Hi jogshy!..neat tool and I'm planning on installing it in near future (I know, probably I'm the only one who haven't use it..lol). But I notice that you frequently update this tool, about the installer should I uninstall the old version and re install the new one?..or can just double click the setup and it automatically updates the content without having to do uninstall-reinstall process manually?..
Sorry but I just had to make sure things up before I do and install of every software on my system..thanks in advance!
Thanks for the fast reply Ben Apuna!
I see, that should clear things up. Well personally I prefer to clear the previous version though, cus its like months or weekly basis updates based on the user feedback. Even better to add a "Check for update" buttons in the interface, just a thought of a non-programming dude, dunno if that possible or not heheh..
this is my first post here even though I have signed up a while ago (actually forgot I had an account). I have looked around and did a few searches but couldn't find this, but can xNormal make vector displacement maps? my apologies if this has been answered.
Yep. Btw, two advices:
1. Use the MatchUV to get better results.
2. Caution with FP formats. xNormal normalizes the heights all into range [0,1] and many programs using FP displacements expect real FP signed data.
Is there a way to have a supersampling like Hammersley in 3dsmax?
I'm afraid xn3 uses brute-force supersampling and a box filter.
xn4 will use more advanced AA.
Yep. Btw, two advices:
1. Use the MatchUV to get better results.
2. Caution with FP formats. xNormal normalizes the heights all into range [0,1] and many programs using FP displacements expect real FP signed data.
I'm afraid xn3 uses brute-force supersampling and a box filter.
xn4 will use more advanced AA.
Oh just noticed th thread here for xnormal questions
Hey jogshy!
I'm using xnormal to bake my diff,ao etc map for the usage in cry engine2.
But if I want to use normal maps in ce2 without having seams in the normal map where the uv seams are, I need to use a feature from the 3dsmax RTT.
It's called output as normal bump and is a checkbox at the pretty much end of the render to texture dialog.
The problem is I can't find such an option in xnormal.
Is such a feature in xnormal?
If not could you integrate such a feature?
Then I wouldn't need to bake the normal map in 3dsmax extra if I want to use seamless normal maps in ce2
But if I want to use normal maps in ce2 without having seams in the normal map where the uv seams are, I need to use a feature from the 3dsmax RTT.
It's called output as normal bump and is a checkbox at the pretty much end of the render to texture dialog.
AFAIK that "output as normal bump" just assigns the result to the DX viewport shader.
The problem is I can't find such an option in xnormal.
Is such a feature in xnormal?
If not could you integrate such a feature?
I really don't know how 3dsmax smooths the seams. It's black magic.
AFAIK, if there is an UV seam the light simply cannot be continous.
I bet 3dsmax is making something with the normals but I'm not sure if that will work for hard-edges surfaces. Black magic.
But it does. Try it with Cryengine2. Especially if it comes to mirrored UVWs.
Hmmmm.... maybe it's because when you enable that option, as the normal map enables the DX viewport shader, DX9 computes the tangents...
Let me make some investigations.
Hey everyone.
I ran into some problems today when playing around with curvature studies.
An image is worth more than a couple of words or something:
Anyone know what's going on? Am I doing anything wrong? At one point I managed to export a SBM which had less of these errors, but still not completely free from them.
My idea here is to use the xNormal "Bake highpoly's vertex colors" feature with my highpoly that has stored vertex colors and output this according to my lowpoly model uv layout.
Yep, I'm pretty certain this is it.
Managed to confirm it just now by manually clamping a few vertices colors. Exported this. Imported it. Seems fine on the areas I clamped.
I'm a bit late to this thread, I won't lie... But the GUI. Is it going to see a revision any time soon? Because honestly, I feel like it really doesn't do xNormal justice.
I'm a bit late to this thread, I won't lie... But the GUI. Is it going to see a revision any time soon? Because honestly, I feel like it really doesn't do xNormal justice.
I have some bricks from zbrush and when i bake the edges are super sharp, i have 4x anti aliasing on, i dont know why everything is nice and smooth inside the brick but outside the shape its extremly crisp?
It looks like the you might be getting some raycast misses. Try increase the two ray distances in the Low definition meshes section, then re-bake the normal map.
Hey, this experience was a bit wierd. Anyone know why this happened?
I was having some problems rendering in Xnormal. Xnormal would just freeze up when "analyzing mesh" and then nothing happened.
