mdme_sadie..We Needes that Normal mapping plugin

[LucentDreams]

be patient its part of a plugin pack, and trust me the first thing that will happen when its released is a whole bunch of users are going to complain that it doesn't work. My suggestions is read up as much as possible on normal mapping so that when it comes out you know what to do with it.

[JoelOtron]

Hey Kai

If you lknow of any links explaining the process, that would be awesome. I'd love to learn more on this subject.

[LucentDreams]

http://home.pacific.net.au/~phourmouzis/research.htm

http://www.drone.org/
http://www.drone.org/tutorials/rayDisplace_userGallery.html
http://www.drone.org/tutorials/rayDisplace_renderman.html

that should give you a fair bit, there are also some discussions on the Digital Sculpting forum containing lots of links.

[JoelOtron]

Thanks Kai

[LucentDreams]

What can I say I"m in a siggraph mood

http://www.opengl.org/developers/code/sig99/shading99/course_slides/ShadingComputations/img072.JPG

http://www.opengl.org/developers/code/sig99/shading99/course_slides/ShadingComputations/img073.JPG

http://www.soclab.bth.se/practices/orb/head4_03side.jpg

[LucentDreams]

http://be3d.republika.pl/howto_d3_normalmap.html

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~watsonb/school/teaching/395/Archive/2001/Presentations/bump.mapping_files/frame.htm

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/bumpmappingwithregistercombiners.html

[dmthurman]

Ok Ok Ok I'll be patient, although I'm not good at it...:D here's a link to the spiraloid thread that got me interested in this topic..

http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid/viewtopic.php?TopicID=9

[Shademaster]

This per pixel displacement mapping is all really cool and stuff, but is there any chance Cinema 4d will support it? Right now the displacement mapping looks sort of ugly and in is many cases unusable for what it was meant for. Just have to wait for SIGGRAPH then....:shrug:

[kiwi]

Thats quite fascinating :) ...thanks for the links :thumbsup:



Stu.

[flingster]

we can already do normal maps in c4d
http://members.shaw.ca/jimht03/normal.html

what will mdme_sadie plugin do exactly?
:shrug:

[rirad]

Just for clarity. Cinema can only generate normal maps but not use them right?
And if cinema is going to use them, probably the render engine needs to be updated (I mean, writing a plugin for cinema so it can handle normal maps is not possible), right?

[flingster]

thats my assumption.
:shrug:

[AdamT]

Wrong. Cinema can use normal maps and PA's plugin is already working with them.

[flingster]

my assumption was misplaced it seems......:rolleyes:

[rirad]

"Wrong. Cinema can use normal maps and PA's plugin is already working with them."

Now I am curious. Is there native support for normal maps in Cinema (if so, how?), or only with PA's plugin?
This is good news anyway. I hope we hear more soon.

[JoelOtron]

I had to do an animation using a higher end poser model and edit it in C4d. I noticed that even though I had deleted and edited some features on the model in Cinema 4d, the features kept showing up in the render. In this case it was details around the breasts and stomach.

I remembered the Normal mapping threads that had turned up here and tried deleting the "normal" tag that is generated on imported objects in 8.1. The model rendered properly. It made me realize that the normal mapping function is working already in cinema---though I am trying to learn more about it.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by rirad
"Wrong. Cinema can use normal maps and PA's plugin is already working with them."

Now I am curious. Is there native support for normal maps in Cinema (if so, how?), or only with PA's plugin?
This is good news anyway. I hope we hear more soon.

None of the main stream apps natively supports normal maps at the moment, most the maya guys have been using it with renderman, max has a few plugins that support it, same with LW, so third party is they way youll have to go.

[JamesMK]

Originally posted by JoelD
I remembered the Normal mapping threads that had turned up here and tried deleting the "normal" tag that is generated on imported objects in 8.1. The model rendered properly. It made me realize that the normal mapping function is working already in cinema---though I am trying to learn more about it.
I'm sorry Joel, but that is an entirely different thing. The tag in question refers to face normals of the imported geometry, i.e. a list of additional data specifying where each face is pointing and sometimes also where sharp and soft edges respectively should go.

Normal mapping is a whole different ballpark.

[danb]

any more news on this subject yet?

[Monty]

Hey, get a load of this...
http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=011757

[Per-Anders]

ok, to put it basically. while using a normal map is simple, it's not so easy to create them... i.e. you have to make a high resolution model that you're then going to map back down onto your low res mesh. it's not a way of adding detail, but a way of placing detail from an already made object onto a lower resolution mesh.

as such i suspect as kai said that as soon as i release the plugin most users will complain that it doesn't work (because they don't know what to do with it). anyhow, it will be released sometime soon in pack with some other shaders. but i have to write manuals and finish off other projects first.

[danb]

Thanks Mdme_Sadie for the update. Glad to here that you shader/plugin pack is coming along. Eagerly awaiting and will try to show some restrain untill then.

[LucentDreams]

my best advice to those serious about learning this technique, is probably to practice fine detail modeling (actually modeling veins and such) or get a program like amapi, or zbrush that have brush modeling capabilities for doing such details Otherwise you normal map won't help that much, and also to practice making clean UV's, as per anders plugin works with baker to generate the normal maps, you will want a pretty clean UV for baking, also the cleaner and less distortion in the UV the better, as you will have to make sure your Highres and lowres UV's match (unless you use ATI normal mapper to generate as it actually generates the normal map form the high res using the lowres UV.)

[stantor]

Up :)

I search a plugins to use the normal maps...Dishaper+ is one truths normal maper ?

Sorry for my poor english.

[Per-Anders]

no, dishaper can use normal maps to displace an object, but not to shade it's surface and give greater detail.

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