detail.

Miguelito,

I think what Dargon meant is that you need to detach one side of the mesh and then reattach it, but don't weld the verts down the center. That way you'll have two verts along the center seam instead of one. The problem that you're having on that seam is that the normals on one side are facing out and the normals on the other side are facing in. Normal are interpolated - so the normals in the middle are having to turn themselves inside out in order to interpolate. That will cause all kinds of weirdness in a normal map. I'm really surprised that the weird part on your model is so small.

When you detach and then reattach, I think you'll get a seam down the middle, like Dargon said. At that point you can use the edit normals tool to tweek the normals to get rid of the seam. You'll need to tweek the normals so that they're facing in opposite directions instead of unified though.

[Neox]

yeah i understand what you mean in the case of mirroring, but we removed the mirrored half and baked only one half but ID1 was right and ID2 looked flipped, and that is a thing that i really don't understand

thanks for the help :)

[bcloward]

The ID thing sounds like a bug to me. I would probably work around it by detatching the ID2 polys and rendering the normal map for those in a seperate pass. Have you tried that already?

Also, please be sure and submit this as a bug report to Discreet with a simple sample max file that shows where it's happening and a good explaination of how to reproduce it. They're in beta right now on the next version of Max and they'll probably be able to fix it and get it working correctly in Max 8 if you send it in soon. They're already fix a normal mapping bug that I found, so I know that they're pretty good at that sort of thing.

[Dargon]

yeah i understand what you mean in the case of mirroring, but we removed the mirrored half and baked only one half but ID1 was right and ID2 looked flipped, and that is a thing that i really don't understand

thanks for the help :)

I have a couple of ideas

1. Click the render to texture only box, otherwise it works on creating a new shader for you, and plays with the object. With this checked, it should not do anything to the model at all, and not create a 2nd material channel.

2. Perhaps there's an issue with your shader, or with the shader applied to the objects that you are trying to generate the normals with - I.E. they're using a 2 sided shader. I would guess that Max would have issue with that, and probably deal by spitting out 2 normal maps?

[EricChadwick]

Neox, in addition to Ben's info, I found this paper very informative.
[/url]
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/gdc_tspacereal.html
GDC2002 -- Texture Space On Real Models
This presentation covers generating texture space and fixing real-world issues such as mirroring.

I second Ben's suggestion about submitting a bug. [url=http://www.discreet.com/support/max/faq/answer.php3?prod=dddstudio&id=1276]Here's where (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129627&perpage=15&pagenumber=4#post1262216). In my experience it really works to report these things. Big or small, people love feedback. Ben's a great example of this himself... he's great about coding up new shaders if people ask.

[Miguelito]

Eric, I read that paper and it solved the problems that I still had after flipping the normals of one side and making a 2 sided mat! Well I took the edges of the mirroring seam and duplicated them. This solved the rendering issues but I am to lazy to upload an image! BUT as everybody expected now we have the problem of a quite hard seam. On a chest it's not that bad but on a face......
Anyway as said before the rendering issues can also be solved by detaching/breaking the center verts (testing it right now).
I hope I can get rid of that seam by tweaking the normals with Edit Normals as mentioned by Ben but in Germany it is 2 : 14 am and I am getting tired :D.

Miguelito

[Dargon]

OK, I'm not even sure if this is possible AT ALL in max, but I know it could be done in Maya.

In the Hypershade, you want to take your shader tree that you've put together to show your normals, and expand it to view the whole thing. Duplicate this tree, and apply the duplicate to the side that is screwed up. (normals should all be facing the same way) Then, where the normal map bitmap connects to whichever node it's supposed to go to, disconnect this, and instead of a straight connection, you want to connect the G and B channels directly, but put an inverse node in the middle for your R channel. This should inverse the normal map, and make it work for that side.

[bcloward]

Heh - nope. Not possible "AT ALL." I wish max's material system was that flexible, but it's no where near that nice. I don't have a whole lot of experience with it though. Maybe somebody else on here knows more about it.

Even if you could do that in the material, it wouldn't solve the problem in the real-time display - which is the main problem in the first place. That type of thing would be really easy to do in an FX shader though. I'll give it a try tomorrow if I get some extra time.

Thanks for the compliments and free advertising, Eric. <sheepish> :)

[EricChadwick]

Hahah, Ben. Well it's true. You're obviously very helpful, it's appreciated.

Dargon's Red channel inversion tip is possible in Max. It just doesn't solve the problem, no matter what software you use. The middle seam might be fixed, but the other shading problems will not be solved.

It only fixes mirror-seams that run vertically through the UV space, and only for rendering. It won't work when exporting to a game. And all the other non-vertical UV seams will introduce incorrect lighting for one side or the other (or both!).

As I understand it, it really comes down to massaging the vertex normals to bring the lighting into tangent space. And that means not only flipping normals, but also rotating their S and T vectors. (and that's about as far as my knowledge goes so far!)

Anyhow if you want to try Dargon's trick in Max...

1. Create a Multi/Sub-Object material with two slots.
2. Assign 2 IDs to the halves of your model.
3. Set up your diffuse/specular/normal sub-material, and copy it into both slots.
4. Go to the normal map in the material in the 2nd slot, and in its Output rollout turn on Enable Color Map.
5. Turn off G and B so only R is active.
6. Select the 1st point and set its Y value to 1.0, then set the 2nd point's Y to 0.0.