I know I had a similar issue with xnormal when I tried baking a zbrush model with polypaint information without assigning a file as base texture but this higpoly model was done in Maya and I had;
- triangulated the mesh
- fixed any face normals (not that it should matter)
- cleared history and transform
- exported is as .obj without anything checked (this usually fixes stuff)
None of these things fixed the errror.. But then I tried renaming the model inside maya and now it works.
Hey, I've been stalking this thread off and on for about a year and decided to finally make an account just so I can ask about this really wierd error I'm getting.
When I bake my normals, I'm getting a weird, almost tileable texture across it. My vertex color map comes out perfect, and normally, I don't get any errors that I can't fix, but this one baffles me.
I'm used to using Xnormal, but any suggestions will help.
*edit* Nevermind. I didn't realize that a fine detail texture was left in there. My bad.
I know I had a similar issue with xnormal when I tried baking a zbrush model with polypaint information without assigning a file as base texture but this higpoly model was done in Maya and I had;
- triangulated the mesh
- fixed any face normals (not that it should matter)
- cleared history and transform
- exported is as .obj without anything checked (this usually fixes stuff)
None of these things fixed the errror.. But then I tried renaming the model inside maya and now it works.
If you use non-ASCII characters for the name ( as Japanese Kanji or Cyrillic letters ) you might have problems. Can you compress the mesh with 7zip-ultra and send me the model for debugging, pls?
Nevermind. I didn't realize that a fine detail texture was left in there. My bad.
Yep hehe :poly136:
The fine texture is usually a grayscale image that is blended on the top of the normal map to add micro detail. See the Smiley example for more info.
Hello. This is my first time being on this site. Found it by simply googling Xnormal crashes, and so I guess that explains why I'm here. I'm currently using v3.17.14... and it works fine, just till today. Tried generaating Normal and AO maps from a 3 mill poly mesh from zbrush but it chrashes giving the error: "Out of memory by 9556317 bytes"
I use the Match uvs feature, and also initially used the tool for calculating ray distance, but whenever I click "Go", it gives the above error.
I'm on win vista, 3gb ram, 1.66ghz dual core. The high rez obj file is 523MB large. could this be the matter?? or could it also be that I'm simply trying to render out just 2k by 2k maps??
Thank you for such a wonderful program. Xnormal remains the best.
Cheers
Its for ansiotropy direction. Which is how subpixel fibers affect the overall specual direction. Very apparent on hair, brushed steel and cds. Its what causes the stretched out highlights.
any chance you will have ansio direction map capabilities?
The request here for Santiago to implement this is pretty misguided. You can't simply "bake" this, you need a full-fledged tool to "paint" the direction on top of the model. Its not something that you can just tick on a feature and bake. =P
As you want to define a direction counter to the normal direction, the user must define this, its not "bake-able" data.
Replies
Sorry but I just had to make sure things up before I do and install of every software on my system..thanks in advance!
_Revel
Different versions of xNormal will install side by side in their own separate folders.
I see, that should clear things up. Well personally I prefer to clear the previous version though, cus its like months or weekly basis updates based on the user feedback. Even better to add a "Check for update" buttons in the interface, just a thought of a non-programming dude, dunno if that possible or not heheh..
Will try this tool for my next model!
Cheers.
_Revel
this is my first post here even though I have signed up a while ago (actually forgot I had an account). I have looked around and did a few searches but couldn't find this, but can xNormal make vector displacement maps? my apologies if this has been answered.
Is there a way to have a supersampling like Hammersley in 3dsmax?
http://www.polycount.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=600&stc=1&d=1282663767
Yep. Btw, two advices:
1. Use the MatchUV to get better results.
2. Caution with FP formats. xNormal normalizes the heights all into range [0,1] and many programs using FP displacements expect real FP signed data.
I'm afraid xn3 uses brute-force supersampling and a box filter.
xn4 will use more advanced AA.
To auto-compute them when the meshes are loaded it's not possible atm.
That's great! I always wanted to economy my time on that. Thank you!
Thanks for the answer and the tip! cheers
Hey jogshy!
I'm using xnormal to bake my diff,ao etc map for the usage in cry engine2.
But if I want to use normal maps in ce2 without having seams in the normal map where the uv seams are, I need to use a feature from the 3dsmax RTT.
It's called output as normal bump and is a checkbox at the pretty much end of the render to texture dialog.
The problem is I can't find such an option in xnormal.
Is such a feature in xnormal?
If not could you integrate such a feature?
Then I wouldn't need to bake the normal map in 3dsmax extra if I want to use seamless normal maps in ce2
cheers
sebi3110
I really don't know how 3dsmax smooths the seams. It's black magic.
