Maya - Zbrush - Normal maps

[JohNLA]

Go to the subivision level you will be using for your character(Usually lowest). Then go to the Tool menu and choose Normal Map. Set your resolution and hit the Create map button. The Normal map is now sitting in you Texture menu, ready for export.

For more info, I can attest to the Gnoman DVD "Z Brush Production Pipeline" as being the the best learning tool especially if you have a grasp of ZBrush already but need all the technical stuff about setting up shaders in Maya and such. Also, the Gnoman Head sculpting DVD is very good for people new to ZBrush and before anyone asks, I'm not selling them.

[payeh]

what's the diffrence between displacement map and Normal map?someone help me ?

[JuddWack]

I'm not sure how it is for import into BF2 but Zbrush generates its maps upside down. You may have to flip it vertically.

[rBrady]

Payeh,

There three types of maps in this family. Bump, Displace, and Normal Maps. Displacement maps are the best since they actually create geometry from the map. This means that the bumps actually stick out, cast good shadows, reflect, refract, etc. This is really slow in comparison though. Bump maps are cool because they fake the shadows, reflections, refractions, etc. But it doesn't stick out and the quality is not as good. Its interpolative, so that means that it doesn't matter what the value of a pixel is, only what the difference is between it and its neighbors. Normal maps skip the interpolation. Instead of storing height data like a bump or displace, it stores x, y, z, vectors in the RGB channels of the map. This means that an 8bit normal map has three times the data as an 8bit bump. (displacement maps are usually grayscale 16bit) It takes more data but less processing power at render time since the processing is already done. The quality is also much better.

So in summery,
Bump maps = quick and dirty, small files, easy to make, fast compared to displacement maps.

Normal maps = hard to make since they have to be preprocessed, three times the file size compared to bump. Better quality than bump and much faster at render time (good for games).

displacement = best quality, creates real geometry, horribly slow compared to other two.

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