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View Full Version : Rendering : Normal Map Shader in Scanline?

fez
05-29-2003, 04:50 PM
I use Lightwave but I have just been partnered with a Max artist to render recreations of a couple historical sites. Basically a bunch of moving matte paintings to liven up a documentary. To save rendering time I have been making normal maps in Lightwave. Works great and best of all the normal shader for Lightwave was free!

OK, here's the problem. There is a plugin to create Normal Maps in Max, but is there a shader to render them...preferably free? I thought we might be able to get away with plugging the maps into the bump channel...boy was I wrong. Way too much noise. Thanks!
Steve Green
05-29-2003, 04:53 PM
www.mankua.com is open beta testing Kaldera which is a normal map baker. It has a normal map which sits in the bump map slot in the mat ed.

I'm not sure if the normal map is time-bombed though.

- Steve
fez
05-29-2003, 06:05 PM
Checked out Mankua. "Normal Map still has a bug with MultiCPU systems" Any other Non-Beta options?
Steve Green
05-29-2003, 06:38 PM
Not that I know of, I'm helping them out with the bug at the moment, though.

- Steve
fez
05-29-2003, 06:56 PM
OK, thank you Steve.
EricChadwick
05-29-2003, 08:40 PM
A down and dirty approach, if you're using tangent-space, could be to strip out the blue channel and use it as a bump map.

Not as accurate, certainly. But might work OK in your situation.
Steve Green
06-06-2003, 08:35 PM
Just an update for Fez.

I've been helping Diego out testing debug builds, and it seems the bug is fixed (it doesn't hang on dual-cpu machines any more)

Hopefully a new build that runs OK on a dual processor machine should be up soon.

- Steve
fez
06-06-2003, 11:35 PM
Thanks for the update Steve.
Steve Green
06-10-2003, 09:23 PM
Fez,

there's a new build up on the Mankua site now.

- Steve
EricChadwick
06-10-2003, 09:26 PM
Looks like the beta will be over sometime soon...
zandernice
06-14-2003, 05:13 AM
Just what is nomal mapping?
Steve Green
06-14-2003, 08:38 AM
Hi

You create a hi-res model, then a normal map is derived from that and used on a low-res model.

Internally the model looks very close to the original model, it's only at the edges that it is more obvious that it is lower poly.

http://www.crytek.com/screenshots/index.php?sx=polybump&px=PBPreviewer10.jpg

It's mainly for realtime games, but it could be used on rendered images to cut down the amount of geometry needed. A crowd scene is a good example.

- Steve
Steve Green
07-06-2003, 10:06 AM
If anyone's interested, Kaldera is available to buy now - $295 until 4th August when it goes up to $395.

https://www.mankua.com/kaldera.cfm

- Steve
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