[Dargon]

Hey, ya learn something new every day! Not exactly intuitive, but you can do it, so I'm proven wrong.

[bcloward]

I spent about 5 hours on Saturday working with Miguelito's trick and with Dargon's idea to try to come up with a combination of shader tricks, normal flipping, etc to solve this mirrored UV problem.

Unfortunatly, nothing I tried worked to completely solve the issue. It was a frustrating day.

[horseshoe]

A question, probably silly; but, is normal-mapping mandatory, even if the model is already nicely smooted with good-placed polys, and the main texture is simultaing or almost not needing any bumping?

And, what's about freezing (LW) the low-poly version to create a hipoly model from which to get the surfaces to be backed?

[EricChadwick]

Not exactly intuitive Yeah, some things in Max are not well designed. I'm eager to try out Maya's shader network, sounds like a good UI.

I spent about 5 hours on Saturday Well, the goofy thing is, even if you figured out a way to get it to work, you'd have to repeat that for every frame of animation if you have a deforming surface (character). As I understand it, the normals have to be retransformed each time the surface is rendered, because the vertex normals are moving around.

Here's a challenge for you Ben (cuz I know you love 'em, right?)... create a modifier that massages the tangent-space normals and binormals, overwriting the incoming vertex normals. Extra credit... a checkbox to update the normals per frame, or just once. Can't hurt to ask, right? :)

... is normal-mapping mandatory, even if the model is already nicely smooted with good-placed polys, and the main texture is simultaing or almost not needing any bumping? No. Depends on if the game engine supports normal mapping, and depends on if you want that kind of effect. IMHO without good lighting, it is better to burn the lighting into the color maps and use no bump, than it is to remove painted lighting altogether and rely on badly-lit bumpage for shading.

And, what's about freezing (LW) the low-poly version to create a hipoly model from which to get the surfaces to be backed? If you're going to bake normal maps, some people like to use the low-res model as the base for the high-res model. Merely smoothing it out though is not going to give good results. Many in the industry actually prefer modeling the high-res model first, then creating the low-res model to work with it. Some good insights in this thread...

Polycount: Normal Mapping: Which model do you build first ... a poll
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~polycount/ubb/Forum1/HTML/012107.html?00011

[horseshoe]

I see that the argument is extremely complex, and with many opinions (although in many things people agrees, besides tools, apps, &c). No tutorials (better if video) about a step-by-step visual example on this?

[EricChadwick]

No tutorials (better if video) about a step-by-step visual example on this? Sorry, about which topic? How to create the high-res model for normal mapping? How to bake the normal maps?

Some links to get you started...
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/resources/general/video_tutorials/video-tut-list.shtml (http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/resources/general/video_tutorials/video-tut-list.shtml)
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow.htm
http://www.secondreality.ch/

[horseshoe]

As for gaming characters (organic):

1) techniques and hints for lo-po modeling (specially about pivoting parts, such arms, fingers, legs-hip; the optimal methods to make 'em good avoiding lame bending when rigged)

2) how to create normal maps (some steps seem to need indeep details);

3) what, besides normal maps, are required for a decent characters, and in specifics (e.g., cell shading for cartoon-like), how are they done.

[EricChadwick]

RE: 1 ... Examine the tutorials in the second link I posted.

RE: 2 ... See third link. Most comprehensive tutorial I've seen to date, although it is Max-centric.

RE: 3 ... Lots of good threads on the Polycount board. Look around...
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=54059&an=0&page=0

[horseshoe]

Ok, downloaded (yesterday it didn't worked); I'm matching 'em.

Keep you posted

TY.


p.s.; http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tex_theory.htm

I read "3 LODs"; this means that I have to build 3 models of the same character (from scratch, I guess; I guess that poly-reducing 'em isn't the case), each with their own independent uv/textures?

Besides, these are covering MAX; I use LW............

[EricChadwick]

Cool. Though this is starting to stray off topic. I'd suggest posting a new thread if you'd like to ask about LODs. (also try a search first)

[horseshoe]

Ok for LOD

maenwhile, I wish to contribute a link for LW-specific normal mapping methods

http://www.simplylightwave.com/movie_pages/tutorial.mhtml?tut_id=517

[EricChadwick]

Good link. I'm wondering though about that middle screenshot. Looks like world-space instead of tangent-space... not good for boned characters (surfaces that have animated deformation).

Here's a Lightwave tool, not free.
http://www.evs3d.com/mw_lw_prodinfo.html

Another LW tutorial, but with free tools.
http://amber.rc.arizona.edu/lw/normalmaps.html

[horseshoe]

Good link. I'm wondering though about that middle screenshot. Looks like world-space instead of tangent-space... not good for boned characters (surfaces that have animated deformation).

I don't know, Eric.

Here's a Lightwave tool, not free.
http://www.evs3d.com/mw_lw_prodinfo.html

Wondering how to use these kind of apps, and generically any external software which presumes to enhance ingame stuff. For example, time ago I found a light "baker" app (Gile), but didn't figured out how it had worked; nor the forum was supportive to fulfil my answers.


