Fur and Grass Color and Normal Maps from Scans
I've had a bit of time to start playing around with normal maps again. Full disclosure, I run the Surface Mimic site, but I'd appreciate some help gauging the usefulness of matched color and normal maps, maybe even ones that tile.
Normal maps are excellent for some surfaces that displacement maps can't easily handle. These are usually surfaces with complex geometry, under hangs and cavities, and in general, volume. Fur and grass are pretty good examples, so I've provided some links here if you guys want to try these out yourself:
SM_Fur_Faux_Cream.zip
SM_Fur_Faux_Long.zip
Tiling grass (color)
Tiling grass (normals)
Displacement maps are pretty intuitive to work with, there's good tools already to use them, but normal maps have some limitations. For example, you can't rotate a projection of a tangent space normal map. Projected normal maps also need to have the UVs on a model orientated uniformly so when you project, the model's normals "match".
That said, matched color and normals can give some pretty awesome results, and there's probably some limited uses where these can shine. One such example I can think of is terrain textures. The tiling grass example might give an idea of what is possible with a set of tiling matched ground scans and the UDK terrain engine. Human hair might also be a good place for these.
Conceptually these are quite different from the usual scans on my site. I suspect a lot of people think normals are interchangable with displacement, but there's a pretty big difference in workflow. I'm trying to figure out how this stuff might fit into the big picture, both in terms of usefulness to artists generally, and something I offer in the future.
Thoughts?
- Paul Callender
Normal maps are excellent for some surfaces that displacement maps can't easily handle. These are usually surfaces with complex geometry, under hangs and cavities, and in general, volume. Fur and grass are pretty good examples, so I've provided some links here if you guys want to try these out yourself:
SM_Fur_Faux_Cream.zip
SM_Fur_Faux_Long.zip
Tiling grass (color)
Tiling grass (normals)
Displacement maps are pretty intuitive to work with, there's good tools already to use them, but normal maps have some limitations. For example, you can't rotate a projection of a tangent space normal map. Projected normal maps also need to have the UVs on a model orientated uniformly so when you project, the model's normals "match".
That said, matched color and normals can give some pretty awesome results, and there's probably some limited uses where these can shine. One such example I can think of is terrain textures. The tiling grass example might give an idea of what is possible with a set of tiling matched ground scans and the UDK terrain engine. Human hair might also be a good place for these.
Conceptually these are quite different from the usual scans on my site. I suspect a lot of people think normals are interchangable with displacement, but there's a pretty big difference in workflow. I'm trying to figure out how this stuff might fit into the big picture, both in terms of usefulness to artists generally, and something I offer in the future.
Thoughts?
- Paul Callender