Normal mapping a whole character at once ?

snap.crackle.pop

Do you guys normal map a whole character all at once (project the whole mesh with one single projection)or do you normal map each pieces individually one by one and assemble them in a separate *tga file ?



The way i look at it right now, is that i would be better off mapping each section of my character separately, when i render my N.M it look like a real mess. Now im getting white part that i have no idea where they are from, and tons of gliches.

pior

You dont even need to bake separate maps. Simply shift both the low and high poly versions of say, the kneepad away from the leg, render, no glithes!

snap.crackle.pop

Man .. hold on, im going to try this out just right now. Gimme 30 mins if this works i will comeback here with my first son named after you.

Just wang in there

SuperOstrich

Yeah, Max's RTT hates overlapping geo like you have there. I usually bake them all separately, but Pior's method sounds really cool. I'm going to try it on my next character. The only issue I see is having my entire high poly model in Max at once might be a bit performance-lagging.

snap.crackle.pop

Yes Pior your method works

But now my im getting lots of white patches all over my meshes, what is the white ?

snap.crackle.pop

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Yeah, Max's RTT hates overlapping geo like you have there. I usually bake them all separately

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Personal curiosity what other method is there to bake textures for a character with lots of individual pieces ?

Noren

You can also use the polygroups/subobject-sets, (or whatever they are called), of the projection modifier to cast from chosen objects to polygons specified by you. Comes in handy when you don't want to or can't move things around. (Or want to rerender just parts of your map without breaking the lowpoly apart). You will get an extra set of renderings for every group created and have to combine them later in PS.

If you render all at once, it can be very helpfull to render an additional "mask"-pass. Assign pure R,G,B or black as color to single objects of the highpoly. (E.g. 255,0,0 for red ). In PS you then can easily access those selections in the channels tab. (ctrl-click on the channel of your choice.)

fritz

yeah...that's what i do. except i always render out solids after i lay out my uv's....then just bake whatever parts i want, when i want. then open the normal maps in pshop and slap them into place over my flats in my main psd file

snap.crackle.pop

:suicide:

Man, i still have trouble visualizing this whole N.Mapping thing. Your in for a big headache with all the methods and rules there is. Its going to take me some time to get the gibs of this sh!t.

fritz

yes it is. ain't gonna happen overnight. i'd practice on some objects first.