Normal mapping flesh and machines/hard items

[broli4000]

I dont use max, so I could be wrong. But it looks as thought you make one high poly and one low. You take some program in max and make a normal map in Max. Then put it on your low poly version.

Again I dont use max, but I do use lightwavem which is completely different. So yeah thats all I have gathered at this point.

Matt

[Hawksmoor]

Aye... you'd normally use a high poly mesh to bake the information onto a low poly one... my question was more 'how to artists combine baking from a sculpture package such as zbrush with high poly modelled detail they'd made in their core 3d package like max, lightwave, etc'

[PeterZbinden]

well usualy, i start in max, do organic and technical stuff there.
then export the organic parts to zbrush/mudbox and add all the details i want to have in.
now from zbrush/mudbox i export a lower poly version and a higher poly version of the organic parts.
now, in max i import the lower one to the technical stuff of the model and start to build the reltime model around them.

in the end when i finished the lowpoly model i delet the lowerpoly version of the organic stuff and import the higher poly version to render the normalmap. its important to use a supersampler to make the edges on the technical model look good and all the details come out as they're suposed to be.

[harmless]

do your metal parts as height map converted to normal map in photoshop
do your high res to low res normal map in package of your choice

combine the two normal maps in photoshop, flatten to a single layer, save

[BadSpleen]

I've been doin a uni project using this technique alot so I have it down and freshly in my mind. It may go on but I hope it helps.

First model your low poly (or as I do a medium poly) then import to ZBrush as an obj file. Then do your work in ZBrush to make a high poly model, then export both the low res, and highest res version as obj files back into max.

Import them both together (maybe display as box for high poly model) and they should both have the same co ordinates and match up nicely.

What ZBrush has a habit of doing, or maybe a dodgy export, is seperating the models into pieces and leaving boundaries. This can be nasty so here's what to do. Select all the boundaries (first convert the mesh to poly) then whilst holding Ctrl, click the vertex button in the scroll down menu for the object properties. You MUST do it this way in order to convert your selection of boundaries into vertices. No other way of selecting them works... believe me... I forgot how to do it and struggled until I remembered ! Then do a weld of all these vertices with a threshold of 0.01 and you should have th mesh fixed.

Then select the low poly, and go into Rendering > Render to texture ( or '0' )

Scroll down to 'Projection Mapping' and turn it on. Then 'Pick' the high res model. Once you have done this it will drop a "projection modifier" onto the low res model. Select this and scroll down to cage. The cage that is automatic is pretty dodgy almost every time, so reset the cage so that it matches the low poly version. Then you can increase the amount so that it is further away from the model. Do this until it is capturing all of the high res model within its normal mapping grasps !

Then go down to 'Output' and 'add' a normal map. You can play with the resolutions that it outputs. Hit Render ! The rendering window will show a B+W map, however when you open the outputted (real word ?) file it is a normal map that you can apply to the low poly model.

A more full and illustrated version can be found here :-

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


Chilli

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