knocks Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 A simple new little tool i have started to use, and have found to be very use full. SMAK Quote My first Adobe purchase was Photoshop 2.0, CS6 was my last! < = > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Looks cool. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 At that price, perhaps I should buy it even if it doesn't see much use... I mean, CrazyBump is $300 for a commercial license, and when I was using it's free trial, it didn't seem to be creating the normal maps the way I was expecting. Example being, I wanted to inscribe some text into a relatively low quality G36 model "Made in Germany" stuff like that. It just seemed to flat when viewed on the weapon. I always put it down to me not being a modeller, but it should be interesting if this tool can achieve the effect, even if the process of going about it is different. Quote LE Version: 2.50 (Eventually) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Betke Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 If you want to generate normalmaps from your simple images its highly recommended to use a self made greyscale heighmap to get goos results. Regardless which application you use for this kind of gneration. A very good free generator but rarely known is "Njob" by Charles Hollemeersch. http://charles.hollemeersch.net/ Shaderlab is also nice and costs 20 bucks. Quote Pure3d Visualizations Germany - digital essences AAA 3D Model Shop specialized on nature and environments Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macklebee Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 If you want to generate normalmaps from your simple images its highly recommended to use a self made greyscale heighmap to get goos results. Regardless which application you use for this kind of gneration. A very good free generator but rarely known is "Njob" by Charles Hollemeersch. http://charles.hollemeersch.net/ Shaderlab is also nice and costs 20 bucks. do those also create AO maps? Edit--- i see njob does... looks promising! in any case, how would you suggest making the grayscale heightmaps? Quote Win7 64bit / Intel i7-2600 CPU @ 3.9 GHz / 16 GB DDR3 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 LE / 3DWS / BMX / Hexagon macklebee's channel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knocks Posted June 23, 2010 Author Share Posted June 23, 2010 Im mostly using this for creating ambient occlusion maps on basic static objects atm. I like the fact that its geometry based and fast. Haven't really played with the normal map functions yet. Quote My first Adobe purchase was Photoshop 2.0, CS6 was my last! < = > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Betke Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Check this Article: http://www.game-artist.net/forums/support-tech-discussion/6126-mini-tutorial-normal-maps-how-not-do-them.html Quote Pure3d Visualizations Germany - digital essences AAA 3D Model Shop specialized on nature and environments Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Surprise, surprise. The "wrong" way describes me perfectly. Heh, I'm a programmer, not an artist. So thanks for the link... I assume it was meant for me... Sadly, this means I've got to learn to... umm, draw... Ugh, horrible thought. Quote LE Version: 2.50 (Eventually) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macklebee Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 thanks for the link... ive seen that Talon guy on other forums... he does amazing stuff. Quote Win7 64bit / Intel i7-2600 CPU @ 3.9 GHz / 16 GB DDR3 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 LE / 3DWS / BMX / Hexagon macklebee's channel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexman Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Yes thanks for pointing us towards this program. I bought a copy of SMAK to show support, I like the easy to use nature, it's still beta and would benefit from more format support. We played around with baking AO into models today, I liked the results but they need to be used with care when you have real-time lighting and shadows. We could do some crazy things with the normal map generator. Especially as we have multiple LODs for our ground vehicles. Quote 6600 2.4G / GTX 460 280.26 / 4GB Windows 7 Author: GROME Terrain Modeling for Unity, UDK, Ogre3D from PackT Tricubic Studios Ltd. ~ Combat Helo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Betke Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Sadly, this means I've got to learn to... umm, draw... Ugh, horrible thought. Nahh, you dont need to learn to paint. Its just a start with a 50% black image plus placing rectangles and other forms in brighter or dimmer grey on it so you have an heightmap. I use to blend in the diffuse very slightly to keep a bit of the cracks and such things on my heightmap image. Quote Pure3d Visualizations Germany - digital essences AAA 3D Model Shop specialized on nature and environments Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Masterxilo Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 xNormal seems to be a tool that does similar things (http://www.xnormal.net/Faq.aspx). It's free of charge. Quote Hurricane-Eye Entertainment - Site, blog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.