Normal maps on characters. Worth it?

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Stefano

Squire
I've read on Yoshiboy's skinning tutorial that normal maps won't show on regular outdoorsy light, only under torches and other omni types of sources.
I want to know if that's still valid for the .808 version and/or if Yoshiboy's information is correct, since I didn't see it properly discussed while searching the forums. Did anyone else test it?

And if it really doesn't work does anyone know why? I'm really curious, since normal maps are such a powerful resource to improve overall looks on low-poly models.

Thanks in advance,
- Stefano
 
In a way we can now use them, but it's easier said than done.

What I think is the current situation is that normal maps won't work unless you write an appropriate shader for them. They they should work with the light sources used as it is a pretty straight forward direct x system. We're talking about torches and the skylight used in M&B.

At the moment you can apply normal maps to things and use the bumpmap shader, although what this will do is essentially bake shadows onto the meshes depending on where the light source is in that scene when the mesh is loaded, a little like the bumpmaps on the hills. When the character moves, the shadows won't move dynamically with him.

Saying this, if someone writes a shader for dynamic normal maps as it IS supported in M&B we could have some very good looking characters.

This is what my tut says:

But, seeing and mount and blade doesn’t support dynamic normal maps, you wont be able to use them in the cool ways shown above for player characters. Normal maps in M&B are shaded once the scene loads and so are only affected by scene light sources like torches or the skylight. The only way we are going to use them is just like we would use bump maps, adding them only really to scene textures that might need them, like bricks or cave walls or things like that.

The skylight, an ambient light and the torches are the only light sources used in M&B though.

(sorry, this post was terribly phrased and structured, all my good writing just went into four sociology essays by the looks of it.)
 
well..shaders...that shouldn't bo too hard. I've tried some stuff with HLSL as a part of my school project. I'll look at what can be done around normal mapping. But better expect nothing :wink: I'm no programmer

I would really love to experiment (mostly using Scion's shader tutorial), but I can't run BRFedit here :sad:
 
Yoshi:
You're right. I've read your tutorial long ago and I didn't read it again before posting, so thanks for refreshing my memory.
Baking lights into texture would make it look funny on any animated mesh. Plus, I've read on Scion's tutorial that certain shaders won't work with animated meshes and my guess is that the current shader with normal map support is one of these...

I did download NVidia's FX Composer (Thanks to Scion) and loaded "mb.fx" into it but I still need to test it with some textures, since apparently this file only contain generic shader info to be used along with maps, combined in a m&b material.

Merlkir:
Although we can't get a straightforward preview, FX Composer do load a huge amount of code along with "mb.fx". Looks like c++ or something. Although I may give it a try too it's way out of my league.
Reading "shaders... that shouldn't be too hard" got me quite excited. I would be really glad if you'd take a look at it too!  :wink:

Thanks for your replies.
-Stefano
 
Well, I've found several tutorials and preset codes for .fx normal map shader. As I said, I will experiment. But after reading Scion's tutorial again, I think he actually used normal maps in his chainmail shader!  so normal maps on a character should probably be possible.
 
Yeah, now that you've mentioned it, while I was reading I did think he might have used normal mapping on those chainmails, but since the depths are too close to a surface and due to the number of elements (links), I couldn't really tell.
But if he did it, that's great! I'll ask him anyway.  :wink:

Another shader I would really like to use: alpha transparency with shades of gray instead of just the standart black or white we currently have for hairs.
 
I've asked him by PM about shaders before, but he doesn't seem to come to the forums anymore.. :sad:
 
Thought I'd update this thread with some info from the new version;
Armagan said:
We added a per-pixel bumpmap shader to the game. It's somewhat slower than the old per-vertex bumpmap shader but we used it exclusively for interior scenes, thus it doesn't really matter. One can also move the light around with the new shader, but we don't really have any use for that in the native game.
That speaks for itself really.  :smile:
 
Ursca said:
I like the sound of moving lights - flaming torches anyone?

yeah. Would be good for atmosphere only, but nice. Some mods have torches, but they don't emit any light.
 
Ursca said:
Thought I'd update this thread with some info from the new version;
Armagan said:
We added a per-pixel bumpmap shader to the game. It's somewhat slower than the old per-vertex bumpmap shader but we used it exclusively for interior scenes, thus it doesn't really matter. One can also move the light around with the new shader, but we don't really have any use for that in the native game.
That speaks for itself really.  :smile:

Pretty cool! Is that info .808 related? If it is, any idea what's the name of the shader? Oh, the joy. :lol:
Flaming torches would indeed be quite a nice addition! Dark dungeons + torches or hacking off heads with a sword and a torch. heh.
 
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