Cheers ctbram..

I agree with you, i dont know mutch about normal mapping myself, i think its more for lumpy organic stuff ?? i deffinately need to find the time to look into it though, maybe my death star surface wouldnt be so heavy.

Attached Thumbnails

---

free memory low..exception thrown

trying to get the right look for the death star surface from a certain distance, anyone know how i can change the bumping, lighting or color based on distance from camera ?

Attached Thumbnails

---

free memory low..exception thrown

Oh I thought much of your detailing was by using normal maps. The user dango77 used normal maps for detailing his spaceship challenge entry. The user oldhippie_tom is also using normal maps for detailing his millennium falcon.

I wish there was someone out there that would explain how this is done.

---

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

paldav: normal maps are just a replacement for bump maps and process faster, making them a more desirable solution than bump maps for games and other such real time rendering,
it's not something that's restricted to just organics, you can use it for hard surface too (i've done that)
so you use them whenever you'd use a bump map

ctbram, those guys are using displacement maps i thought you make your normal map and then plug it into the bump mapping input of your material and change it from bump to tangent space normals or object space normals depending on the type of normal map
you don't have control over how intense the bump is though

displacement is slightly different, it's a grey scale map like bump maps but you plug them into the displacement input of the material, then you need to do a few things with some render nodes somewhere... (not the best explanation, but i've only done it once so i can't remember where everything is)

anyway, sorry for starting to take over your thread there paldav >.>
i'm quite jealous that you've pulled off something so cool as this

---

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

OMG! so there are bump maps, normal maps, and displacement maps and they are all different?

Chirone - Your description although I am sure is accurate sounds like something from a stereo user manual written in a foreign language. Are there any tutorials that cover the differences between these three kinds of maps and when and how you would use them to create surface details like - structures, chips and scratchs, panel lines, etc?

---

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

<hijack>
haha, yes, all three exist

bump was the initial way to give details to meshes without adding extra polygons, it's grey scale

normal map has rgb values, these are the values that get calculated when a bump map is processed. By preprocessing this calculation from the bump map it speeds up render time making it suitable for real time rendering

both bump and normal do not change the profile of the mesh itself, so if you have a sphere with bump or normal it will always look like a sphere if you look at its profile

displacement is where it appears that the surface has actually changed. it's grey scale, and if you look at the profile the surface is different.
displacement relies on you having a good healthy mesh (i think) and it subdivides your surfaces to calculate how to raise/lower parts of your surface.



as for tutorials, mike has a free tutorial on here that deals with a bit of normal maps, it's the game texturing one
https://www.simplymaya.com/movie_page...tml?tut_id=156

bump map, i'm not sure, i think i picked this up in maya's tutorials, i can't remember... that or i found it randomly on The Area

displacement, there is a nice little segment in one of gnomon's mental ray tutorials from Matt Hartle, but that tutorial covers a lot, and you may or may not want it
i also found this one: https://gnomonology.com/tutorial/238
goes over displacements from zbrush, but the process (i assume) will still be the same, you can just skip the zbrush step

i just realised, these tutorials probably don't do what you asked...
you want someone to explain where they would use them but these explain how you plug them into the shaders...
not sure how to help you out with that one

Originally posted by ctbram
Chirone - Your description although I am sure is accurate sounds like something from a stereo user manual written in a foreign language.

Originally Posted by

hahahahaha! it does seem like i speak a foreign language to anyone i come across...
</hijack>

paldav, i just noticed, your last picture gives off an optical illusion.... it looks like the lighter less dense part is moving in and out...
maybe it's just my eyes...

---

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Thank you for the good information C.

We now return this thread to its regularly scheduled topic....

---

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

You Guys !

I leave the house for 5 Minuets!

Thanks for that explanation Chirone, can i admit though i still dont fully understand normal mapping, mind you, i didnt understand bump mapping until i did it, maybe thats what we need to do.

The great thing with MAYA is that when you decide you want a particular look, there will allways be several ways to acheive it.

Ctbram i wouldnt worry too much about stuff you cant yet do, happens to me all the time...

I want to create an effect where i have bumps near to the camera but fading into the distance. This is normaly what happens anyway, but the curved surface of my death star means that the receding angle makes the far bump stand out making the distance grainy.

If someone says " use a normal map for this " then i will start to worry about it, and go to find out more.

thanks for keeping things interesting you guys, appreciated.

---

free memory low..exception thrown

Could you not plug a facing ratio node into a ramp with values to control the bump depth of the death star, that way the closer to 90 degrees to the camera the surface is the less the bump is on there? Think that might be what your after?

With normal maps the RGB values corrispond to the XYZ of the normal point and hold more information than just the height feild of the grayscale of the bump, they are ineffect 3 bump maps lit from different angles, X = right, Y = top, Z = down, as it dosent add geo the base mesh must have the overall shape of the underlying geo required.

I dont actually think that the base mesh on a displacement makes a difference as it tessalates it at render time to apply the map and create the polys, so the underlying form is not as important as in a normal map, although a very high displacement value will cause problems as you will run into problems with the levels you can displace.

---

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

gster123

Your a genius!

small problem though...i have a fractal to break up the bump depth, so i want to keep that then also have the facing ratio effect the distance, only way ive tried so far is to plug the alpha out of my fractal and the facing ratio into a blender node, but im not realy happy with the result....

---

free memory low..exception thrown

ok

ive put the fractal and the bump map through the blender to bump value, and the facing racio to bump depth, i think it works

Attached Thumbnails

---

free memory low..exception thrown

Are you still working on this

---

https://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/as28g11/

Thanks for the interest mate..

A while back i played back some scenes i had done for a freind and he said " its just a load of clips"

It kind of struck home, so after a little lay off, due to work, i decided i was going to do somthing original, or at least not copying star wars!

so, work is a bit crazy at the mo, but i will probably start a new thread soon, its going to be a short set in a futuristic battle, and ive just started on the props, heres a teaser of my ground attack gun ship thingy......

Attached Thumbnails

---

free memory low..exception thrown

one more

Attached Thumbnails

---

free memory low..exception thrown

Looks pretty good

---

My website;
https://www.eyellem.com

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/martin-van-stein/42/a81/b82

Yoda post;
https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...highlight=yoda

Indiana Jones Post;
https://srv01.simply3dworld.com/showt...threadid=29188