AFAIK, if there is an UV seam the light simply cannot be continous.
I bet 3dsmax is making something with the normals but I'm not sure if that will work for hard-edges surfaces. Black magic.
Fact is that it's fixing the seam in ce2.
Cheers
Maybe this link helps: http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/13/ENU/Autodesk%203ds%20Max%202011%20Tutorials/index.html?url=./files/WS73099cc142f48755-385a98b012180d20f19-b88.htm,topicNumber=d0e23964
Let me make some investigations.
I ran into some problems today when playing around with curvature studies.
An image is worth more than a couple of words or something:
Anyone know what's going on? Am I doing anything wrong? At one point I managed to export a SBM which had less of these errors, but still not completely free from them.
My idea here is to use the xNormal "Bake highpoly's vertex colors" feature with my highpoly that has stored vertex colors and output this according to my lowpoly model uv layout.
Thanks.
That is the highpoly you see. The curvature data is generated with rebb's r7_vertCurvature script and stored in vertex colors.
All I did was export this in the SBM format, and then import the very same file right afterwards. Unfortunately with these errors.
If you want I can share the highpoly when I get to work tomorrow.
Rebb's curvature script will write vertex colors out of the 0.0-1.0 color range. I think the SBM format doesn't handle this case?
I haven't been able to confirm this. Trying to write a Maya script to clamp the vertex colors. But 65k tris is giving my computers memory a hard time
Will get back on this later today.
Rebb's curvature script will write vertex colors out of the 0.0-1.0 color range. I think the SBM format doesn't handle this case?
I haven't been able to confirm this. Trying to write a Maya script to clamp the vertex colors. But 65k tris is giving my computers memory a hard time
Will get back on this later today.
Managed to confirm it just now by manually clamping a few vertices colors. Exported this. Imported it. Seems fine on the areas I clamped.
Btw, I'm delaying the 3.17.3 Beta 3 on purpose because I'm waiting a NDA to expire to HW-accelerate ray tracing... you'll see why soon :poly124:
Already marked it on my calendar, hope i will be able to mark it again for Xn4
And.. bah! The NDA was extended
And typical hope it dosnt get extended once more then :P
PS: Website seems to have problems(or is it just me?)
[ame]
And yep, I know, xn3's UI sux
I have some bricks from zbrush and when i bake the edges are super sharp, i have 4x anti aliasing on, i dont know why everything is nice and smooth inside the brick but outside the shape its extremly crisp?
I was having some problems rendering in Xnormal. Xnormal would just freeze up when "analyzing mesh" and then nothing happened.
I know I had a similar issue with xnormal when I tried baking a zbrush model with polypaint information without assigning a file as base texture but this higpoly model was done in Maya and I had;
- triangulated the mesh
- fixed any face normals (not that it should matter)
- cleared history and transform
- exported is as .obj without anything checked (this usually fixes stuff)
None of these things fixed the errror.. But then I tried renaming the model inside maya and now it works.
When I bake my normals, I'm getting a weird, almost tileable texture across it. My vertex color map comes out perfect, and normally, I don't get any errors that I can't fix, but this one baffles me.
I'm used to using Xnormal, but any suggestions will help.
*edit* Nevermind. I didn't realize that a fine detail texture was left in there. My bad.
Can you compress the mesh with 7zip-ultra and send me the model for debugging, pls?
Yep hehe :poly136:
The fine texture is usually a grayscale image that is blended on the top of the normal map to add micro detail. See the Smiley example for more info.
I use the Match uvs feature, and also initially used the tool for calculating ray distance, but whenever I click "Go", it gives the above error.
I'm on win vista, 3gb ram, 1.66ghz dual core. The high rez obj file is 523MB large. could this be the matter?? or could it also be that I'm simply trying to render out just 2k by 2k maps??
Thank you for such a wonderful program. Xnormal remains the best.
Cheers
Scoll to about midpoint of the page.
Its for ansiotropy direction. Which is how subpixel fibers affect the overall specual direction. Very apparent on hair, brushed steel and cds. Its what causes the stretched out highlights.
If you are referring to the U/V tangent map like it's used in the UE3 engine... then I need to investigate it a bit :poly124:
The request here for Santiago to implement this is pretty misguided. You can't simply "bake" this, you need a full-fledged tool to "paint" the direction on top of the model. Its not something that you can just tick on a feature and bake. =P
As you want to define a direction counter to the normal direction, the user must define this, its not "bake-able" data.