Sorry for the late answers guys, things have been busy at the Quixel office! A few updates on the way
morph,
Thanks for reporting! Is this 100% reproducible or does it only happen on occasion for you? I'm the one who should be getting a PayPal account! All your feedback is invaluable
purkie103,
I sent you a mail a couple of days back with the solution, but I'll post it here as well should any one else runs into the issue: I found the problem is your units are not set to pixels -- just go to Edit>Preferences>Units and Rulers... and change both Rulers and Type to 'pixels'. Now the height map size should work for you! I will add an automatic pixel unit setter in the height conversion function to make this a non-issue.
Uly,
Thank you for sharing your problem, it's quite baffling it just stopped working without any updates being applied. In the next release we've done some changes which might have a positive effect on this crash.
Just wanted to say I finally tested this out and it is indeed, unbelievably awesome. No errors or anything. Congratulations again!
Now, for future installers, do I have to uninstall the current version before installing or can I just run the new installers and it will take care of itself?
Hi guys. NDo 1 related question. (I get paid this Friday so will then be using NDo2.
Until then Im trying to edit a normal map. All I want to do is add a circular inner beval to a map I've already created in XNormal.
At the minute when I run NDo on the layer, the beveled circle just stays white and no normal information is added.
Am I right in thinking to edit a pre-made normal map I use the "Overlay Normal" script rather than NDo? Ive tried to follow Phillip K's tutorial on creating normals from shapes but It doesn't seem to want to work.
Also, I've downloaded the NDo2 Beta, and Its crashing as soon as I try to create a new map.
There is a NDO 1 thread...
But the workflow would be following:
make circle, change it like you want and then collapse the layers ndo created.
then open your normal map and copy the newly created image over there.
be carefull to rotate the additional normal corresponding to your unwrap though. (if your islands are roatetd that is)
There is a NDO 1 thread...
But the workflow would be following:
make circle, change it like you want and then collapse the layers ndo created.
then open your normal map and copy the newly created image over there.
be carefull to rotate the additional normal corresponding to your unwrap though. (if your islands are roatetd that is)
Thanks man, but im still struggling. TBH I'm not really sure what im doing with NDo. Only use it a couple times.
So heres what I'm doing. (Obv totally wrong).
If I open my Normal Map which I want to add details to and run NDo, it changes my map. No matter what layer its on. I take it NDo doesn't take layers into account?? Just seems to do the whole thing.
Whats would the workflow be when trying to do this. i.e. Open a new scene and run NDo straight away - then create the bevel. OR create the bevel and then run NDo?
Its just that once NDo has ran, it wont let me make any adjustments to my scene, and creating a sculpt layer doesn't take the shapes into account for some reason?? If I create a sculpt layer, and then create a circle, it just appears white.
Im lost. Sorry for the long winded and totally confused reply.
So, NDO 1 isnt actually extracting normal map info from your normal map layer.
What u are looking for is the following:
Create a new file within photoshop.
IN the middle of the document erase the circle. you want to be beveled in at the end
You could now add a bevel to the layer, depending on how you want it to behave you could do that in the ndo menu, too.
Leave it Black and White for now.
Now run NDO, it will convert the selected layer only to a normal map.
Make your adjustments and you will see that it created a bunch of layers in a group.
Collapse this group! (Dont collapse the background with it.
No open up your first normal map and duplicate the ndo map on top of it.
Change the layer to overlay blending mode or whichever technique u prefer.
Done
Also NDO2 Beta is free to test. You dont need any money at the moment.
felipefrango,
Thank you! Yes, the installer takes care of everything, no need to manually uninstall first!
BreaK-,
I think xXm0RpH3usXx may have provided you with the answer you were looking for -- if not, I'll do my best to help out as well. I'm very sorry to hear nDo2 crashes for you The reason it crashes is because of failing to connect to Photoshop. Have you tried the following steps?
Run PS as administrator
Close PS
Run PS as regular user
This you should only have to do once, and once these steps are completed, you should be able to run nDo2 without the connection error. Or have you perhaps tried this and still get the crash? Thanks for taking the time to report!
morph,
Thank you kindly for taking your time to help out! As a side note, I have unfortunately not been able to reproduce your error yet. With the next build you should however not get the error pop-up any more. I'll keep investigating.
Alright guys, finally time to share what's been cooking!
Previewer map binder improvements (now possible to bind map channels to unsaved PS documents)
Unreal-style light rotation support
Maya-style mesh interaction support
...but the major news in this build is:
Photo-normal Preset Browser
The preset browser makes creating normals from photos a whole lot easier. There is also no longer a need to first generate normal, then apply the preset. You'll feel the speed boost! A few key features:
Photo-normal from file, with batch-processing support
Photo-normal from clipboard
Photo-normal from active document
Easily add and categorize your own custom presets
Quick-search your presets
14 new presets!
