"Cavity" maps.
polycounter lvl 14
Hey guys,
I was wanted to share my photoshop actions I use when texturing/concepting/image editing as a thank you for the game art community. I basically use my actions as someone would use their shelves in Maya. Basically my most used functions and what not are in button form.
Since it is specific to my workflow, not everyone might find it usefull. But hopefully they can take parts of the actions collection and use what works for them and maybe create their own customized "actions shelf" and share that with everyone.
However I am not too sure what to call a specific action.
nDo2 has a normals to "cavity" option. But it is not really a cavity map as it is a primarily grey map and has edge highlighting info in there as well. I was wondering what the correct term for a map like this would be.
No matter what I call it it will probably generate confusion.
I want to call it a "curvature" map, but that probably is not correct either. I think when someone thinks of a curvature map they think about a green/red map.
Right now I have called it "extract cavity cavity" and "extract cavity edges", which sounds kind of silly.
Help me name this action please? Basically what this actions allows me to do is separate the cavities and the highlights so I have more control on how to apply them to my textures. Instead of just using it as a single overlay layer.
Also since I haven't used a "proper" curvature map before, could someone provide a proper curvature map, so I can make a new action for that specific map type and have the same control as my current "highlight/cavity extract" action?
Cheers.
I was wanted to share my photoshop actions I use when texturing/concepting/image editing as a thank you for the game art community. I basically use my actions as someone would use their shelves in Maya. Basically my most used functions and what not are in button form.
Since it is specific to my workflow, not everyone might find it usefull. But hopefully they can take parts of the actions collection and use what works for them and maybe create their own customized "actions shelf" and share that with everyone.
However I am not too sure what to call a specific action.
nDo2 has a normals to "cavity" option. But it is not really a cavity map as it is a primarily grey map and has edge highlighting info in there as well. I was wondering what the correct term for a map like this would be.
No matter what I call it it will probably generate confusion.
I want to call it a "curvature" map, but that probably is not correct either. I think when someone thinks of a curvature map they think about a green/red map.
Right now I have called it "extract cavity cavity" and "extract cavity edges", which sounds kind of silly.
Help me name this action please? Basically what this actions allows me to do is separate the cavities and the highlights so I have more control on how to apply them to my textures. Instead of just using it as a single overlay layer.
Also since I haven't used a "proper" curvature map before, could someone provide a proper curvature map, so I can make a new action for that specific map type and have the same control as my current "highlight/cavity extract" action?
Cheers.
Replies
btw i had an idea of making a thread for sharing actions or just ideas for automating certain parts of the workflow (not necessarily restricted to just PS). unless there is something like that already.
cos while i have many years of photoshop experience i never really took time to think about what could be automated and what are actual limitations of actions.
Perhaps there's other folks out there who are like that.
only recently i made an action that quickly previews the tiling of a texture, which made the process of making them noticably faster. the edge and cavity separation thing was also on my to do list for some time, though i think haven't recorded it yet.
The curvature map that xNormal bakes even though it bakes information in 2 separate channels, the green channel seems to simply be an inverted version of the red channel or vice versa.
While the cavity map that nDo2 produces is more like a "find edges" effect for the highlights mixed with a cavity map.
They are not so similar as I first thought they were.
Anyway, I have to ask now, what exactly are they used for? I assume it will be handy to add dirt and what not into small crevices, by using it as a mask or something. But than you could do that with the AO bake as well. Perhaps it could be use as a base for an SSS map, or something. Other than that I cant think of any other uses of the top of my head.
So how widely used are curvature maps?
Blaisoid -
I think having a general "improve your work-flow" topic might be too general and thus end up being too cluttered. Allot of people use different software anyway so it might not apply to simply everyone.
So I think a more focused "improve your App X work-flow" topic would be better. That way people can just pick out what works best for them.
If an "improve your work-flow" topic would be made though, I think it is best to just talk about the general work-flow instead of being too app specific.
but what ht found works very good is a script in maya called "r7_vertcurvature" that bakes the concave and convex information into the highpolys vertex colour and it gives me a really good result.
if you use max i believe there is something similar called tension modifier.
Looks like you have some experience with this passerby.
I was wondering if you could make a quick screenshot(or just type it up) of the settings you use inside of xNormal.
Either the default settings are wonky.. or the mesh I am trying to bake is all kinds of crap. I end up with a primarily green map, while I should be getting a black map with reds and greens, right?
While writing this I made more test's and did some more google searches. Jogsy admitted he did not understand curvature maps well enough. So xNormal's outputs will never be correct.. so no use trying I guess.
Ill give the Maya script a try though.
the XN curvature maps are very hitting and miss and tried to use them in the past and usually had to spend like 30min messing with settings to get a good result.
just remeber since your bakeing to verts the high poly needs enough verts to support it.
Having trouble getting it to work. I have put one of the files in the plug-ins folder and loaded the other through "load script" and tried running it. Doesnt seem to work.
Checked my plug ins editor to see if it loading fine, it isn't. The "main.pyc" doesn't seem to want to activate. When I try to activate it I get an error saying it cant find "main.pyc.mll".
Plus the fact that it mentions its using MEL while being a python script confuses me.
