[Hervé]

not sure Tom, but Maximus posted a link to an image map to normal map generator using the gimp as host for this plugin....

http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/normalmap/

what do you think... ? (I am a bit lost.... he he)

[campomanes]

Hi Campomanes!

First of all, thank you for bringing here resonable questions and respecting the time I spend.
1) The programmable materials will be later.
2) Can you give an example please?

1)
2) Some time ago this was answered positively, but i dont know if it will be availiable now. For example. I could read the material list from an mxs and change it. Now i can only create from scratch.


EDIT:

Is there any horizon to when the programmable materials will be avaliable? From what i did read in posts in the forum, this was supposed to be an essencial feature of maxwell <tears> <tears>

[tom]

not sure Tom, but Maximus posted a link to an image map to normal map generator using the gimp as host for this plugin....

http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/normalmap/

what do you think... ? (I am a bit lost.... he he)

Yes, obviously there are many ways of creating Normal Maps. I also use GIMP and its plugin and mainly the Nvidia's plugin for Photoshop, too. Here, we are talking about "Normal Map support in Maxwell". Maxwell supports rendering of normal maps and this means it uses normal maps as inputs. In other hand, "building/generating/(and sometimes called "rendering") normal maps" is not a duty of a render engine. Some of our friends think Maxwell must be also able to generate Normal Maps from mesh differences, from bumpmaps and from displacement maps. So, I tried to explain there's no such feature in most common render engines and I wanted them to point me a render engine which is capable of doing this. So GIMP is not one of them, do you know any render engine which can make normal maps instead of just rendering with them?

[KRZ]

well a normal-map is generated from the normals of polys/tris. and whos job it is to do that is does not matter at all. if maxwell wants to be able to fine...if not no problem since there are tons of methods allready out there.

its nice to see maxwell being able to use them for rendering. great. just displacement maps are still missing but they work on it...GREAT!

next-limit says they can use the uv from the modell-application...perfect. u want to map in maxwell? possible too! what else should we want?

i really dont understand why this topic is so complicated.

[Hervé]

Thanks a lot Tom... I am more interested in the Normal map creation using this glimp plugin..; looks good so far..; and I'll try these maps with Maxwell...

well, we had a plugin from
http://www.evasion3d.com/
that was cool, they call it a projective rendering system... but you cannot call it a rendering system... you're right... there are none (although I am not the one who stated some rendering systems are making normal maps... hehe)

but I was just interested in the link provided by Max... and wanted to know if this would be good too... apparently yes...

Thanks again Tom...

[Hervé]

.....

i really dont understand why this topic is so complicated.

nothing really complicated.... just a mismatch with words... I guess..

but I think now it is crystal clear to all....

[tom]

Yes KRZ, I agree... and I wonder how it's not possible to have the normal map of a detailed mesh which is already done in a modeler.
Are there people who is suffering from having many comparison meshes freely around but in other hand they don't have their normal maps?
Unbelievable. Please someone tell me if this is a real need. I promise I will understand.

[MetinSeven_com]

Personally I've never used normal maps before, because it's more an performance-optimizing technique for the realtime games world.

If Maxwell advertises with normal maps as a technique for more convincing detail generation, somewhere between bump maps and displacement maps, then I would like to make use of that. That's why in my humble opinion it would be great if Maxwell could offer the option to automatically convert a bump map into a normal map or to offer a normal map slot next to the bump map slot in the Maxwell material editor.

What do the others think about this?

Cheers,

Metin

[Maximus3D]

Metin, look back on page 4 (i think it was). I gave a tip on how you can convert RGB greyscale textures to normalmaps using Gimp and a normalmap plugin for it. I tested that method and it works

Then you can easily make full use of Maxwell's normalmap support for extra details when you render without the need for Zbrush.

/ Max

[Hervé]

again ... applause to Max for this.... I mean this is the best way to generate them from image maps...

Bravissimo Max...

[devista]

Some links from mane 162 in the spanish forum.
http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8451

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_t ... tools.html
photoshop Plugin
http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultima ... =011260&p=
information Zbrush normal maps
http://www.drone.org/tutorials/normal_maps.html
Maya
http://www.pinwire.com/article82.html
How made normal maps for 3D soft
http://members.shaw.ca/jimht03/normal.html
Cinema4D
http://www.ati.com/developer/tools.html
ATI

[tom]

Personally I've never used normal maps before, because it's more an performance-optimizing technique for the realtime games world.

If Maxwell advertises with normal maps as a technique for more convincing detail generation, somewhere between bump maps and displacement maps, then I would like to make use of that. That's why in my humble opinion it would be great if Maxwell could offer the option to automatically convert a bump map into a normal map or to offer a normal map slot next to the bump map slot in the Maxwell material editor.

What do the others think about this?

Cheers,

Metin

You're welcome Metin, however there's no benefit converting a bump map to a normal map since normal maps naturally have 3 different variable to determine the trick but bumpmaps are just heightmaps and it won't give you a better result converting a bumpmap to a normal map. It's true that displacement data is more valuable than a bumpmap when converted to normal map but as I said, this is not something that your favourite render engine should do.

[hdesbois]

Interesting way of generating normal maps. It's usefull too to output some maps out of a high poly model to use it later on a different model. Like we actually model some bump maps with a greyscale gradient. Well, I guess. Didn't used normal maps till now, since the support for it is not very good in LW (I was told some free plugins do great job, though). Anyway, no need to ouput these maps from Maxwell since any 3D app can at least generate some normal maps.
HD