you should take a look at UTs fire hydrant haha that thing is ridiculous.... but it has grime stains and tears... some bumps from when they use them... those are good reference...but so far so good.
I'm not sure you're using the commonly recommended method for normal map generation. It looks like your normal map is being rendered with world coordinates. Most normal maps that are used in game engines are rendered using tangent coordinates. A world normal map might render correctly in a 3D software package, but probably won't show up properly in a game engine.
you should take a look at UTs fire hydrant haha that thing is ridiculous.... but it has grime stains and tears... some bumps from when they use them... those are good reference...but so far so good.
Unreal Tournaments fire Hydrant? Any tips on where I can find an image. I had a look online. I have Unreal Tournament 3, maybe I'll have a look in the game for it .
The normal map needs to be re-rendered like Richard pointed out.
I think it the top piece could use 1-2 loops to help round it out, maybe even model in divots. Or it could be the distortion on the UV layout that is causing the wonkiness?
Nice! Looks like you have a seam between the cap and main section that is coming through in the normals but doesn't appear to be painted in the diffuse. Needs some darkeneing in the middle and highlights around the edges, maybe a little rust too.
Edit - about the normal map, it's not often I see object space normals but they seem to be nicer looking that the usual tangent stuff. There have to be engines out there that use these maps otherwise what's the point of having them?
Edit again - UE3 does support obj space... not sure on other engines
You can easily convert world normal to tangent based, use xnormals. Fire hydrant looks great! Would like to see some chains but nice bake none the less.
Nice! Looks like you have a seam between the cap and main section that is coming through in the normals but doesn't appear to be painted in the diffuse. Needs some darkeneing in the middle and highlights around the edges, maybe a little rust too.
Edit - about the normal map, it's not often I see object space normals but they seem to be nicer looking that the usual tangent stuff. There have to be engines out there that use these maps otherwise what's the point of having them?
Edit again - UE3 does support obj space... not sure on other engines
Depends on the object from what I remember. If it will never deform and always orient the same way to the world axis then its fine. Level dressers like to rotate and position props which might not orient to the world correctly, or a prop might be turned into a physics prop later on where it could be blown all over the level its going light very strangely the second it doesn't align to the world axis.
The results can be nearly identical so why use one that is inflexible, on stuff that might need to be more flexible? Most people just play it safe and stick to one type for all objects.
It's not like its new tech that the world is switching over to use as tech progresses... Just another tool in the box.
Of course you can rotate models that use object-space normal maps. It's such a frustrating myth that you can't. Just think about the name - object space. Relative to the object. Not the world.
And object-space and world-space maps have pretty much no functional difference in how you bake them, either. It's just how the engine uses them. Obviously nobody uses them relative to the world because that'd be silly.
As for advantages, they can get considerably cleaner results with less mucking around with smoothing groups and supporting edges, since they just completely disregard the underlying normals of the model, replacing them entirely (as opposed to tangent space normals which offset the existing normals of the model). Downside is that you can't mirror anything. That's it. That's the only downside.
I think it's well accepted that object space looks the best with the least effort, considering it overrides the smoothing of the low poly and just takes over. While you can get tangent space bakes to look nearly identical to an object space one, it takes more effort and you need the baker's tangents to be synced with your engine yadda yadda. There's a whole other recent thread dedicated to that.
World space and object space stuff use the same maps, and I think they just have different code in the engine. World space stuff is ancient and you can't rotate it or deform it, while with object space you can. This has been demystified time after time and I'm surprised this misinformation is still being spread.
The only thing i would have liked to see is one more division on the top piece, you can see a very visible line running through which could have been solved with one more division.
Of course you can rotate models that use object-space normal maps. It's such a frustrating myth that you can't. Just think about the name - object space. Relative to the object. Not the world.
And object-space and world-space maps have pretty much no functional difference in how you bake them, either. It's just how the engine uses them. Obviously nobody uses them relative to the world because that'd be silly.
As for advantages, they can get considerably cleaner results with less mucking around with smoothing groups and supporting edges, since they just completely disregard the underlying normals of the model, replacing them entirely (as opposed to tangent space normals which offset the existing normals of the model. Downside is that you can't mirror anything. That's it. That's the only downside.
Nobody is arguing that you can't rotate object or tangent spaced normal mapped objects.
Remember there are three types of normal maps.
- Tangent Space, can deform and rotate.
- Object Space, does not deform but can rotate.
- World Space, does not deform or rotate.
