Baking normal maps in Blender

[darthsloth74]

dazzerfong: Yes thats a fair point and perhaps I should have better phrased my remark more as a suggestion. However personally I feel making the weapon high poly and baking down is worth the effort considering that the weapon used in first person typically looks better since its more noticeable than a normal map produced from a heightmap. Of course you are perfectly entitled to do what you feel works best for you.

[dazzerfong]

@ Darthsloth 74:

 

I often use a mixture of height maps and high-poly: for the soft edges effect, I use (obviously) high poly baking, and for stuff like decals and letters, I use a height map.

By the way, here's a good explanation of making normal maps for something that is 3D.

Edited December 17, 2011 by dazzerfong

[Ghogiel]

@ Darksloth74:

 

You do know that if the edge is highlighted as sharp, it's going to stay sharp in the game?

 

If we are talking about hard edges, sure technically it'll be hard in game, as in there it will have duplicated verts (pretty much every game engine exporter actually creates extra verts to get those extra vert normals becuase it doesn't support smoothing in the same way as modelling apps)... to have extra vert normals is why you even would ever make a hard edge at all, reason being is shading errors/better lighting, but what the normal map does with those hard edges is another matter entirely< It may not look hard at all if you are using the normal map to bend the normal direction how you want. Do that in a controlled fashion with a bitmap to normal conversion and I'd pay money to learn how you did it.

 

@ Ghogiel:

 

Lies? OK............

 

Main problem is, except for decals, my swords already have all the detail on them: that's why I don't need extensive normal maps.

yes lies. :biggrin: Edited December 17, 2011 by Ghogiel

[dazzerfong]

@ Ghogiel:

 

True, but to do that in a bitmap, it's a bit easier than you think: use gradients! Though, it's much easier in the end to just use a Catmull-clark filter.

[Ghogiel]

@ Ghogiel:

 

True, but to do that in a bitmap, it's a bit easier than you think: use gradients! Though, it's much easier in the end to just use a Catmull-clark filter.

lol

[dazzerfong]

Yeah, it's actually very possible to use gradients on each separate channel (red and green only) to fake it quite accurately.

[Ghogiel]

No, that is not what you were saying, you said from a height map, not manipulating normal map channels, that's a totally different thing.

 

Here is an exaggerated example that illustrates this concept:

 

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/209926-1324196401.jpg

 

http://www.skyrimnexus.com/imageshare/images/209926-1324196485.jpg

 

How are you able paint a height map that will bend the normal directions in a controlled fashion, How do you account for the way extra vertices interact with the resulting output pixels in a baked normal map?

 

And yeah I know that example would have shading errors with those big angle changes even before I started, unless I used a 'quality' normals shader, which I didn't BTW. tell that to bethesda though, not me. :biggrin:

the principal is still valid on a dodecahedron, which would probably shade correctly. :thumbsup:

Edited December 18, 2011 by Ghogiel

[dazzerfong]

Apologies for the mixup, Ghogiel. I find that heightmaps work best for things like scratches, decals and engravings: at other times, the of course a hi-poly baking would work best.

[LHammonds]

Once you have a low-poly model with a UV, it shouldn't matter what program you use to make the high poly version and bake a normal map. You should even be able to create your low poly model in Blender 2.49b, then open in the latest Blender 2.5x to sculpt. Just don't do anything silly like trying to overwrite your original 2.49b model.

 

EDIT: Just sayin'

 

LHammonds

[dazzerfong]

@ LHammonds:

 

You can also sculpt in 2.49b, it's better on 2.60a though on my end.