B Tutorial 2D Poomtang's texturing tutorial masterclass no2 Normal maps

[poomtang]

OK here's where we left off, we've finished the texturing of our model, followed all of the guidlines in tutorial 1 and now we want to move on to normal mapping.

In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or "Dot3 bump mapping", is a technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents. It is used to add details without using more polygons. A common use of this technique is to greatly enhance the appearance and details of a low polygon model by generating a normal map from a high polygon model.

Normal mapping or bump mapping as some people call it is a process that allows you to put some extra fine detail into your creation, by showing up all those folds and creases you've just worked on. This is read by your computer, as a normal map and that is what we are about to create for our texture.

The first thing you'll need is a copy of "smart normal"  S.M. which you can get from this link, this is a freeware normal map generator and its very good and so easy to use.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=smart%20normal%20download&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CGQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adobe.com%2Fcfusion%2Fexchange%2Findex.cfm%3Fevent%3DextensionDetail%26extid%3D1817528&ei=wPGsT5OAHcOg0QXPh_WTCQ&usg=AFQjCNGUsQTy5qYDXdJaUbjIuQpb7cb4qg

Next we need to get our finished texture map, which we have saved as a DDS file, we need to re-save it but this time as a JPEG file, which is what  smart normal needs to work.

OK, Ive saved my texture map as a JPEG and I've opend it up in SM. What I do is use around 20% bias, 0% blur and set the filter to solbel. Sometimes you may have to make two normal maps and cut and paste from one to the other if the bump map isn't quite what you're after, you can change things using the invert source button, but it iverts the whole map, not just the parts you might be interested in.

OK once at this stage you need to re-save the map, for example your DDS file was "russian_infantryman.dds" you now need to save the normalmap as something like "russian_infantryman_n.dds" So, you change back from a JPEG to a DDS format. Once you have done this you need to import you new texture into your mod using Open BRF and place it in the materials editor of your mod, which you can find in open BRF under materials. More about that later.

more shortly

 

[Agovic]

http://www.smart-page.net/smartnormal/ This is for those having trouble downloading the one u made, it's the same tool, set the bias to ~2

 

[Mateus416]

Very helpful

What's the next part going to be?

 

[mr.master]

This is a good, and the easy way I usaed to do. But I personally would suggest using the layers to do the normal maps and such for better results and even better, sculpting the wrinkles and such. But, for fast and easy, this does do the trick.

 

[Jarvisimo]

Great advice Poomtang!

 

[nistrum]

guys, something interesting you might want to know. software like Ndo2 use hieghtmapping to generate normal maps. basically meaningyou can create a greyscale image containing hight values as shades of black/white where white represents high and black low. this allows you to create fantastic depth in a simple normal map.
also if you are looking to combine normal maps, for example, you want to create a nice deep normal map made with a hightmap and s detailed one created from a photograph like the one above, take the detail map and place it above the normal map created with the hightmap in the layer window, then select the detailed normal map, set the layer mode to overlay and in photoshop if you double left click the detail layer and click on the tick box for blue therefore deselecting it [this prevents the detail normal map from washing out the blue from the layer below] this will give you the depth from the one and the detail from the other perfectly.

hope that helps guys