While I'm here, in order to avoid yet another post apart: I know that there are many shaders/mappings (so far I know of HRDI and specular; don't know if the former is a shader, sorry for my ignorance), and I've tried to find some infos about shaders/mappings in the forum, but failed to find any, probably 'cause I don't know how many shaders can be used for games (infacts, I put as keywords "shaders" and "mapping", generically).

Going shorten (so I may finetune the research, even outside the forum), how many there are outta here? What is their purpose, and what are the generic guidelines/methods to implement 'em, independently from the engine which supports 'em (I guess that today almost all engines support them; or not?)?

Getting into specific: if I build a character which should have:

1) reflective and glowing parts on some areas of the body, and reflections on the hair
2) "realistic" skin (I mean, the translucent effect on the "natural" skin)
3) "realistic" eyes and lips

what shaders/mappings should I use, and how to?

[EricChadwick]

Wondering how to use these kind of apps... found a light "baker"... but didn't figured out how it had worked...MicroWave, Gile, Melody, all these texture-bake apps basically allow you to derive shading/lighting/bump/color/whatever information from one surface, so you can apply it to another surface.

Usually you want to bake from a high-resolution offline-renderable model to a low-resolution in-game-renderable model. Also people use these tools to bake lighting information, i.e. to bake a global illumination lighting solution.

Another use is to transfer textures from the existing UV layout to a new one, which is needed if you have a texture atlas and have to adjust the UV layout to make room for some new items (like added armor, gun holster, etc.)... so then you copy the model, adjust the UV layout, then use the app to transfer the textures from the old model's UVs to the new model's UVs.


While I'm here, in order to avoid yet another post apart:
Please make another thread for this. I hope I'm not repeating things you know already, but this thread is specifically about normal mapping, and people prefer to make keep threads on-topic. I will definitely respond to yours if you do make one, and others will too if you title the thread appropriately. Thread titles help people weed out the threads they're interested in, or can contribute info to, so please do make it specific. Something like "Which shaders/mappings are used for games?"

[horseshoe]

The thread is here http://cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=258998

(hope it is a fitting category).

[jarry3d]

Wow, Ben this is great. What a good resource!

[prsoyo]

wow!! very good!!! i wanna do that like you:wise: Welll...first of all, normal mapping does'nt mean that you have to create a highpoly model. You could create a bumpmap and convert it to a normal map.

There are three different coordinate systems that can be used for normal maps: World space, object space and tangent space. Tangent space is what you would like to use for anything that deforms. Object space works fine for non-deformable objects, such as vehicles. World space works only for static objects...
Wich of theese you should use, i dont know...that is up to the programmers of the game to decide. I'd guess that tangent space is the usual choice though...

I dunno about the workflow..i've only done one normal mapped model (a vehicle), and when i did it i decided to create the lowpoly model first and the detail and bevel it to create the highpoly model. If i where to do a character, i'd probably start with a highpoly model.

Modelling the highpoly model might be prett difficult too...you do not want overlapping geometry, since it may cause problems with the normal map generator. When modelling characters, i don't believe this is a big problem since organic models can easily be done without overlapping geometry, but if you're creating a vehicle, you may have to boolean/model all the details onto the main model. You'd also have to think about only creating details that are possible to be normal mapped...

You'll only have to uv-map the lopoly model. When you do, then avoid overlapping uv's since they will probably cause you a lot of trouble.

[Dargon]

One really good technique we use fairly heavily at Relic is building your high res based on your UV unwrap, not the model.

Being that tangent maps (the most common) will have the same RGB relationship no matter the method of creation, if your model is relatively simple, and not terribly organic it can help to do the following:



Model your low poly mesh
unwrap the UVs
Paint your diffuse texture
Apply the diffuse to a square plane
lay down objects onto the plane to generate the normals from
use the plane as the low res, and the objects as the high res to generate your normal map
Works extremely well for vehicles, pianos, even soldiers with armour. The only things I wouldn't use it for would be characters with a lot of organic features.

[lordmachuca]

ran into alittle problem today. I was normal mapping a character the same way I've been doing it for a while sucessfully, I got this window that poped up and said may not render correctly and it also said uvw map not present in object.

the object is the high poly model that I'm extracting the normal map from. So when I hit render, it renders nothing, I get a blank grey screen.

I tryed rendering with mental ray and it worked fine. I've never had to use it though in the past.

Maybe you guys could shed some insight, I'll trouble shoot it some more for now to see whats up. I'm using max's normal mapper.

[Dargon]

I would put a UVW modifier on the high res and planar map the whole thing just to have UVWs. You don't need them for generating normals, but it sounds like their loss is causing you trouble, so some quick ones should help.

[vand]

hmmm

normal mapping works great
my client asks for normal map after creating lores model and is already got approved any thought how do i go about

[bigbad]

This is for the Blender Users. It uses a script thats very easy to use. It has a GUI.
Link1:
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8595
Link2:
http://www.neuralfuzz.com/opengl/blender/normalmapping/Help/NMTUT_P3.html
Link3:
http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Tools:_Blender#ATI_.nmf_Interface

[Foxhounder]

Are there any programs/plug-ins/resources for creating/previewing offset bump/parallax normal maps???

