Gradient maps

islipaway

Is there any documentation on this input? On the wiki here http://quixel.se/usermanual/quixelsuite/doku.php?id=ddo_mainmodule it says these images should be black/white but in this tutorial on the wiki http://quixel.se/usermanual/quixelsuite/doku.php?id=deusexbreakdown the gradient map appears to be coloured (presumeably differnt colours representing right/left top/bottom front/back.

acealmighty13

I looked it up this past weekend. It's quite clever.

http://technical-eden.blogspot.com/2012/01/gradient-mapping-awesome-way-to-get.html

The way it works, you create a diffuse map that is shades of black and white. You create a gradient of various colors you'd like to see in your texture and build your own gradient in Photoshop. Finally, you place your gradient on an empty canvas for a Gradient map. I can't remember the rest but I plan on working with this idea very soon. I'm looking to build a stylish looking map. Gradient maps will help me out a lot in that area. Gradient maps have other uses as well but the one I describe is used in L4D.

http://technical-eden.blogspot.com/2012/01/gradient-mapping-awesome-way-to-get.html

Bek

Acealmighty, that's not how I understand dDo uses gradient maps.

dDo wants a black/white gradient from the bottom to top of your model. This is used by smart materials / dynamask to mask materials to certain areas based on the gradient — so mud splatter would be heaviest on a characters boots and decrease/falloff as the model gets higher.

As for creating a gradient, I would hope there is some way to project such a gradient onto a model which could then be baked. I haven't thought about it much but I'm sure it could be done. The current method I've used was to bake a rather wide AO map with an added Hemisphere under my model — causing it to bake darker further down.

Ryan Hawkins

Here are the scripts we mostly use for the gradient maps we use which are lighting directions separated into the channels. If you do not supply one from the start you get one still from the object space map included in your dynamask option you just need to enable it. Though this map DDO creates for you is only a temporary solution you should still bake your own.

MAYA GRADIENT MAP TOOL
http://www.kostas.se/?p=343

3DSMAX GRADIENT MAP TOOL
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=131349

acealmighty13

Bek wrote: »

Acealmighty, that's not how I understand dDo uses gradient maps.

dDo wants a black/white gradient from the bottom to top of your model. This is used by smart materials / dynamask to mask materials to certain areas based on the gradient — so mud splatter would be heaviest on a characters boots and decrease/falloff as the model gets higher.

As for creating a gradient, I would hope there is some way to project such a gradient onto a model which could then be baked. I haven't thought about it much but I'm sure it could be done. The current method I've used was to bake a rather wide AO map with an added Hemisphere under my model — causing it to bake darker further down.

My apologies. I wasn't even considering dDo into the equation of your answer. I just wanted to know what they were, and how they played out in building a material. From my understanding, and a video I watched the gradient map from black to white you apply to your model in 3ds Max and render to texture, the black to white shows the order of importance for details on the UV map. Meaning, black would be smaller UVs, and white being larger UVs.