hi-poly modelling 4 normal maps

[HSovieticus]

During my christmas holidays I spent some time in an attempt to mod some of the fallout 3 & NV content. When I was modifying a piece of armour, I managed to produce a good enough low-poly model, though I never got it in game before holidays came to a close. I never made any normal maps for the armour as it seemed like it would be very difficult. So I'm wondering, do many of you fallout modders ever create hi-detail normal maps for armour by creating hi-poly models to bake from? And if so, can you give any advice? For instance, people have said that it is best to start with a hi-poly model and then create a lo-poly model from that; so i have to ask, since all the fallout models are low-poly, should i turn the low-poly model provided into a hi-poly model and then do my modifications to the model thereafter, later creating a new low-poly model to bake to? Or should I do my modifications to the lo-poly model to start off, and then create a hi-poly model last?

[pickinthebanjo]

I do not make armor but with weapons I just use the gimp normal map filter, though I would like to learn more about baking high poly meshes to make normal maps

[Asarjan]

hey ...

 

I've even created a high-poly-armor and their associated textures

 

this is a very complicated and long working

've shelved this cause ...

I have not much experience in the rigging of armor

 

I will soon try out how to integrate the armor (especially the rigging of armor)

and if I did that, I'll write a tutorial

[HSovieticus]

I wonder what happens when you have a gap in the normal map from the part of the armour that you modified. And what happens when you don't have a gap, but instead have a normal map that is no longer appropriate?

 

EDIT: and what problems might one run into when creating a new section of the normal map to replace the part that has been change and then patch them together?

Edited June 1, 2011 by HSovieticus

[polygunz]

-keep hard edges to a minimum, keep smoothing groups to a minimum.

-whenever you apply a hardedge in maya or smoothing group in 3ds max make sure to split the uv's along the edges. This shouldn't be done unless the geometry has 90 degree angles.

-whenever you encounter a 90 degree angle on your geometry, make sure you assign a hard edge or apply a smoothing group.

-If you wish to mirror your mesh or uv's, make sure you move the mirrored uv's outside the 0-1 UV region before you bake the normals to your low poly mesh.

-If you work with 3dsmax, make sure your reset your xform before you bake, this prevents your normal map from getting artifacts.

-If the fall out 3 engine has got it's vertex normal tangent aligned with 3dsmax , then baking in 3dsmax is fine. i am not sure if I explained this correctly,

 

 

I work from High-poly to low-poly, just personal preference........ never worked from Lowpoly to High cant give you any advice on that.

Since I model mostly in quads, optimizing my mesh is just a matter of removing loops and collapsing edges.

 

a lot of weapons in fallout have their normal maps derived from 'painted height maps done in photoshop.

 

 

When you patch sections of 2 different normal map together then please make sure your normalize the normal map before you import it into the engine, this prevents artifacts.

 

A gap in your normal map? You mean a seam,

It's not possible to fully eridicate a normal seam, there will always be a seam, the trick is to make it less visible.

High intensity specularity and normal seams are like oil and fire, it makes s*** so much worse.

My advice is to diffuse the specularity where the normal map seam occurs.

 

http://wiki.polycount.com/Polycount

visit polycount wiki for more information.

 

Normal baking is not hard, you just need to learn the rules.

Lots of rules, back in the days we had these rules by trial and error.

[HSovieticus]

I don't understand this hard edge stuff. And I don't think Blender has this assign hard edge or apply smoothing group stuff, so from what I have read, I understand that I am only able to do this by adding edge loops. But I do not understand what an edge loop will do. Will it preserve the hard edge when smoothing? Or will it get rid of the hard edge?

 

Also, why do edge loops do whatever they do?

Edited August 26, 2011 by HSovieticus