Answered: Questions on old hardware

Toro

Hello Q team,
 I have a few questions regarding your suite. I have an old laptop ( no plans to upgrade atm) I use for my hobby needs with HD integrated graphics (everything I need runs fine so far). I have downloaded the trial and while I'm oblivious to most of the suites uses, I have been impressed so far with it's ease of use. I downloaded this because I needed ndo2 to produce normal maps and that seems to work fine on my machine with photoshop cc5. 3do crashes but I'm fully aware it's because of integrated graphics. I'm not sure if dDo or megascans works because I don't have a use for them atm. So my questions are:

1. Which tools work on intel hd3000 ? NDo works (I get that there's no official support)
2. If only ndo2 works, do I have to buy the whole suite for this 1 tool ?
3. Should I consider the legacy version ? Will I give up better normal maps with the legacy version ?
4. Any unofficial optimizations you can share to  run on integrated graphics is appreciated.

Synaesthesia

DDO and NDO should work with integrated graphics, but I wouldn't expect 3DO to display anything you've made with that laptop's specifications.

You can buy NDO by itself from www.quixel.se/suite2 - DDO and NDO are separate purchases if you so desire.

Legacy doesn't support some additional features that NDO does in its current state, such as 3D painting and improved normal detailing.

I have no optimizations I can think of regarding integrated graphics - the minimum specs require a GTX 600 series card specifically because 3DO requires that to run. So long as you have enough RAM (e.g. more than 8 GB) you should be OK, but you won't be able to easily preview anything you're developing, unfortunately.

Toro

So NDO2 is much better is what your saying ?  So if I buy NDO by itself, I still have to install the suite and only the NDO button will work ? And yes, I realize that I have no preview cube.. (you need 3do) Would I have a preview cube with NDO legacy or is it I wouldn't have it there either due to integrated graphics ?
  Ok another queston regarding normal maps. Forgive me if terminology is wrong. Noob here. 
I have a texture map that represents several materials. Wood,Stone and metal. I convert my image using a wood photo normal preset. Now I want to section off a chunk and add a different metal preset . But the whole thing is changing,, not just the selection.  Hopefully you get what I'm trying to say..
Thanks for your prompt response..

Synaesthesia

The Suite itself is required to work with either NDO or DDO. It is the framework with which both tools are distributed.

I wouldn't imagine NDO Legacy would function well for previewing purposes using integrated video. It may or may not - you'll need to try it out to see.

You can't convert selections via a preset - that converts an entire image. To work with selection-based normals, you'd need to create a selection, then cut that selection out of the raster image you're working with. Once you cut it, then CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste in place so it goes back to where it originally was cut from. Afterward, click the "X -> Normal" button that appears in the center of the NDO window and adjust the normal map as-needed.

Toro

Thank you for your patience. Keep in mind I'm a hobbyist (not developer) so please small words   , I was able to follow your directions tho. Thank you   

Last few questions, then you can cut me loose.
I now have my original image and several windows named BaseMaterial (Normal). All good there, but how do I combine those normal windows. I can't seem to "cut" anything from the normal (I tried every layer) ... I could probably save them seperately, then re open in photoshop and cut/paste but I'm thinking there's a smarter way.

Lastly, unrelated to above, there's a behavior that I've noticed when first converting an image to normal. It seems like half the time, I'll get another window with the normal image (thus 2 windows in photoshop)  and the other half the time,it will convert the image to normal in the same window (only 1 window)   Hopefully you understood that ...
Which is the correct behavior ?

Synaesthesia

It's getting a bit difficult to follow along here - if possible, could you attach video showing what you're attempting to do?

Toro

Making videos would probably take me as long as it takes to figure this out. I'm sorry my terminology is probably confusing things. Let me rephrase. I managed to cut out all the pieces and normal map them the way I want. So now I have 4 or 5 photoshop tabs with sections and no way of combining them all into 1 image. 

And my second thing above is regarding when it makes the normal map. Sometimes it will do this in the active tab of my image,, sometimes it will create a new tab called base material...

Synaesthesia

When it creates a texture called BaseMaterial [Normal], it's doing this so that 3DO can preview what you're working on. To avoid that, put all assets you plan to convert into a folder called NORMAL and work from there, assuming you have the NDO scaling layers above and below the NORMAL group.

You might want to take a read through my NDO tutorial: https://quixel.se/tutorial/vehicular-hard-surface-detailing-using-quixel-ndo/

It doesn't specifically address your use-case, but the section titled "Working with Raster Graphics and Heightmaps" (CTRL+F to search for it easily) will definitely put you on the right path to do what you're attempting.

Let me know if this helps out!