[bcloward]

If you use 3ds Max 7 or 8, you can use my shader:

http://www.monitorstudios.com/bcloward/shaders_offset.html (http://www.monitorstudios.com/bcloward/shaders_offset.html)

Let me know if you need any help setting it up or getting it to work correctly.

[Rat~Queen]

Hey guys, I was just wondering if there is way to do normal mapping for maya 5? All the tuts I'm finding seem to be for Maya 6 and 7... I'm not sure where I could get a plug-in for it or if it's even availible? Also the Orb software that was mentioned earlier in the thread doesn't seem to be availible anymore? Any help I can get with this would be much appreciated, as I can't afford to purchase a new version of Maya and would like to use the one I have if it's possible.

[EricChadwick]

Rat~Queen, this might help?
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~polycount/ubb/Forum8/HTML/003782.html?00003

[HellBoy]

srry guys, its quite long thread, while I go through it, which page does it show the actual guide of making normal maps

also how can I apply a normal map in max?

srry if its been asked b4

[~mike~]

hi there i am new in gaming i work more in films and series just getting into gaming

Can anyone tell me if vertex paint works with normal map???

and xbox supports normal map and vertex paint ??

Thanks

[powerACE]

nice topic here, im also new to the normal mapping which is going to be frequently used in new game technolgy such as Xbox 360 and PS3 and still in the process of experimenting hope you guys help us improve in our upcomming work, thanks :thumbsup:

[bcloward]

Hellboy, here's a tutorial on using HLSL shaders in the Max viewport:

http://www.monitorstudios.com/bcloward/tutorials_shaders1.html

This tutorial will show you one of the methods of viewing normal maps applied to your model in Max's real-time viewport.

~mike~,

It is possible to use a normal map and vertex colors together - but you'll have to have an HLSL shader that has inputs for both. Xbox supports both normal mapping and vertex colors, but again you'll need a shader in your xbox game engine that uses both.

Even though it is possible to use both together, it doesn't make much sense to me to do lighting like that. A normal map is for per-pixel lighting and vertex paint is to paint on lighting at the vertex level. It's technically possible to use both together but I can't think of why you would want to.

[powerACE]

Hello masters of normal mapping i just want to ask i have some problem with using a displacement map at Maya 7, i was trying to experiment the use of 4 bake maps in the surface sampler i only used 3 of them, the color, normal and light map, but there is another map which is the displacement map, i have tried to bake it and put put in in the displacement material of the shader but it gives an ugly result i don't understand why and how to use the displacement map properly, i would appreciate it if you could answer this, thanks :)

see result:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/ACE3d2000/3d_tutorial/displacement_result.jpg

WIP post:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=300670

[shoujoboy]

I just got orb and I was wondering how would a person go about using it ??? I looked at the instructions but they are kinda complicated to me.............

[cly]

Has anyone experience with normal mapped buildings that use tiled textures?
How do you modell the high poly version if you want use tiled textures?


sorry 4 bad english!

[Bpanting]

I am not 100% sure, but I think you would use a second UV set. The first for your tiled color map and another for the normal map. I have not tried it yet, but that would be my guess.

[EricChadwick]

Best bet is to tile all your layers the same way: color, specular, normal, emissive, etc.

Some good tips over on polycount (http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=91531&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1&nt=2), from some experienced artists working at Epic Games.

[NeOmega]

For Blender users, I have posted a "how to" create a tangent space normal map using a script called BRayBaker

http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=541599#541599

This script works better IMHO then MeLODy, (which left lots of seams in my few frustrating attempts at using it), and better than ORB, which also left seams. BRayBaker was designed and tweaked many times by its author until seams were virtually eliminated. It is a very powerful script.

Unfortunately, it only seems to be working on version 2.37a at the moment.

EDIT: currently working fine with 2.41

[karmakat]

anyone have an older version of MELODY with LOD generation?

thanks guys
-aleks

[EricChadwick]

I have a really old one, but have you tried contacting NVIDIA directly? They've been very helpful to me in the past.
SDKFeedback@nvidia.com

[GradiusCancer]

Cleaned up my tutorials page (http://chrisholden.net/tutor/tutors.htm) which has a few normal mapping tutors.

and added a 3 page tutorial on creating a normal mapped environment in maya

[/url][url="http://chrisholden.net/tutor/util01.htm"]http://chrisholden.net/tutor/util_how_render1t.jpg (http://chrisholden.net/tutor/util01.htm)

It's a pretty hefty addition.

[tims3d]

I'm just curious, any maya users that actually successfuly creatednormal map using zmapper? I'm having major problem with seams and weird shadings with the normal map that zmapper creates when I tried to view them inside maya :(

[EricChadwick]

GradiusCancer/Chris,
Nice tutorials. Modular Design is spot-on.

The rock normalmap tut (http://chrisholden.net/tutor/rocknorm.htm) bugs me a little though. I hope you don't mind, here's a simpler approach (http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/images/normalmap_rock.jpg) to the same idea, but I think it gives cleaner results. From what I've seen, using the find-edges filter (as well as just about every other filter) will cause me to see artifacts in the bump detail. Height maps have been very finicky, any artifacts really get pronounced once I convert it into a normal map.

