Re: Creating "THE" normal map...

[Sam Cuttriss <sam(at)janimation.com>]

generating the normal maps is one thing,
it strikes me as very slow through ultimapper, but there are other options:
straight darktree
xsimodelmap
d3 shaders
a nest of vector math nodes

im sure there are more.
they all appear to create legit normal maps,

aside from the varying speed. problems arise when applying any of these normal maps via XSINormalMap>bump

it is reliant on a CAV (colour at vertex) tangency property on the object, which seems to be reliant on the objects UVs.
so, a sphere test with a sphereical projection will behave fine (the cav is continuous blends smoothly the whole way round),
but a unique uv'd abject produces a tangency CAV that looks like a patchwork, ie each unique island has its tangency calculated independantly.

the manual refers to tangency discontinuities but only in reference to realtime shaders?


the idea is to use symbiant for tertary elements that arent cleanly uv unwrapped (hence unique uv) then improve their render performance by baking out to normal map.
made sence on paper... ?

_sam

SAM CUTTRISS
3D AFICIONADO

Michaël Bentitou wrote:

Axel’s 4 Million brick reminded of something else… I had to generate some normal maps for a project a while back (it was also for brick walls ;-)), and back then only Xsi 4.2 was around so no Ultimapper…

 

I was using the D3 shaders – there’s a ‘generator’ node for creating normal maps… I remember it working really well, and it was pretty fast. Might want to try it out.

 

http://be3d.republika.pl/

 

-=mb.

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Axel Akesson
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 1:09 PM
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: RE: Creating "THE" normal map...

 

I tried baking out Darktree (Simbiont XSI) bumpmaps with Color_Sampler in the Render Tree and I also tried rendermapping them... unfortunately I didnt have much luck. Baking out color darktrees worked fine though, as you would expect. Deadline constraints prohibited me from investigate further.

 

However, I used Ultimapper to generate normal, color and bump maps from a 4 million poly modeled brick wall to a grid recently. I have to say that it worked very nice. I did 4K images and it didnt take so long... maybe 15 minutes per texture.

13 hours for a 2K map sounds very very wrong.

 

Keep in mind, set the Ultimapper quality to the standard setting and the resolution to 256 x 256 when you are computing your Ultimapper and then set it to the resolution and quality you want when you GENERATE the maps. Otherwise the computation will take a looooong time.

 

Cheers,

Axel

 

---

From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Steve Parish
Sent: 08 March 2006 17:36
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: Creating "THE" normal map...

Hi Michael,

We dont own Darktree :(

I was just using the free shaders to add some bump into a complex piece of geometry (so I didnt need to unwrap UV's) but would like to use unique UV's to bake out the bump for more efficient rendering.

Thanks
Steve


Michaël Bentitou wrote:

Hi Steve – Any reason why you can’t export your normal map directly from DarkTree ?

-=mb.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Steve Parish
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 11:27 AM
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Creating "THE" normal map...

I am having some difficulties in creating a good normal map. I was wondering if anyone had a good workflow that is quick!
I am basically trying to bake out some Darktree shaders so I can render it quickly and reliably.

The only succesful normal map I have made has been through the Ultimapper, but this is a ridiculously slow procedure (1 map at 2K has taken over 13hrs so far).
All rendermap efforts have failed except when it was on a perfect sphere (damn tests) and this seemed to be because the tangency looked correct, every other test applying tangency looks broken up..

I have been using the XSI Model Map to generate the normal maps and then piping it back using the normal map node... I generate a tangency too...  The result is a broken up jigsaw image... grrrr

Any suggestions?


Thanks

--

STEVE PARISH
3D GENERALIST
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