Normal creation

Maximum-Dev

Hi all,

I've been wondering, what is the best way to make normal from a diffuse?
For example I was looking at how clean and accurate the normal map from this diffuse looks:





Theres accurate variation in height while my own normal maps usually look flat and ugly like this:



Been playing with levels, etc. but just can't get a nice result as this one.

If it was displacement mapping the answer most probably would be hand painting, but as for the normal map I don't think it's possible with this amount of detail.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Maximum-Dev

I just noticed it's done by Quixel's Megascan. Sadly.
My way of making normal sucks anyway

mzprox

These kind of stuff could be made in Zbrush with it's normal map material. You need to have a 3d space for it ofc.

almighty_gir

If it's made by megascan, what's likely happening is that it's capturing the actual normal directions while it's scanning, so it'll be taking into account subtle differences in the direction leaves are facing, as well as hight information. all of this leads to a better normalmap.

in terms of what YOU can do about this? there are a couple of things. firstly, create a hightmap, and then paint in some manual hight differences, you'll need to think about it fairly logically, and do it "per leaf", but it can be done. secondly, check out Scott Homer's (who works at Crytek Nottingham) artical in Vertex 2 (just released), it shows how you can add some normal differentiation to a scene quite easily and effectively.

link to vertex 2 here: http://www.artbypapercut.com/

Scott's article starts on page 46.

Maximum-Dev

@mzprox, Thanks.
@almighty_gir, I read Scot's article at Vertex 2 launch day. Thanks anyway