Thanks to your feedback, I retrieved a trial copy of CS2 and have now made the tool fully compatible with CS2 as well. Download the latest version (http://philipk.net/ndo/nDo.zip) and let me know if it works for you too. nDo was originally not even tested for Photoshop CS2 -- it utilizes some scripting features only available in CS3 and up. Hopefully it will work for you now!
Thanks to your feedback, I retrieved a trial copy of CS2 and have now made the tool fully compatible with CS2 as well. Download the latest version (http://philipk.net/ndo/nDo.zip) and let me know if it works for you too. nDo was originally not even tested for Photoshop CS2 -- it utilizes some scripting features only available in CS3 and up. Hopefully it will work for you now!
I'm on CS2 as well and the controls seem to work great. Lots of potential there, but when I run something through nDo, I get an offset of the stuff in the image (around 30 pixels). Like this:
AHaH! it works on my cs4 now!!! hmm... I just redownloaded. Sweet! Thanks Teddy!! you ROCK!! and the tutorials are a perfect compliment! thanks Phil!!:)
Are you sure you are not still having this issue? I looked into it, and this happens in CS2 when you say yes to the alert "Remove bevel for pixels that intersect the canvas edges?" (if you select no, your normal will not be offset).
This issue is due to CS2 dealing with 'Smart Objects' differently than in later versions of Photoshop. I'm able to reproduce the error even after trashing the preferences. Hopefully the CS2 users out there can learn to live without this bevel-removal feature, as I haven't been able to find a good work-around (yet).
Can you add a close button for nDo Teddy? It works great on the mac except the only way to get out of it is to click Make Sculpt Layer I realized and you don't always want to do that.
For some reason on the mac there is no window close options.
Are you sure you are not still having this issue? I looked into it, and this happens in CS2 when you say yes to the alert "Remove bevel for pixels that intersect the canvas edges?" (if you select no, your normal will not be offset).
This issue is due to CS2 dealing with 'Smart Objects' differently than in later versions of Photoshop. I'm able to reproduce the error even after trashing the preferences. Hopefully the CS2 users out there can learn to live without this bevel-removal feature, as I haven't been able to find a good work-around (yet).
doh yes you're right - when I choose 'yes' it does the offset (and leaves the bevel behind). Now I know its not me being slow, I can work around it though . Cheers for trying.
This is such a powerful tool Me and a couple of buddies from work have been messing around with this morning, and its been great. We can think of alot of uses for this, and i'm crazy exciting about how well it gets rid of high frequency nose, but still retains shape, then you can paint in some more detail... edge detailing, oh god I'm gonna have fun!
This is fantastic, definitely going to be using this a lot, what a great time saver .
Have you ever though of using curves for defining how the bevel looks like? That could make the tool a lot more powerful!
You could create some very interesting geometry with more complex bevel curve profiles
This script seems awesome but i got a weird bug on PS CS2.
After running the script on Philipk image (the concrete one on this page : http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/ndo/ndo.html) i got this weird image (all the sliders are tweakable etc but nothing changes) :
Any idea where this could come from ?
Running it on CS2 and win 7 64bits
btw, nice idea Peris, this could simplify a lot the creation of certain shapes
Wow man, this is an awesome resource, im for sure adding this into my workflow, it saves time from going into Crazybump, etc.. and you can sculpt in it too!! :thumbup: :thumbup::poly136:
Yes, this is something I too have been thinking about. The bevel curves sadly do not work in that desired way though (create a sculpt normal and play around with its bevel curve settings 'Gloss contour' and you'll see what I mean). There might be a way though, I will keep you posted if my tests show promise.
I realize you might not have been able to test it on a mac setup, but I'm only able to change one value before nDo loses focus and my entire Photoshop UI becomes unclickable. I have to press Esc to close the nDo window and run it again to change another setting, so fine tuning is pretty much impossible. Any idea what might be happening?
I have the exact same issue as Snowfly. I'm also on Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6.4) and CS4. My computer is a 2008 penryn model Macbook Pro(4.1), with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and nVidia GeForce 8600M GT.
I extracted the nDo folder into my Photoshop application directory (I reloaded the script inside PS as instructed), although I don't see how that could cause any issues. As Snowfly said, the script runs fine and it initially generates normals with no problem, but when I try to adjust the sliders or setting Photoshop just completely locks down and all the menus including the nDo menu grays out until I press Esc.
I think I have the solution to your problem -- please provide me with your contact info (MSN preferably) and let me send you an updated, mac-friendly version of the script. If all turns out well, I'll then update the official .ZIP download.
Really damn slick man, that's for offering this to the community. I'll certainly be giving this a trial run at work tomorrow and showing it to the team. Could save quite a bit of time.
Man, I am loving this thing. Great job on this! I love that I don't have to leave photoshop to open (yet another) program to edit some of the normals on my maps. This is fantastic. Tried it out on some generic river rocks from a photosource. It picks up shapes swimmingly(pun).
I just gave it another try and encountered the following problem. How do you ensure that the generated normalmap remains tilable as the source heightmap was.
I guess you could start adjusting this by hand and normalising the results. But depending on your input parameters the seams created by the algorithm are quite heavy.
Is there something I've missed? In xnormal there is an option to ensure tileable textures. Other than that i see no alternative but fixing this by hand which can be a real pain (depending on the texture)
Ok I just checked again with different heightmaps. The issue was the initial heightmap, it didn't tile perfectly. This wasn't noticable at first glance but was obvious in the generated normalmap.
I checked with a perfectly tiled map and of course it works as intended. My fault.