I've also seen that manually combining R+G+B without re-normalizing can cause some really ugly shimmering with in-game specular. Thankfully it's easy to renormalize with NVIDIA's plugin (http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html).

FWIW, here's some old-but-good tips about combining geometry and painted normal maps.
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=20029&an=0&page=6

[tin-tin]

If you guys are having problems combining normalmap and painted height map together but don't like the result nvidia plugin gives you. My suggestion would be to use a app called orb. You don't have to use it to bake your normalmap though.

its easy, get orb here http://engineering.soclab.bth.se/tools/177.aspx.

put your geometry normalmap and heightmap in .tga format into orb/exports folder

then open notepad editor and enter these fields

addnormals C:\orb\exports\skull_local.tga C:\orb\exports\skull_h.tga 15

then save as .cfg format with a name like height.cfg, place in the orb folder

run orb and type exec height.cfg. thats it.

Note. replace skull_local.tga with the name of the map you want to use. number 15 indicates the strenghth of the heightmap, it can be anywhere between 1-20.

I've tried other methods, this the best, it dosen't make your normalmap lose it sharpness.

hope this helps.

[tin-tin]

Just one more thing, how can I use glowmaps in 3ds max.

[EricChadwick]

Are you talking about emissive? Self-Illumination is the Max term for it, though Max just uses the brightness of the bitmap, not the color (controlled with the Diffuse Color map channel).

[jogshy]

Just finished the new version of my normal mapper tool:

xNormal is a .NET v2.0 application that creates normal/ambient occlusion maps from a very high polygon model and fits it into a low polygon model. Supports tons of mesh formats ( including COLLADA 1.4 ) as well as multiple output image formats. Includes a complete 57 pages PDF help document too.

It comes with an OpenGL interactive viewer ( and some examples ) to see the final result.

Is completely free.

More information at
http://www.santyesprogramadorynografista.net
http://santyhammer.blogspot.com


Hope you like it.

[Rawnoise]

I don't want to be a troll, but this might interest you.

There is a new shader technique called Relief mapping, or paralax occlussion without offset limiting. This shader requires SM 2.something. The concept behind it is to use a normal map in conjunction with a height map, stored in the alpha channel of the map, to create a (quote)"realistic"(unquote) displacement effect in realtime apps like games.

I put a programmer friend of mine to create one for a commercial title we are working on, and it give splendit results. See images of the shader applied on a quad in 3Ds MAX 8 , using the DirectX shader.

The thing with realtime shaders is their compatibility. This FX shader, sadly not included (NDA), can be used (almost) AS IS, in any FX compatible host app, like MAX, XSI or a game engine that supports this format, and all the input it requires is a diffuse and normal texture, the later with the heightmap stored in Alpha, and anything else you want to implement in it, eg a specular or light ( or Ambient Occlusion) map.
Of course it comes at a cost, as it pushes the graphics card hard, especially in a game level in which you want to use it several times with dynamic lighting.

You can see a demonstration in Nvidia's FX composer, you can download it from the NV site.

Anyways "Da Trol"l abides...:buttrock:

[HellBoy]

Hay guys, I never really worked with normal map but I got that nvidia export thing on photoshop where your bump map is exported as DSS I think of the normal map

I think I somehow managed to bring it to Max with the help of the good tutorial found with google but inside max, I can't see any any changes

whats up

EDIT: Just saw your reply bcloward, I'll try this now

[m3dhunk]

Hi Guys,

Cud anybody post a screenshot of the normalmap shader connection of MAYA. I have been trying to display the output in the viewpanel, but somtimes the mesh itself disappers when i enable hardware shading.

[JustChris]

Hello, I'm new to normal mapping and I'm trying to start off with something simple (like with the calculator in the other topic). Well, I followed a tutorial step-for-step and the results have been pretty....wonky, for the lack of a better term. I'm not on my computer so I can't show you pics of the problems I'm having but I can say that I followed this tutorial here. (http://www.jeffparrott.com/normalmaptut_01.html) Any help would be appreciated.

[jbrophy]

Rawnoise (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=144537)

I sure would love to get my hands on that .fx shader. :) :)

Would love to try in on the character I am creating now......


http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=378292

hint hint nudge nudge

[HellBoy]

Hay guys

I would really appreciate if you guys guided me

But where and how do you make a fx file for max, I googled but it was too complex. I only have few crappy ones and non have a slot for the spectacular, light map and so on. The only thing I see is fx for normal map and dx5 thingy.

Is there a place to get a shader drom?

anyone help me :blush:

[ChimpanG]

rawnoise that is an amazing shader :|
i have played with a reflief mapping shader but it didnt have all those options it was simply a normal map and specular slidebar.

[Rawnoise]

What you have to understand, is that the FX format is just a render framework, for realtime game engines. It is not a material in the widely known aspect. You need to be part programmer to be able to write one, although you need basic knowledge of it to just manipulate a ready made shader.

You can find many FX shaders in the net, but most are not "Max-ready".
You need to define in the shader the UI ellements that are recognisable by MAX, in order to be able to load textures and adjust any variables.

