Advice on details for a cylindrical object

SuperFranky

I have a problem modeling out the carved details on a cylindrical object. I first tried to use floaters, but on some curved sides they proved to not work properly when baked. I want to ask if there's a good way to approach details like that? Should I just model these details in 3ds max? How would you do it? How to avoid geometry pinching when making holes like that ?

WarrenM

You could just nDO stuff like that. It doesn't affect the silhouette so I wouldn't sweat it too hard unless you want the modeling challenge.

SuperFranky

WarrenM wrote: »

You could just nDO stuff like that. It doesn't affect the silhouette so I wouldn't sweat it too hard unless you want the modeling challenge.

Well, I want the best solution. I'd like to fine the best time\quality solution to this problem.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think nDO doesn't want to work with my version of photoshop, so I don't use it.

AdvisableRobin

Depends on how you want to approach this. This is what I would do, if you want these to be actual geo then you should just do it in Max and learn the ways of Hard Surface. But if this is just going to be normal detail then maybe consider using ZBrush's boolean system, they have a pretty extensive tutorial series on their site about using it.

If you were to just model this in Max you could either work with a plane and use bend modifiers later once you have all the shapes or start with the cylinder shape and do some black magic that I'm not sure how to do without just trying...

JustMeSR

SuperFranky wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think nDO doesn't want to work with my version of photoshop, so I don't use it.

You can still model those details on a flat plane and bake. Then just overlay it in photoshop on top of the model's normal map.

SuperFranky

JustMeSR wrote: »

You can still model those details on a flat plane and bake. Then just overlay it in photoshop on top of the model's normal map.

I just tried that method and it works surprisingly well, better than I expected. :thumbup:
Are there any other interesting techniques for normal maps that I never heard of before?

AdvisableRobin

Make sure to renormalize the map, since simply using overlay blending on it won't be correct.

SuperFranky

AdvisableRobin wrote: »

Make sure to renormalize the map, since simply using overlay blending on it won't be correct.

I found a few PS actions that automate that stuff. But what does renormalizing do anyway?

AdvisableRobin

My understanding of normal maps is that you shouldn't treat them like textures, they're mathematical values that were calculated, so if you go through and just overlay blend new values on top of them you aren't going to get the correct result of each pixel color because overlay blending isn't the right math formula for adding the data. Renormalizing is basically a way of correctly blending two normal maps together by doing the correct math involved to get the proper pixel color.

http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/blending-in-detail/
This guy talks about a few different methods of blending normal maps. Its all shader side blending, but still gives you an idea of whats what on the technical end. Its got some solid images that might help better explain what I'm talking about.

SuperFranky

AdvisableRobin wrote: »

My understanding of normal maps is that you shouldn't treat them like textures, they're mathematical values that were calculated, so if you go through and just overlay blend new values on top of them you aren't going to get the correct result of each pixel color because overlay blending isn't the right math formula for adding the data. Renormalizing is basically a way of correctly blending two normal maps together by doing the correct math involved to get the proper pixel color.

http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/blending-in-detail/
This guy talks about a few different methods of blending normal maps. Its all shader side blending, but still gives you an idea of whats what on the technical end. Its got some solid images that might help better explain what I'm talking about.

Thanks for the information