Understanding Normal Maps with Half life 2

# 1 11-01-2005 , 07:44 AM

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I know a lot of people don't know too much about normal maps and since they're in a lot of games now I think this short clip will really help people get a better idea..... it shows how a normal map is generated in XSI and how extreme information can be applied to one single polygon.

It's pretty much a tech demo from half life 2 and you may have seen it, but I thought it was still pretty cool to see what people are doing with games these days..... check it out user added image

It's a 56.24Mb file so if you're on dial up, you'll be around for a while.

Half life 2 normal map video

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# 2 13-01-2005 , 02:43 PM

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Location: Miami, Fla

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that is just some really cool stuff.
I was like WOW user added image

just one poly....lol.

(by the way.....i was like downloading at like 800kb/s.... just that that was insane as well lol)

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# 3 14-01-2005 , 05:25 AM

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from my understanding of the HL2 engine is that it doesnt use Normal maps. Its a very old engine. The Doom3 engine definatly supports normal maps, but that one was more specifically designed to handle interior level design.

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# 4 14-01-2005 , 09:34 AM

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the HL2 engine CAN use normalmaps
its just that it doesnt uses everywhere (in HL2) or even nowhere (even if it still can,and you can make a mod to it using normalmaps) in CSS.
But thats a designer choice not a limitation of the engine (and you notice it in frames per second: comparing DOOM3 where almost anything has a normalmap and goes at 34fps in my machine to HL2 that only uses it where it matters most and i get 78fps...)

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# 5 14-01-2005 , 02:09 PM

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Originally posted by dragonfx
the HL2 engine CAN use normalmaps
its just that it doesnt uses everywhere (in HL2) or even nowhere (even if it still can,and you can make a mod to it using normalmaps) in CSS.
But thats a designer choice not a limitation of the engine (and you notice it in frames per second: comparing DOOM3 where almost anything has a normalmap and goes at 34fps in my machine to HL2 that only uses it where it matters most and i get 78fps...)

Originally Posted by

the doom 3 game uses more bump maps than normal maps actually.