For example if you have and image sampler routine in your fx shader
it should look like this:

sampler diffusetex = sampler_state
{
Texture = (diffuseTexture);
MinFilter = LINEAR;
MagFilter = LINEAR;
MipFilter = LINEAR;

};

You need to add this right before the above block:

texture diffuseTexture <
string UIName = "Diffuse Texture";
int Texcoord = 0;
int MapChannel = 1;
>;

This sets the ui ellement for the DiffTex loader, the Dx texcoord, and the coresponding UV channel in Max.

I know this might seem a bit greek to you (BTW I'm greek!!!), but if you check some of the fx shaders that come with max and compare them with those of , for example, FX Composser, you 'll see the differences. Also i suggest researching the online documentation for the FX framework and the HLSL language.

[twistkill]

i was working on this handgun, a normal mapped glock..i seem to run into some wierd errors!..I cannot pin-point the glitch!

this is the unwrapped UVW map
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4015/unwrapped1024oh7.jpg

i used the "render to texture" in 3ds max 8 sp3 ..
and this is the normal map i get...horrrrrible!!..i am not worried abt the red areas as its easy to fix by modifying the cage in projection modifier..but what could have caused the rest of this?
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/1138/handlelr01normalsmapar6.jpg

in "render to texture" i've
-enabled projection maping
-turn off Sub-object levels
-in "Mapping Coordinates" for Objects select "Use existing Channel"
in Output
-clicked "Add" and selected "Normalsmap"
-in "Target Map Slot" selected "Bump"
-in "Selected Element Unique Settings" checked output to Normal Bump
in Baked Material
-selected "output into source"

just incase if it helps!

[arrangemonk]

aranngemonks rules for 3dsmax normalmapping
(i dont know if it helps but it works wonderful here)
pick lowpol model goto render to texture/projection and pick the highpoly, blabla
settings:
cage off, raytrace on ,match to closest, offset or something to 5, targent on, and ray miss check off

use normalmap output and first use 256x256 to see if it looks likew good...

btw... often there are problems with the axes on collapsed objects,
to fic that make 2 cubes attach the lowpol ot the one cube and dthe highpoly to the second and delete de cube polys after, then the normalmap should get well
(ps: use anoter maxfile to do this, you could get unusable meshes and then your map isnt woth anything)

[andrei313]

It also helps to use Reset XForm :)
Also, I always let Sub-Object Levels checked, and for the channel make sure it is one the same value as the uv's... usually 1 :)

[smurfbizkit2]

I'm having some trouble with applying normal maps and viewing them in 3dsmax 8, I've tried both the following technique...

http://www.bencloward.com/tutorials_shaders1.shtml
http://www.cgchat.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20424

...as well as the one (with the plugin) where you apply the normal through a menu under the bump material box.

All I seem to get afterwards is either just the diffuse map, or the model showing up as pure white. Any clues to whats wrong? Or some different material applying techniques?

[twistkill]

thanx arrangemonk and andrei
i will give those suggestions a shot..and will pst the updates..

did u guys notice that the normal map created has fused the gaps between the seperated UVs..so does that mean that i have left too less space between the different UVs..normal maps tend to xpand a bit more than the original UVW maps...so i hope they are not too close

btw i did apply the reset xform modifier!

anyways..thanx

[Neox]

well you could try to use a different tool to create the normalmaps, i never really got used to the max internal one, try to get your hands on the 1.33 mod sdk of farcry they provide a fast and easy to handle normalmap generator with great looking normalmaps generated in there...

[andrei313]

thanx arrangemonk and andrei
i will give those suggestions a shot..and will pst the updates..

did u guys notice that the normal map created has fused the gaps between the seperated UVs..so does that mean that i have left too less space between the different UVs..normal maps tend to xpand a bit more than the original UVW maps...so i hope they are not too close

btw i did apply the reset xform modifier!

anyways..thanx

Normal maps expend with the value that you enter for the Padding... it-s on the top of the Render to Texture window. But if the normal maps overlap you will have problems only in that area... not the entire normal map.
Do the following things:
- apply an unwrap modifier
- go to the Mapping manu and select Flatten Mapping
- generate the normal map with these UV's
If it looks like a "normal" normal map :) then something happend to the UV's and you need to unwrap again. When you unwrap, whatever you do try not to use the functions from the Mapping menu, especialy Unfold Mapping, because many timps it rearanges the order of the verteces and you gat a lot of face that are welded to fliped faces... It's a mess... Try to use just planar/cylindrical/box from the Map Parameters in the Unwrap UVW modifier.
And another important thing... always Reset the cage.
Maybe you know all of this... I just wanted to make sure :D

[Rawnoise]

I think u may have mirrored UV's. In most cases the renderer gets funny about which pixel to bake first, so if you indeed have mirrored UV's throw in one more unwrap modifier in which you will temporarily remove the on half of your uv's, do a bake and when you have the map delete the temp Unwrap modifier.
I hope this is of use.

