Normal Map - A newbies Search

Lee3dee · April 19, 2005 at 5:21 AM

So this weekend, I took a break from the dragon, and started doing some Normal map experiments. I have this panzer tank i made a while back which was 126,321 polys and I made a low poly version which is 7218, so i model around the tank, so the polys are close to each other. Then render to texture and bam! the normal map is pixelated to hell!. Even when rendering at 2048x2048. The normal map doesn't look like anything i've seen online. Am i doing something horribly wrong , so now its Monday and I'm back to the dragon but I wanted to post my problem for some feedback.

2 models

[Blocked Image: http://www.lee3dee.com/redux/panzer/panzer_01.jpg]

Normal Map with pixelation and craziness

[Blocked Image: http://www.lee3dee.com/redux/panzer/panzer_02.jpg]

low poly with crazy normal map

[Blocked Image: http://www.lee3dee.com/redux/panzer/panzer_03.jpg]

OL · April 19, 2005 at 5:26 AM

looks muddy but with a skin im sure it will look better

models are good tho

kleinluka · April 19, 2005 at 5:28 AM

it would help if you linked to a high res image of the normal map

von*ferret · April 19, 2005 at 5:29 AM

my friend gave this to me today for my assistance also.

http://members.shaw.ca/jimht03/normal.html

Lee3dee · April 19, 2005 at 5:59 AM

kleinluka :here's a high rez image, rendered from Render to texture

http://www.lee3dee.com/redux/panzer/NormalsMap2.dds

von*ferret: yeah i got that link, and a ton of others

von*ferret · April 19, 2005 at 6:02 AM

go ahead and post them. Lets get a thread started and stickied with links to modeling, mapping, ect. Help the forums out a little.

csharp · April 19, 2005 at 1:32 PM

Great model..

mikezilla · April 19, 2005 at 5:20 PM

just looking at it from a glance i can see some odd uvw errors. try remapping a small piece very cleanly and see how well that converts to a normal map. Like one wheel.

sic1 · April 19, 2005 at 7:12 PM

Quote from mikezilla

just looking at it from a glance i can see some odd uvw errors. try remapping a small piece very cleanly and see how well that converts to a normal map. Like one wheel.

Good advice.

I had fun playing with normal maps for doom3. I finally sorted out the issues and found it that it was my uv mapping that was causing weird things to happen. I think at one point I had problems when UVs overlapped.

Lee3dee · April 19, 2005 at 9:28 PM

Quote from sic1

I think at one point I had problems when UVs overlapped.

ahh, then i think I know, because the UV's for the other side of the tank are mirrored. I guess u cannot do that with normal maps

Lee3dee · April 20, 2005 at 10:23 PM

so....i broke up the model, top and bottom. Figured im compressing so much data into the normal map 2 textures are better than one. Not sure if thats the correct way. LOL

anyways, now my normal map is brown....anyone have any thoughts?

[Blocked Image: http://www.lee3dee.com/redux/panzer/normal_ehh.jpg]

the discreet guy made it look so easy at GDC.

von*ferret · April 20, 2005 at 11:22 PM

man all your angles look so sharp I dunno if its the Normal map or not. I h ave NO idea why its brown. Never seen a brown normal map before.

von*ferret · April 20, 2005 at 11:24 PM

my friend says your blue channel is invereted, so invert it and see if that works.

von*ferret · April 20, 2005 at 11:24 PM

awesome friend says: if you have a problem with a normal map look at the channels separately

Zacker · April 20, 2005 at 11:29 PM

I say: Edit your posts plz...

Lee3dee · April 21, 2005 at 2:10 AM

von*ferret: cool thx. Say thankyou to your "Awesome Friend" I'll try it when I get home

kleinluka · April 21, 2005 at 2:27 AM

What are you using to render your nomal maps? Try Kaldera.

Also make sure you don't have anything that you want in your normal map modeled in a 90° angle. If you want your normal map to have depth - like lets say you wanna normal map a box onto a flat surface. You would have to scale down the top row of verts so the thing is a bit angled and then render it to normal map.

Here's a quick image I made to explain this...

[Blocked Image: http://kleinluka.morphew.de/misc/normalmaps.jpg]

Lee3dee · April 21, 2005 at 7:48 PM

kleinluka: that pic u made, I added it to my normal map folder. Seems that normal mapping is going to be around for a bit

A bit of an update. The UV was inverted as von*ferret & Friend showed me. Instead of compressing turret and body into 1 map, I broke the model up into top and bottom. So now I have 2 normal maps. Not sure if they do that in the industry, but it worked out for me

Some progress:

[Blocked Image: http://www.lee3dee.com/redux/panzer/Panzer3_tex01.jpg]

von*ferret · April 21, 2005 at 8:11 PM

Quote from Zacker

I say: Edit your posts plz...

i say I can post 3 times if I want because I dont feel like editing. It does'nt matter since I'm giving feed back and helping out.

Lee3dee · April 22, 2005 at 8:39 AM

another update.....texturing is fun fun

[Blocked Image: http://www.lee3dee.com/Images/panzer/normal_panzer.jpg]

Normal Map - A newbies Search

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