normal maps- gNormal MIA

[Steve Green]

http://www.maxplugins.de/max5.php?range=Material

Cheers,

Steve

[bitcrusher]

sweet..... err nut's

"This plug in allows Max to render normalmaps as bumpmaps."


this was not really what I thought it was.

I was really hoping for a more Kaldera solution http://www.mankua.com/kaldera.cfm, gnormal looks more like away to use your normalmap as a bump. Mabe I am misunderstanding the whole process here.

I am looking to do what was mentioned on the hires zbrush post.
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77779
from what I have figured out it means that you have
1- a low poly mesh
2- place a UV map on it
3- create a hi poly mesh and generate a normal map from that
4- place the normal map in the meteral editor
5- render and your low poly mesh will look like the hi poly mesh

I understand the displacement map technique but from what I understand this is a deferent ball game.

[mouj]

Hey there,
Gnormals is indeed a try to achieve the same effect as Kaldera does, i.e. rendering normal maps; if i understand it correctly, use it in your bump slot to be able to use normal maps (such as generated with ORB). Looks like it's not as good as Kaldera might be though.
Have a look here - 3ds board thread on Gnormal (http://support.discreet.com/webboard/wbpx.dll/read?70942,18).

mouj

[Steve Green]

Kaldera's normal map sits in the bump slot as well. I found the results were not the same, when both set to the same bump amount.

The gnormal one seemed less defined, but I did manage to get closer to the Kaldera one by messing around with RGB values.
.

- Steve

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