This map looks to be rendered in world space not object or tangent. Object and World both use the full color spectrum but they are not always the same. But its hard to say for sure, so he should double check his settings and make sure its a format that matches whatever engine he is using.
Personally I would stick to rendering in one method that works for everything, rigid objects that are static, objects that rotate, deformable objects, tangent does it all.
It would also keep you from rendering the wrong kind of maps on another prop.It sucks bouncing around in different settings for different models, just use the same map type unless there is some specific technical engine related reason. Tangent can also be applied to tiling meshes unlike world or object which require 100% unique UV's.
I'd try to push the specular a bit more. On a realistic fire hydrant, the paint is actually very glossy, easier to keep clean. Also, specular light is almost always (I said almost) the color of the light source because its light reflected. Unless you are trying to fake a SSS effect with colored spec, which is definitely doable, but I dont think it would be appropriate for fire hydrant paint.
Try just for fun taking your spec map as is, and adjust the levels to normalize them. (slide the white arrow to the left to the first tall spike it comes to and the balck arraow to the right the same way.) This will give you a good start to really giving you all there is in that spec map.
Hope that helps, or I could be telling you things you already know:)
I used local xyz bake in 3ds max. I used this because the bake will be superclean compared to other types of normal maps. Earthquake recommended it when making his futuristic gun.
Also to sort out any wonky bits I painted them out on the normal map by using the Rectangular Marquee tool in PS and pulling it across over the wonkyness.
My hipoly isn't that special. It's actually a bit wonky on the hipoly, so that's why it's a bit wonky on the top. lol
Replies
Unreal Tournaments fire Hydrant? Any tips on where I can find an image. I had a look online. I have Unreal Tournament 3, maybe I'll have a look in the game for it .
The normal map needs to be re-rendered like Richard pointed out.
I think it the top piece could use 1-2 loops to help round it out, maybe even model in divots. Or it could be the distortion on the UV layout that is causing the wonkiness?
Edit - about the normal map, it's not often I see object space normals but they seem to be nicer looking that the usual tangent stuff. There have to be engines out there that use these maps otherwise what's the point of having them?
Edit again - UE3 does support obj space... not sure on other engines
The results can be nearly identical so why use one that is inflexible, on stuff that might need to be more flexible? Most people just play it safe and stick to one type for all objects.
It's not like its new tech that the world is switching over to use as tech progresses... Just another tool in the box.
Object space can.
I'd like to see how much of a different object and tangent space look, but I've never seen any experiments or studies to see what one looks better.
And object-space and world-space maps have pretty much no functional difference in how you bake them, either. It's just how the engine uses them. Obviously nobody uses them relative to the world because that'd be silly.
As for advantages, they can get considerably cleaner results with less mucking around with smoothing groups and supporting edges, since they just completely disregard the underlying normals of the model, replacing them entirely (as opposed to tangent space normals which offset the existing normals of the model). Downside is that you can't mirror anything. That's it. That's the only downside.
World space and object space stuff use the same maps, and I think they just have different code in the engine. World space stuff is ancient and you can't rotate it or deform it, while with object space you can. This has been demystified time after time and I'm surprised this misinformation is still being spread.
Remember there are three types of normal maps.
- Tangent Space, can deform and rotate.
- Object Space, does not deform but can rotate.
- World Space, does not deform or rotate.
This map looks to be rendered in world space not object or tangent. Object and World both use the full color spectrum but they are not always the same. But its hard to say for sure, so he should double check his settings and make sure its a format that matches whatever engine he is using.
Personally I would stick to rendering in one method that works for everything, rigid objects that are static, objects that rotate, deformable objects, tangent does it all.
It would also keep you from rendering the wrong kind of maps on another prop.It sucks bouncing around in different settings for different models, just use the same map type unless there is some specific technical engine related reason. Tangent can also be applied to tiling meshes unlike world or object which require 100% unique UV's.
or i could just steal your brain for the secrets....
nice hydrant and tex - pity about the ONLY distortion on the upper bit meh,
Try just for fun taking your spec map as is, and adjust the levels to normalize them. (slide the white arrow to the left to the first tall spike it comes to and the balck arraow to the right the same way.) This will give you a good start to really giving you all there is in that spec map.
Hope that helps, or I could be telling you things you already know:)
Also to sort out any wonky bits I painted them out on the normal map by using the Rectangular Marquee tool in PS and pulling it across over the wonkyness.
My hipoly isn't that special. It's actually a bit wonky on the hipoly, so that's why it's a bit wonky on the top. lol
and scale up one of the loops on the top cap so the shape is rounder.