Tip-Zero Effort Beveling for normal maps
polycounter lvl 9
I've searched the normal mapping thread and i didnt find this tip so I thought I'd post it here.
If you are rendering with mental ray there is a superb time saving feature called 'Round Corners'.
Basically any hard edges the shader sees are automatically 'beveled' using a bump mapping trick.
The cool thing about this is that it's RTT compatible.
Heres a rendered example of the shader in action. both objects have exactly the same geometry.
As as example i created this simple scene containing some boxes and a few bits of floating geometry The boxes are arranged in a grid pattern but obviously as they are not beveld they read as 1 flat surface.
Using a Standard material to bake a normal map i get this
Now if I add a Arch & Design Material to the geometry, scroll down to 'Special Effects' and turn on round corners. I get this:
EDIT:
Speed Issues
Ok there are some things you can do to speed this all up.
Firstly turn off Final Gather. this really slows things down
Secondly I've written a script to apply the round corners shader to a standard material which will render quicker
This will replace the material you have in slot 1 of the material editor. the shader fits in the standard materials bump slot. so you can tweak the radius there
If you are rendering with mental ray there is a superb time saving feature called 'Round Corners'.
Basically any hard edges the shader sees are automatically 'beveled' using a bump mapping trick.
The cool thing about this is that it's RTT compatible.
Heres a rendered example of the shader in action. both objects have exactly the same geometry.
As as example i created this simple scene containing some boxes and a few bits of floating geometry The boxes are arranged in a grid pattern but obviously as they are not beveld they read as 1 flat surface.
Using a Standard material to bake a normal map i get this
Now if I add a Arch & Design Material to the geometry, scroll down to 'Special Effects' and turn on round corners. I get this:
EDIT:
Speed Issues
Ok there are some things you can do to speed this all up.
Firstly turn off Final Gather. this really slows things down
Secondly I've written a script to apply the round corners shader to a standard material which will render quicker
--Create a Standard Material with a round corners shader mat = standardMaterial() mat.bumpEnabled = on mat.bumpMapAmount = 100 mat.bumpMap = Architectural__Round_Corners_Bump () meditMaterials[1] = mat
This will replace the material you have in slot 1 of the material editor. the shader fits in the standard materials bump slot. so you can tweak the radius there
Replies
(Bram : ask Martin! He'll show you)
Another trick to be aware of is you can use multiple versions of the material with different radii.
thanks
never baked with mr so far it always seemed slower o.o
however yan you turn on some sort of texture sampling there too as the resulting map you showed is pretty aliased
sweet!
Totally this. When they added this function (I think when they added Mental Ray?) I heard about it but didn't imagine it would actually work with RTT.
holy shit
Just turn up the sampling in mental ray. increasing the minimal samples should fix that. I wasnt really focusing on the final result only demonstrating the effect
Takes a while to render it out since you really need to up the sampling in order to get clean normals but definitely a time saver.
Without using silly sampling amounts i think the best way is to render oversize.
yes please!
This is a big time saver, nice find!
Edit:
Let me be more specific. 3DS Max can render procedural material information to a diffuse map or a normal map slot by just rendering to texture. When using transfer maps in maya, this does not work. Maya requires a target mesh and a source mesh or the Transfer Maps doesn't work properly. I have the shader working in the basic renderer, but when i use transfer maps, the normal information does not transfer. Is there a setting that i'm leaving unchecked?
TL,DR: Can someone please walk us through what you have to do to get this working in maya?
Thanks
[ame]
This one uses a slightly different method for using it with MR materials:
http://vimeo.com/8589074
My problem (before it even gets to trying to transfer anything to a texture) is that none of these methods work for me on maya 2010. Being totally new to MR settings and materials is making it extra frustrating! Trying all of these methods on a cube gives me a render of a cube..
Are there some MR render settings I need to enable to get these results? any help would be cool.
If anyone has a successful result from inside maya, please show how you did it.
Ya cause that makes perfect sense.
I had to make the switch to maya when i started work at DE, after using max for 7+ years. I have to be honest and say that i am extremely disappointed in Maya's modeling tools and general design.
It's like they all got together and said, "Hey lets make a program that's super awesome for animation, but lets just half ass everything else, and just let the consumer work it out!" Everyone i know who uses maya and "prefers" it over max or XSI says that they have numerous plugins that "improve" their workflow. I have plenty of plugins for maya at my workstation, however it still sucks compared to Max's out of the box software. Seriously... fuck maya.
/end QQ
That's what you get for becoming a Kanuck. Ya should stayed in PA ya bastard.
Anyway, do they FORCE you to use Maya, I thought most places let you use whatever you want now?
no i'm not! spoke too soon! ah well...
1. navigate to the root maya install directory. Locate the file uninstall.exe. Double click that and follow the prompts.
2. insert the 3DsMax install cd into your dvd drive...
well, you all see where this is going. Its a great workaround to getting that soft edge trick to work in maya. (my desperate attempt to keep this post on topic)
Script error for me, max 9 x64, any ideas?
thats very weird. delete the line from the script and click the checkbox yourself
if that doesnt work then try. you will need to set the bump amount to 100
and turn on bump mapping in the maps rollout if it isnt on.
its also possible that max 9 doesnt come with this shader
type: into the maxscript listener. if it returns undefined then the shader isnt included in max 9
Instead of using the script r_fletch_r provides, you could just "unlock" the Round_Corners_Bump Map and then select it from the Map Browser, just like applying a Noise map to the Bump slot (for Max that is).
Guide to unlock the Round_Corners_Bump Map for all Shaders in 3DS Max:
STEP 1:
- Go to <your max install dir>\mentalray\shaders_standard\include
- find architectural.mi and backup it!
- open it with notepad and scroll down till you find
# - Round corners bump shader
- below that you will find a line that says
declare shader vector "mia_roundcorners" (
-delete the "vector"
declare shader "mia_roundcorners" (
-save the file and close it
STEP 2:
-now find architectural_max.mi just below the architectural.mi and backup it too!
-open it with the notepad and scroll down till you find
gui "gui_mia_roundcorners" {
- below that you will find a line that says
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiName" "Architectural: Round Corners Bump",
"category" "Bump",
"addApply" "bump",
"hidden"
-write a # infront of the "hidden" to comment it out. Ignore the other "hidden".
control "Global" "Global" (
"uiName" "Architectural: Round Corners Bump",
"category" "Bump",
"addApply" "bump",
#"hidden"
-save the file and close it
STEP 3:
- launch Max
- pick a standart material in the Material Editor
- under the Maps rollout klick on the bump entity
- choose "Architectural: Round Corners Bump" from the top of the maps list
- adjust the radius (no clue what the other settings are good for)
DONE!
I guess the most of you already unlocked that, just wanted to finaly contribute something to Polycount too
it worked fine in 9.
For simple edge bevels on 90 degree corners i usually just take the UV layout into photoshop and fill in each face with white and then crazybump it. change the sliders to get the size of bevel you want and adjust intensity. works like a charm. just in case you want the same effect relatively quickly and youre not relying on MR.
You need to tell Ryan about that. I bet he world code it as a feature