ANSWERED: How to combine normals?

Dklang

thought it would be easy but cant do it. I got a diffuse that i want to be non glossy, and another diffuse i want to combine that has elements that are very glossy. These elements or whatever dont overlap in this case so i dont need to overlay. Not sure how this is done.

Synaesthesia

It's hard to visualize what you mean without some images to explain. Would you be able to attach some?

Dklang

im actually trying to know in general, like how if i have a box and one side of the box i want a different rubber material than that of the other sides which are metal. So how can i do this? but in my current case, i can just mask it in photoshop but i would like to know if there is an easier way within ndo. I dont think images will tell us much since its confusing looking. side question: how do i get ndo to work with unreal?

CKohl

So if I understand what you're trying to do, you want to apply multiple materials to the same object (and obviously have them look like the right materials with the right specular and gloss values).

That doesn't really have anything to do with NDO or combining normals. That's all handled in DDO. You'll want to make a Color ID map and then assign your different materials to it in DDO. With that your masking will be done automatically.

The manual
DDO intro
Color ID maps

This video also explains most of the important bits about working with DDO:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A7Pq8bY3SM[/ame]


And I'd highly recommend checking out the sample project files to see how they're structured.

Gordon Robb

Yup. ColourId map is what you need.

Dklang

ive been reading those tutorials, there seems to be a lot i dont know. Would using Quiexel honestly be good idea for a noob like me? For the normals, i wanted to blend 2 materials in one normal map but i realize in 3d softwre i could just have seperate normal file for each material in maya. But since im doing this for unreal, whats the best way of doing it? can i just quickly ask how can i not have some edges outlined in the normal map? like at the UV borders, for instance the back of the head where the UV is cut.

Eric Ramberg

I don´t think I can answer it better than Ckhol did, all the information you need about DDO is in his post As far if you should use Quixel, once you get a hold of the basics DDO is pretty straight forward, but without the basics it can get quite complicated. I would suggest you read up on the most common things associated with game assets creation first.

As far as your normal map issue I´m not entirely sure I understad what it is you want, maybe you could post an image?

CKohl

That's a lot of questions all in one post.

You can have many materials in one normal map. A lot of what defines a material as.. well, a material.. is in the specularity of how light plays off of the surface, which is why computer scientists invented the Specularity and the Gloss map (and other stuff like Metalness which is another way to achieve similar results.) Without a texture map to control your specularity a normal map by itself isn't going to do much for a model as it isn't primarily what defines a surface as a substance like metal. It's by combining a normal map for surface detail/bump with specular and gloss to control 'reflected' light intensity and size of highlights that you can simulate a material that looks like what it's supposed to look like.

Here's something that you might find useful:
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice

Quixel is definitely great for getting you started on a project. It handles a lot of the set up and grunt work that would be time consuming to do by hand so that you can focus on getting results that you want. However the underlying theory of how light interacts with matter is important to understand regardless of what tools you're using since that's really what we're always trying to replicate or even 'fake' when we're making digital art. Your specular map will generally have brighter values and whites for shiny stuff like metal and be darker, sometimes almost black in areas that aren't shiny, like soft rubber.

This is why I recommend taking a look at the sample projects Quixel provides so you can poke around and see what makes them tick and deconstruct their Albedo/Normal/Specular/Gloss/etc. maps to learn how they work and interact with each other.

I'm not entirely positive by what you mean about not having edges "outlined" at UV borders. Do you mean fading out a normal near the borders so it doesn't make a harsh line when it crosses over the seam? So like for the back of a head, not having hair that obviously doesn't line up?

(It's that word "outlined" that's throwing me off here methinks.)