CrazyBump - Texture Utility

[LHammonds]

Friends, neighbors and fellow countrymen (and you other dudes too),

 

CrazyBump 1.1 just released and there was a price drop from $99 USD to $49 USD for the student edition.

 

If you do not know what it is, visit the home page and watch the demo. Here is a sample image.

 

I recommend this program to anyone making textures with normal maps.

 

This is one of those rare exceptions where you can get pick all 3 instead of just 2 ends of the triangle (Cheap, Quality, Fast). Normally for any project, you can only pick two choices such as Quality and Fast but it won't come cheap...or Cheap and Fast but it won't be quality work. With this tool, you can crank out some quality normal maps very fast and it doesn't cost a lot of money. I know, I know, it's like sham-wow! LOL.

 

Homepage: http://crazybump.com

Forums: http://crazybump.com/forum/

Wiki Info: http://www.oblivionmodwiki.com/index.php/CrazyBump

 

And to be fair to the other tools out there, here is a link to all the other tools mentioned so far, along with a brief summary about them.

 

DDS Tools Listing

 

LHammonds

[SickleYield]

Student Version usually means noncommercial use only. Would that be the case here?

[ihateregisteringeverywhere]

Student Version usually means noncommercial use only. Would that be the case here?

I'd be verily surprised if he made any money from making mods.

 

But anyway, CrazyBump - is it any good? I usually only come across the bake-it-from-high-polly kinda attitude and such guys - as you might've guessed - look down upon such practices.

[LHammonds]

Student Version usually means noncommercial use only. Would that be the case here?

There are three licenses to the software. The software is the exact same for all three but the use of it is the difference:

 

1. PROFESSIONAL - Do whatever you want with the end-result...sell it or give it away. (Commercial Use)

2. PERSONAL - Cannot sell / make money from the end-result. (Non-Commercial Use...like modding for free)

3. STUDENT - Same as PERSONAL but you have to be a student or teacher to get the additional discounted price. (Non-Commercial Use...like modding for free)

 

LHammonds

[dezdimona]

cool, thanks from one of the other "dudes"...........lol

[Sin911]

Thanks! I might just need to add this to my software aresenal :)

[xxXEvandarXxx]

I have used the demo for a while, it's awesome, and I like it very much! Too bad the demo will expire in 18 days... :(

[LHammonds]

CrazyBump - is it any good? I usually only come across the bake-it-from-high-polly kinda attitude and such guys - as you might've guessed - look down upon such practices.

Dang, I completely missed this post...guess due to the timing. Sorry for the extreme late reply but...

 

Yes, it is great! If you have high-poly models AND you know how to bake normals with them, then yep, that would be the preferred method most of the time. However, even then, this program lets you merge normal maps together...so if you have a normal map from a high-poly model AND you want a particular effect for an area (like a fabric design), simply take a fabric texture, make it into a normal map and merge it together in your baked normal where you want it. No need to sculpt a design/pattern in your normal map in such cases. There are many examples for wanting to merge different normals together to create different effects.

 

If you don't have high-poly versions of your model, this is where you can rely on this tool 100% to help you out. However, it is fairly rare that you can simply open up a texture and simply create a normal map you want to use immediately...although you can do this, you typically want to fine-tune certain areas by making some places stand out a bit more and others flattened out. Again, the ability to merge different normal map files together comes in very handy.

 

Also, there is a 1.101 version that saved the day for me. The 1.1 version was compiled in such a way that many virus scanners incorrectly thought it contained a virus and would quarantine or delete a necessary file for the program to start.

 

LHammonds

[LHammonds]

A version 1.2 is out which fixed a very specific problem I had while working on the "Day Walker Sword"

 

All prior versions had a sort-of wrapping from the top to the bottom part of the texture. So having a blade's edge going along the bottom of the texture and other parts along the top edge of the texture would cause bleed-over. This made odd "bumps" on my sword and it actually came from the top of the normal map trying to equalize the edges! There is now a "no wrap" option to prevent this.

 

My specific problem with 1.1 is Documented Here.

[Zombie007]

I have a quick question about crazybump. I loaded a dds file, processed it and it gave me the normal map but ingame my armor looks like latex, it shines too much (and , really weird, the shadows are on the wrong side. Where there should be light, there are shadows and the other way around.

I asked around and people told me to lower the alpha, but i think Crazybump has no alpha setting, it has specularity, wich i tweacked a little correcting SOME of the reflectivity issue but the shadow/light problem remained. Any suggestion?