[abyjoe]

he is right. you have symmetry on and then you are trying to render the map. turn symmetry off and then render the map and be happy

[twistkill]

awseom.e thanks guy..finally it worked..i had used the flatten mapping once to test the normal maps..ans it had reset the UVs to sumthing else..
i did the unwrapping again..and it worked fine!!
awsome..i wudnt have even guessed that one of the autmated mapping techniques wud screw this up!!

btw..the amount of shadows..or light/color information on th normal maps depends on the view in the viewport whn i create the normal map!...
is that normal?..or is there a setting to tune for that too??
in that case what would be the best view to create a normal maP?..
i presume a sideview?

[andrei313]

The view doesn't matter. What you see in the window that renders when you hit render has nothing to do with the normal map. That will help you with spoting areas where the cage intersects with the model.
The normal map that is created is not influenced by the light in the scene or by the view you are rendering from. It just takes the info from the highpoly and generates the normal map. :)

EDIT: I wrote a tutorial about normal mapping, if you have the time check it out. You can find it at http://www.game-artist.net/forums/index.php , it is one of the Spotlight articles. It will answer some of your questions :D

[Rawnoise]

That's right, the view doesn't matter at all. What matters though is that you choose the correct normal format, eg tangent space normal map. If you chose local or world space normals you'll get some funny behaviour as the normal map corresponds in global normal vectors, and if you animate your object it will not light up the way you want it.
My advice, allways use tangent normals.

[psychojohno]

After reading the whole thread i havnt found the answer im looking for. The question has been asked once but nobody replied so im going to ask it again. How do i get my normal map to display in maya aswell as tile? I know there are plugins and shaders but where are they and how do i use them?

[smurfbizkit2]

I decided to try applying normal maps again, but ran into the same issue I had before. As soon as I hit the "dx display..." box, and then the pink show viewport box the model in the viewport goes pure white like this.

http://www.derelictstudios.net/users/smurf/temp/normal_help.jpg

I have dx9 checked in the viewport box, and seem to have followed all the standard "applying normal map" rules (eg check the bump box, turn from 30 to 100...then use normal bump, etc.)...yet it isn't showing up. Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong? Since it shows up in the material editor, it really seems to be a viewport issue...

Hopefully its just something tiny that I overlooked. :P

[Gamedev]

I would say you have a skylight somewhere in your scene - delete it.

[smurfbizkit2]

I knew it was something stupid like that! Thanks a lot, I've seriously spent ages messing around with this. :/

[Gamedev]

glad to help :).

[DaveKW]

I suppose this is the best place to ask this. I'm looking for a website that did a tutorial on adding extra details to normal maps with photoshop and the Nvidia plugin. The only bits I remember are using Photoshop to add detail that is smaller than 1/8 of an inch instead of modelling it, adding stitching to trainers and using layer blending to make the stitching follow the main normal map. I haven't got a clue who did it or which site it was on. I've tried searching for it but looking for normal map tutorials brings up hundreds of results! Does it ring any bells?

[bcloward]

Here's a tutorial that shows one method of combining normal maps:

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow_3.htm

It's toward the bottom of that page.

[DaveKW]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This was the one I was looking for! Much appreciated! :bounce:

[UB2006]

I decided to try applying normal maps again, but ran into the same issue I had before. As soon as I hit the "dx display..." box, and then the pink show viewport box the model in the viewport goes pure white like this.



I have dx9 checked in the viewport box, and seem to have followed all the standard "applying normal map" rules (eg check the bump box, turn from 30 to 100...then use normal bump, etc.)...yet it isn't showing up. Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong? Since it shows up in the material editor, it really seems to be a viewport issue...

Hopefully its just something tiny that I overlooked. :P

Hi,

Are you sure your graphics hardware is capable of displaying Shader Model 3 shaders? If it is not the result will be as per your screenshot.

UB

[Yinn]

I have a question about some odd normalmapping results... I thought I had normal mapping under control, but there's always new weird problems. Anyway:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Yin22/hands_problem.jpg

Surely it should look more like the other hand?
The hand with the weird result is mirrored geometry, which might be why this problem occurs. I've tried flipping the uv's in all combinations with no improvement.
When using this normal map, it almost works. The only problem is that if you put a light behind the hand, it lits the other side. o_O

Any suggestions would be appreciated. :]

[Neox]

Well if you're using max you have to use either the symmetry tool, or if you use the mirrortool you need to reset the XForm of the mirrored copy and flip the normals.
But looking at this normalmap, i don't know why you need to use different normalmaps for the same amount of detail? the highres is mirrored too, that's what it looks like, so i'd just use the same normalmaps for the second hand.

[sk3d]

Hi all, read thru the whole thread and had a few vital questions answered. Thanks.

I Still have an issue though: I am exporting my lowpolly from MAx into Zbrush using the Max export selected funtion. It is saved as a .obj to preserve the uvws I have set up earlier.

The problem is that if the model comes into ZBrush as quads the uv's are messed up (Missing faces etc). If I import the model triangulated there doesnt seem to be any problem with the uv's, but ZBrush works far better with quad models and a triangulated one is a nghtmare.

Any way to fix this, i dont want to work on a tried lowpoly in ZB but I need to preserve my Max uv's.

Also, for a character do i have to create the normal map as tangent space in zbrush or can i just create one with no settings checked and set it up as tangent space in Max (This is what I am currently doing)

Thanks alot, looking forward to ANY help.

