Creating Normal maps, Ambient Occlusion, etc.

kevingamerartist

Hi all,
I have a question about creating Normal maps, Ambient Occlusion, Displacement maps, and other types of maps. I use Crazybump right now for Normal maps and Ambient Occlusion, however is Crazybump a good program to create those types of maps, or should I use a different program if I can? Should I use Crazybump when I create Height maps and Displacement maps, or should those be created by a different program?

I know this might be going a little off topic than what the title of this thread is named, but which types of textures are ideal for using Height maps and Displacement maps? Also when you create Cavity maps, what types of textures besides rock textures are ideal for using that type of map?

Any information on these is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

AdvisableRobin

I assume you are talking about photo source, I.E. generating your maps based on an image, then there are a number of programs available. Quixel's dDo and nDo. Allegorithmic's Bitmap2Material and Knald.

Displacement maps are used for controlling real-time Tessellation.
Height maps can be used for a few different things, they most commonly are converted into normal maps.
Cavity maps are generally for masking out the cavities while you texture your asset. They can be used to speed up the process of say adding edge damage.

NegevPro

Ideally you'd want to get your normal map and AO, along with other maps, from baking a high poly model onto a low poly model either in your 3D package or with software like xNormal since it guarantees the highest possible quality map, but if you are talking about obtaining the maps from a generic image, then I don't think it really matters which software you use. nDo and dDo are both great pieces of software as mentioned above, personally I love Knald because of how blazing fast everything is.