Should these files actually go in "c:/programfiles/autodesk/maya/bin/plugins" or do these need to be in the scripts folder in "mydocs"? As the readme says it need to go in the "plug-ins" folder but isn't specific in what folder exactly it needs to be.
I am using 2012 and have no idea what I am doing wrong.
than you run the script with. the mel code.
r7_vertcurvature;
i just made a shelf button with that.
they go in the plugins folder, since there implemented at a scripted plugin.
i got both the "r7_vertCurvature_main.pyc" and "r7_vertCurvatureCmd.py" in that folder, and activated "r7_vertCurvatureCmd.py" in the plugin manager. and simply just run the mel code i got above to start the UI for the tool.
All default settings in the tool work pretty great. you will just need to apply a material that can display the baked vertex colour so you can see the result in the viewport.
As for my original question. I think I will make 2 different actions for the red/green curvature maps and the "cavity curvature" maps.
And call em:
Peaks/Pits (R/G).
Peaks/Pits (B/W).
I'm not sure how you guys are getting the vertexColors -> texture, but this is how I've done it before. You can use the xNormal SMB exporter to export your model with the vertexColors, then use xNormal which has a "Bake highpoly's vertex colors".
A heads up. If you play with the scale value in the r7_vertCurvature plugin then you will get vertexColor values which go above 1.0 (and below 0.0?), and these would end up as black colors on my textures in the end. A workaround is to create the vertex color set in advance with the same name as the r7_vertCurvature calls it's vertex color set. Make sure you clamp the set you create in advance. Then when you run the plugin it won't have to create a set as it already exists. I've gotten this method to work.
Doesn't ZBrush or Mudbox have anything similar to this?
EDIT: Seems to work in 2012 even though zip lists plugins in a "2011" folder. Can't get it to run in 2013 though.
From what I can tell xNormal does exactly what it claims to do in the manual. It does probe for differing surface vertex normal direction between the hp/lp. Similar angles = black, differing angles = white. I bet this can be useful for certain usages, but it's not commonly this I want.
Here's an image to illustrate.
The r7_vertCurvature is much more useful as a mask for usages such as "Where should I add scratches? What areas are more exposed? Where would dirt and grunge be? etc.". Whereas the xNormal one cannot be used as easily for these purposes.
The xNormal one didn't have many options which I could find. Anyone know if these are any good alternatives to getting the r7 results?
*investigative goggles on*
Yeah that's been my problem mostly. I also get the impression that it's a lot harder to get good results with exploded meshes.
I do get varying results based on scale. But these results are still not as useful for using as texture masks as the r7_vertCurvature is imo.
About xNormal and the green maps, like I said in post 6 I encountered this as well.
I read however that if you match the search distance with the ray distance, you get better results. But there always seems to be slightly coloured red or green map, never a perfect black map. But that could probably be because I used a sphere as a test.
On that test sphere however, it seemed like getting greens for sharp edges was pretty hard. I had no trouble getting the reds to bake properly though.
Anyway setting up scripts and plugins to make something work, or using stand alone apps to make things kinda work is not really optimal imo. So having a more.. I guess "magic" solution would be nice. Having an easier method to bake this would be nice.
Has anyone tried Meshlabs? I found that it has some form of "curvature colours" as well, but that also uses a different method of doing things. It bakes a "rainbow" ramp into the vertex colours.
I am thinking though, couldn't we make a curvature map from a object space normal map, not tangent space? All the surface angles and what not should be in the object space normal map. So using that as a base to find the curvature of the surface could be done right? Kinda like nDo2 is already doing with its normal to cavity option.
Maybe we should all just bug Jogsy and help him implement the curvature baking better? Though he is probably hard at work at making xNormal 4 though.
Make a high poly and use r7 as Mask for Decimation Master to save the outlines but decimate the holes.
Would that also be the case with object space normal maps? I mean an OSN would essentially "ignore" the low poly and only bake the normals of the high poly right?
Since people are starting to use object space normal maps more now that Handplane is making them more popular. Using that hype wave and making tools for object space normalmaps might be a nice idea?
But now that I think about it a bit more. Generating a curvature map from even an OSN might not work like you said, if uv borders would be in pits or peaks. If an uv border would be in a pit or peak, the magic a tool uses might think of it as a continuous surface, without changes in normal direction.
Now that I think of it. There's a vertex color -> texture in Maya if I'm not mistaking. Minimizing the steps needed when using r7, keeping it all in the same app.
I thought about it but didn't suggest it as you would need the HP's to be unwrapped as well.
I'm sure that process can be automated as we stay inside of Maya.
Maybe a good little project to start learning some MEL? =P
I'd even consider Python. But learning a bit of MEL first is always good.
I'll have to prioritize my portfolio though, as in a few week "festival of games" will be held here in Amsterdam. And there will be some kind of Job Board.. I needz a job man. =D
So it will probably take me a few weeks.. *A*
Im looking for a shader or PlugIn like this one.
Du you have a new version of your r7_vertCurvature PlugIn for Maya 2014 AND Maya 2015?
I will like to take a look on both Maya Versions.
Thnx in advance.
Cheers!