S.K

[mmhnemo]

@sk3d

ZB is veeeery picky about overlapping uvs and non-quad polygons.
Double and Triple Check you don't have overlaps, doubled geometry or n-gons in your problem areas.

I believe this should fix your problem.

[sk3d]

Thanks mmhnemo, Been pretty carefull so far....

will check this evening and report findings.

Cheers!:thumbsup:

SK

[sk3d]

Ok, had a major ZB sesion and worked out alot of the problems, but one persists: When I generate my Normal map in tangent space in ZB alot of strange artifacts are included. They seem to be the normal map generating information for every quad on the mesh and no smoothing is apparent.

The strange thing is that when I generate a normal map that isnt in tangent space it is smooth and perfect.

Does it have to do with having smoothing off on my mesh in ZB or something like that, anybody else come across this?

See attached image for what I mean.

Thnx all!

SK

[tin-tin]

sk3d, get the zmapper plugin should solve your problem :)

[sk3d]

Where can I get it from, ZBcentral?

Thanks anyhow tin-tin!

SK

[Squirmy]

http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=031281

[sk3d]

Got the plugin and it works great now, no probs.

Cheers and thanks for the help!

Respect.

SK

[JustChris]

Where can I find the normal mapping tut that uses ClosestPointonMesh with a human head for an example? I can't seem to remember where it is now. Thanks in advance.

[misterboogie]

Does anyone know where I can get the version of the Michael Bunnell ATI normal mapper that takes obj instead of nmf? I've been to http://www.seanomlor.com/mikeb/ where it's usually hosted but it's been hacked by some radical religious hackers.

Maybe its hosted somewhere else? I'm so sick of using Maya 5 to export the nmfs. I'm on version 7 now and getting ready to migrate to 8.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[EricChadwick]

xNormal is much better than ATI's ancient tool, might be worth a look...
http://santy.xnormal.net/

[bcloward]

I second Eric's endorsement of xNormal. It's a great tool, it's free (for now) and the developer is actively seeking community feedback and releasing new versions very frequently - based on what people are asking for.

[misterboogie]

Thanks guys for the quick reply. I've already downloaded Xnormal. I plan on using it on my next project instead of ATI's normal mapper, but because I started my current project with the ATI one I guess I'll just stick with it until I'm done. Thanks again.:)

[SebLev]

Well I was just wondering, I've read alot of these threads about Normal mapping and theirs alot of help but alot of them you need a PC computer becaus you need programs that run on a windows and I was just wondering If theirs a way to do it on a apple computer... or programs that do the same thing but on a mac

[EricChadwick]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=normal+map+mac&btnG=Google+Search

[SebLev]

Thanks haha I never thought of adding mac lol.... I kept reading threw lots of forums instead to see what others use and It all had to do with people having windows... thanks again

[DaveKW]

Can anyone tell me why this keeps happening?...
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/723/normalmaperrorrr8.gif

Ridges keep appearing where it should be a smooth curve. Any help would be great :)

[urgaffel]

Depends on how you've mapped it and smoothing groups I think. Can you show the uvs and the cage if you're doing it in max?

[Zerafian]

I have always noticed, depending on the program you are using, normal map projections dont like hard edges. If you try beveling your low res then generating the normal map, that may work. Then you just put your geometry back to the hard edge. That method has worked for me in the past.

[Matt]

That's just adding more polys than necessary, and superfluous.

Snakeye, try making the entire area one smoothing group. Also, how small is that raised area in game? It looks like a small detail.

A good rule of thumb should be if it's smaller than one foot on screen, it should not need those extra polys. You should just use the normal map, and include those polys elsewhere where they'll be put to better use.

In fact, if that area is small the whole thing we see should be six triangles.

[JesseMoody]

Make them all on the same smoothing group. It will get rid of that hard edge that is showing through your normal mapped low res geometry.

9 times out of 10 that will fix it.

[DaveKW]

It's definately a smooth group problem from what I've tried following all of your advice, but when I put the model on 1 smooth group the normal map ends up like this (ignore the red bits for now plz)...

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6210/normalmaperror2tl2.gif

It's definately getting there, but you can see there's a few errors around the mid section. Would this be anything to do with topology? Would creating a slightly higher poly model for generating the normal map, then using that map on an even lower poly model be sufficient?

Here's a screen shot of the low poly model...

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/6950/lowpolymodeluy1.gif

Btw, I'm using 3D Max, not Maya. I just changed some of the UI colours.

[Xaint]

Hello There!

My friend is working on a weapon model, and after he generates the normal map in XSI, he gets the same results as in the bove picture by Snakeye. There's some artifacts and flat surfaces are gradient shaded on the normal map. He started to tesselate the low poly weapon, by modifying the geomety to grid-like and beveling most edges. It helps to make a more accurate normal map. He plans to delete the extra detail after the normal map is made, and put back the normals on a lower poly weapon.

The only problem is, that this process is quite tedious. Basically You have to build a mid-poly weapon as well. Do you guys know of any better solution?

Thanx in advance!

[yakul]

So how do you use normal maps on deformable meshs?
If I create a TBN data on the vertices of the 3D model. Will this data be usable for the model if it is deformed by bones? If not, how can you achieve normal mapping of a deformed mesh?

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