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rob-beddall
08-21-2003, 09:31 AM
hey!!:wavey:

does anybody know of any good tut's for creating normal maps in maya?
i know that Levitateme did one but i can't seem to find it any more.

also , if you have a normal map, do you need to do the texture bake thing to get the shadows on the model?

if so do you have a tut on that?

and, do i need to texture bake a bump map? or is that gonna be sort of the same thing as the normal map?

this is all for future low-poly stuff. but using high-poly to generate the maps.

cheers!!
Nicool
08-21-2003, 10:53 AM
One was written by a cgtalker in a thread. A tutorial with a little dino :beer:
rob-beddall
08-21-2003, 11:04 AM
hey!!:wavey:

thanks for the reply.

yeah, that was the one i was looking for. i managed to find it. it was written by levitateme, but he says that it's now defunct, because the tex co-ord were in world space instead of tangent space ( or something)

so i was wondering if there was a tut out there for creating normal maps from high poly models for low poly models for games. HL2- DOOM3 etc.?

i've downloaded a program called ORB but i haven't tried it yet and i can't find any thing that tells me how to use it.

cheers!!:beer:
rob-beddall
08-21-2003, 01:46 PM
hey!!:wavey:

i was also wondering, now that you can model details and then use them in the normal map, does this mean that you wont hane to paint things like pockets and buttons and such stuff?
will they show up well enough in the game with just a normal map?

cheers!!:beer:
CGmonkey
08-21-2003, 03:32 PM
Originally posted by ROB_BEDDALL
hey!!:wavey:

i was also wondering, now that you can model details and then use them in the normal map, does this mean that you wont hane to paint things like pockets and buttons and such stuff?
will they show up well enough in the game with just a normal map?

cheers!!:beer:

Well, you will still have to paint the textures.

And oh btw, www.drone.org
Fish-MD
08-21-2003, 05:08 PM
no u just paint a basic color map, without any shading and apply it.

Orb is ez to use
u make 2 models, one high poly one low poly that fit eachother. The low poly must have uv maps done.

u then open orb in consoel mode and type : "ImportOBJModel highpoly.obj lowpoly.obj" to import the high and low poly obj. They must be in the orb folder or sub folder: "ImportOBJModel mymodels/highpoly.obj mymodels/lowpoly.obj"

u can also import ase and lwo files, if u want to import those just change the name to importasemodel or importlwomodel

then u can open 3d view by pressing the ~ button. Focus on the high poly model with the glowing "shell" around it. Use the +/- keys to adjust the ray distance (the closer it is the more accurate it is, but it might go through parts of the high poly model, which is not good)

go back to console mode and type in "renderbump path/filename" and it will begin rendering the normal maps, and sometimes it might take a while.

thats how u use orb. Try it out and tell me if theres any errors. Oh the newest version of orb uses ImportModel as a comm, it automaticaly detects extension.
rob-beddall
12-12-2003, 09:18 AM
hey!!
i tried orb last night but i still can't get it to work.
i can't seem to open .mb files?

i guess i need it to be an .obj file. but how do i convert to one of those?

cheers!!
rob-beddall
12-12-2003, 09:22 AM
hey!!
just found out i need to enable the obj export in the plug-in manager.

duh!
cheers!!
BarbaPappa
12-12-2003, 10:17 AM
Hi!

where can i download ORB. I've tried ATI's software to do this and it works nice, although i do get some strange artifacts in some places.

Thanks
rob-beddall
12-14-2003, 04:48 PM
hey!!

sorry, i can't remember where i got the download from.
try a search on this forum or in google.
that should turn something up.

cheers!!
Atwooki
12-14-2003, 08:57 PM
Rob:

ORB site:

http://www.soclab.bth.se/practices/orb.html :)

Atwooki
Levitateme
12-15-2003, 08:07 AM
about the pockets and stuff you wanted to put on your highres model. why not just do it? cause in ORB you have that low res shell that goes over your high res. so anything in that shell is going to be put on to your normal map. if you have any more questions you can PM. also i was helping the creator of ORB on some tutorials a while ago but i think he had family problems and we kinda lost touch. but i told him i was waiting for zbrush the new one to come out and then we would start doing stuff again.
BarbaPappa
12-16-2003, 07:33 AM
Originally posted by ROB_BEDDALL
hey!!

sorry, i can't remember where i got the download from.
try a search on this forum or in google.
that should turn something up.

cheers!!

Thanks! Seems to be a really cool tool... I'll try it out right away...
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