Normal Map Woes

# 1 12-08-2006 , 08:34 PM

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Join Date: Apr 2005

Location: Australia

Posts: 159

Hi I've been reading almost everywhere on how to render Normal Maps in Maya7 and I seem to be stuck. I've used all the suggestions for using JS normalmapper for maya software but it just doesnt work right. I've tried it with the Zbrush normal map export and now am using surface sampler in Maya just for generating normal maps. So it seems to look great in harware and everything but as soon as i change the connections to work for software rendering, all hell brakes loose. I connected the normal map texture to the JS normalmapper via outColor - NormalMap and then the JSNormalMapper to the phong via OutNormal - normalCamera. Also played with the RGB to XYZ and flip colours to no avail. And as seen in the render the result aint too pretty. So please if anyone can clear any of this up for me I would be forever thankful.

So here is just a test of normal maps on a low poly mesh. My pc is a P4 2.8Ghz, 1gig ram, ati 9600

user added image

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# 2 13-08-2006 , 10:07 AM

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Join Date: Aug 2006

Posts: 2

Hi! I'm pretty new in Maya and I've never used normal maps before and becouse someone already started a thread about Normal maps i'll use this one to ask if someone can tell me what are normal maps, what is their purpose and how can i apply a normal map to a model?

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# 3 16-08-2006 , 10:49 AM

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Join Date: Apr 2005

Location: Australia

Posts: 159

*bump*

Can anyone please help with this?

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# 4 16-08-2006 , 03:29 PM

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Join Date: Feb 2005

Location: Sunny Ol' Wigan, UK

Posts: 752

I'm fairly new to this, but I create several normal maps each with different settings ( object normals/ tangent normals, altering the depth etc) then used the best output then tweek it in photoshop. This isn't really a professional way of doing it, but it works. It may be you are using a poor setting option or to little depth.

Hope that helps a little

If you believe in telekinesis, raise my right hand.

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# 5 16-09-2006 , 01:35 AM

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Join Date: Aug 2006

Location: Zürich, Switzerland

Posts: 1

Hey

you can check the Zmapper manual, which explains very clear and easy what normal maps are( you can get it from www.pixologic.com)

now there's how to render the normalmap:

check

https://www.headus.com/au/samples/norm-MR/index.html

for how to set up the shadernetwork, then use ur normalmap for the file needed and I get a very nice result with the maya software renderer.
you can create the normalmap wherever you wish, i suggest Zmapper, it's very fast and you get nice normalmaps ( the surface sampler doesn't work too nice for me in maya and takes loats of time to create the normalmap)

hope that helped a little

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Normal Map Woes

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