Slave_zero was actually right from the start. Photoshop has no way of ensuring tilability in its bevel system. Even if the tool increases tilabilty by removing bigger edge bevels, there will still be slight a mismatch in the normal edges. HOWEVER, I am implementing a fix for you as I write this. Keep you posted.
Pure awesome!
It works really well. The resulting normalmaps are tiling perfectly. I even tried it with my not perfectly tiled heightmap which I've mentioned in my earlier post. It even works work textures that are not perfectly tiled.
Replies
using XP 32bit, CS2
Thanks to your feedback, I retrieved a trial copy of CS2 and have now made the tool fully compatible with CS2 as well. Download the latest version (http://philipk.net/ndo/nDo.zip) and let me know if it works for you too. nDo was originally not even tested for Photoshop CS2 -- it utilizes some scripting features only available in CS3 and up. Hopefully it will work for you now!
Teddy
really cool tool, been toying around, but my stuff doesnt even remotely look good -.-
well, thats a 40 inch prob though
thx for making it freely available!
Thank you!
EDIT: Good lord, this program is amazing!
EDIT -
I tried resetting my prefs and it worked for me. yay. now to actually use it. Thanks again chaps
Kudos for you!
Are you sure you are not still having this issue? I looked into it, and this happens in CS2 when you say yes to the alert "Remove bevel for pixels that intersect the canvas edges?" (if you select no, your normal will not be offset).
This issue is due to CS2 dealing with 'Smart Objects' differently than in later versions of Photoshop. I'm able to reproduce the error even after trashing the preferences. Hopefully the CS2 users out there can learn to live without this bevel-removal feature, as I haven't been able to find a good work-around (yet).
Can you add a close button for nDo Teddy? It works great on the mac except the only way to get out of it is to click Make Sculpt Layer I realized and you don't always want to do that.
For some reason on the mac there is no window close options.
doh yes you're right - when I choose 'yes' it does the offset (and leaves the bevel behind). Now I know its not me being slow, I can work around it though
Thanks again!
The sculpt layers look badass. I can definitely see them coming in handy. Great examples in the tutorial.
been waiting on someone to do this in photoshop since I started working with normal maps hehe.
is there a tutorial somewhere on how to start working with it on a pre-existing normal map? is that possible?
would be cool to have the tutorials on youtube as well!
i made all these steps in the install tutorial, I have CS4, win seven x64
Have you ever though of using curves for defining how the bevel looks like? That could make the tool a lot more powerful!
You could create some very interesting geometry with more complex bevel curve profiles
After running the script on Philipk image (the concrete one on this page : http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/ndo/ndo.html) i got this weird image (all the sliders are tweakable etc but nothing changes) :
Any idea where this could come from ?
Running it on CS2 and win 7 64bits
btw, nice idea Peris, this could simplify a lot the creation of certain shapes
Many thanks..
Yes, this is something I too have been thinking about. The bevel curves sadly do not work in that desired way though (create a sculpt normal and play around with its bevel curve settings 'Gloss contour' and you'll see what I mean). There might be a way though, I will keep you posted if my tests show promise.
pepp0r,
As posted a bit earlier in the thread, this might do the trick for you: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1219732&postcount=46
It is likely that you have a corrupt PS preference file that needs to be trashed.
GoSsS,
Thanks for reporting, I will look into it -- send me your PSD file (to teddy.bergsman[at]gmail.com) and we'll go from there.
Really, thanks everyone for all the great feedback and kind words!
Teddy
I realize you might not have been able to test it on a mac setup, but I'm only able to change one value before nDo loses focus and my entire Photoshop UI becomes unclickable. I have to press Esc to close the nDo window and run it again to change another setting, so fine tuning is pretty much impossible. Any idea what might be happening?
OSX 10.6.4 + CS4
I extracted the nDo folder into my Photoshop application directory (I reloaded the script inside PS as instructed), although I don't see how that could cause any issues. As Snowfly said, the script runs fine and it initially generates normals with no problem, but when I try to adjust the sliders or setting Photoshop just completely locks down and all the menus including the nDo menu grays out until I press Esc.
I think I have the solution to your problem -- please provide me with your contact info (MSN preferably) and let me send you an updated, mac-friendly version of the script. If all turns out well, I'll then update the official .ZIP download.
Teddy
I guess you could start adjusting this by hand and normalising the results. But depending on your input parameters the seams created by the algorithm are quite heavy.
Is there something I've missed? In xnormal there is an option to ensure tileable textures. Other than that i see no alternative but fixing this by hand which can be a real pain (depending on the texture)
isnt that supposed to do just what you are asking for?
I checked with a perfectly tiled map and of course it works as intended. My fault.
Slave_zero was actually right from the start. Photoshop has no way of ensuring tilability in its bevel system. Even if the tool increases tilabilty by removing bigger edge bevels, there will still be slight a mismatch in the normal edges. HOWEVER, I am implementing a fix for you as I write this. Keep you posted.
Teddy
you ROCK \m/
- Tilable normals - nDo asks you if the map you are converting is tilable, and reacts accordingly
- Close button (mac user request)
- Remove button (to quickly remove the currently selected normal)
Get it here: http://philipk.net/ndo/nDo.zipTeddy
a 3D preview window!
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WS2D467BBF-7486-41ae-8028-0E159578AD88.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/WS2D467BBF-7486-41ae-8028-0E159578AD88.html
i'm no programmer though, so i dunno how hard it is to implement this...
Thank you a ton, good sir!
It works really well. The resulting normalmaps are tiling perfectly. I even tried it with my not perfectly tiled heightmap which I've mentioned in my earlier post. It even works work textures that are not perfectly tiled.
Good job!