how do YOU create your height maps?

longhornfan25 · Apr 2011

im trying to figure out the best way to make a height map (not for terrain) its for a modular building, i already have a diffuse texture map

thank you!!!!!!!!!

almighty_gir · Apr 2011

yeah... max, xnormal, and zbrush all produce wildly different results for hight/displacement maps.

Will Faucher · Apr 2011

Like almighty_gir stated here, it really depends on what you want. What kind of heightmap do you want? If you want nice displacement results, it will require baking from a high-poly mesh. If you just want something similar to a bump map, well then you can get that generated from a 2D diffuse map. Or just paint it yourself.

longhornfan25 · Apr 2011

im using 3ds max, so i guess i'd want to do the bump map. baking for the high mesh isnt really an option right now.

what program can you generate a bump map from the diffuse? photoshop.. or a plugin....?

thanks for yalls help

Sean VanGorder · Apr 2011

Try Crazybump

longhornfan25 · Apr 2011

thats what im tryin now... but its giving me som funky results :P

Ryan Clark · Apr 2011

Hey longhornfan25,

Might you be willing to send a copy of your source image to ryan@crazybump.com?

I'd like to take a crack at it, and maybe figure out why CB is giving you funky results. There might be something I can tweak to better handle your image! (Then again, there might not... but in any case I'd love to take a look and see where CB is going wrong!)

cheers,

-Ryan

AnimeAngel · Apr 2011

New tool released for photoshop that has height map conversions built in
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77272
Giving it a run through myself now but it shows a lot of promise

J.D.* · Apr 2011

AnimeAngel wrote: »

New tool released for photoshop that has height map conversions built in
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77272
Giving it a run through myself now but it shows a lot of promise

This. nDo is a very awesome and powerful tool and its free

If your trying to create a heightmap from a photo source, this article might be worth a read. http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9046/normalmapminitutrf7.jpg

how do YOU create your height maps?

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