Normal maps

Samuraidragon13

Found out this week in my advanced modeling class that I have been going about creating normal maps all wrong. It was recommended that I create a grayscale bit map first then use that in my normal map generator. Does anyone have any tips or tutorials on how to create good grayscale bit maps to use to make my normal maps look better?

cryrid

http://www.farfarer.com/temp/normalMapMiniTut.jpg


Hopefully this isn't the only way they're teaching you to create normal maps though.

JustMeSR

Samuraidragon13 wrote: »

I have been going about creating normal maps all wrong.

What wrong method? I know only about converting (using "normal map generator") and baking and neither one is wrong.

Edit: Oh I see the "Crazy bump" one.

As for tips...baking height map from hi-poly mesh and adding details onto that is one method. Having alphas is extremely useful for this kind of stuff. Aside from that your texturing skills should make a difference in greyscale creation too.

JedTheKrampus

There are lots of completely correct ways to make and alter tangent space normal maps. You can bake to tangent space from a hi-poly mesh, bake to world space from a hi-poly mesh and use Handplane to convert the map to tangent space, paint a heightmap in Photoshop or Mari and convert it to a detail normal map with Knald or Crazybump, overlay those two normal maps with Substance Designer or nDo2, paint on the normal map with 3D-coat, etc. etc. There are no rules and the sky is the limit.

Urzaz

cryrid - Thanks for the graphic! It's concise and a useful explanation!

JedTheKrampus - I believe you can also combine normals in CrazyBump, so it seems to encourage you to not use just CrazyBump. (But it is a quick, cheap tool to have around!)

Samuraidragon13

@cryrid Thank you. That tutorial describes exactly what my instructor was talking about. No this isn't the only method they have been teaching us.