Here are some results using a few of the presets:
The nDo2 Beta is set to expire in three days. However, we thought that would be pretty sad, so we've now upgraded all 1,500 nDo2 beta accounts with unlimited access to the tool until the day it launches!
Holy shit! These new presets are insane. That leather cushion one, damn. Could you post the original photo you got those normals from? It's actually kinda hard to believe the normal and displacement maps are 100% photosourced.
So, NDO 1 isnt actually extracting normal map info from your normal map layer.
What u are looking for is the following:
Create a new file within photoshop.
IN the middle of the document erase the circle. you want to be beveled in at the end
You could now add a bevel to the layer, depending on how you want it to behave you could do that in the ndo menu, too.
Leave it Black and White for now.
Now run NDO, it will convert the selected layer only to a normal map.
Make your adjustments and you will see that it created a bunch of layers in a group.
Collapse this group! (Dont collapse the background with it.
No open up your first normal map and duplicate the ndo map on top of it.
Change the layer to overlay blending mode or whichever technique u prefer.
Done
Also NDO2 Beta is free to test. You dont need any money at the moment.
Thanks man, massive help. I'll give this a go now.
Yeah I've got NDo2 Beta but it crashes on startup.
I'm still running CS2, if it runs better with CS5 im a little screwed atm.
@teddy:
gratz on a new release and thx for expanding the beta!
just a thought, only luxury:
would u be able to make ndo mini- and maximize with photoshop?
i think it'd feel a lot more integrated and compact then...
havent tried it yet, but are we able to save own presets in custom categories?
BreaK,
I have scheduled for it to be done next week!
morph,
Yup, you can save in custom categories. You can add as many custom folders/subfolders and presets as you like under .../Presets/NormalPresets, they will all show up in the browser. About the auto minimization/maximization, it's a good idea and I have given it a shot a while back. It's not quite as simple as it seems, but I'll put it back into the backlog and see what else can be done.
Awesome update!
Still cant use it at work though. firewall or something makes it impossible to use the presets and previewer. Still if i plug it in to the adsl here at work everything works like a charm. But if I do that the licenses for my 3d apps wont work.. meeh=(
Sure thing! Here are two examples, let me know if you want more
Wow, thanks man, that's just awesome. Also, I didn't wanna come off as if I was doubting the power of the tool and was demanding proof, I just wanted to see what kind of input was required to get these mind blowing results to try to match my source photos as much as possible regarding lighting, color and contrast. Again, congratulations on such a powerful tool and thanks for the comprehensive, constant feedback. :thumbup:
felipefrango,
Thank you! No worries, I completely understood the innocence of your request
Stertman,
We think we may have finally found the solution to your problem! It'll be part of our upcoming release.
In other news!
nDo has its first birthday today, and to celebrate there are a few announcements we'd like to share! First, we're kicking off the nDo2 1080p video tutorial series with the following leathery piece:
Another announcement we're making is we're upgrading our pricing model with the new Freelancer option -- this license will go for just $99, and will allow full commercial use for freelancers.
Do you think Ndo's heightmap could be compared to crazybump's displacement ?
In fact i'd like to use the heightmap in my renderer to have real 3d distortion.
The heightmap generated by Ndo from a pic just slightly looks like a desaturated version of this pic, so it's very flat.
nvm, the nvidia photoshop filter does a decent job from the normal map. So, this is a quick displacement test, with the help of ndo2
Really nice video! nDo2 is really cool. BTW Relly nice video... but the music is a bit off... maybe this one works better [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNcskHlvc2c"]70s porn music from amanda by night - YouTube[/ame] you know... because that is what nDo2 makes with Photoshop. XD Sry for the awkward humor here...
I've been trying to play around with the beta of this and really think it's excellent, however I find it to be quite slow. I realise it takes a bit of time to create a new normal each time you change a slider, but is 30 secs too long? Admittedly my work computer isn't the best, only 2gb of ram and an intel core 2 Q9300 cpu, but I thought it would be a little better in speed.
Is the model preview meant to spin quite fluidly? I get about 1fps on that.
It's a really promising tool though, so I hope it's just a temporary thing for me, because I can see this really improving my work.
Noors,
Up until now it has not been possible to generate height from photo-normals. The photo-normal height mapper will be part of next release. It actually communicates with the nVidia height plug-in, and extends the functionality by enabling tiling and detail enhancement.
SsSandu_C,
Can't stop chuckling at your suggestion!
gateian,
Something is definitely up. Normally you should be able to see your tweaks instantly. The previewer should absolutely not run at 1 FPS. If you run Windows XP you will notice a drop in 3D performance, as XP does not handle transparency in an optimized manner, however 1 FPS is abnormally low.
I've been running nDo2 on a 4 year old laptop with XP installed (Intel Core2 Duo T7600, 2GB RAM) throughout the development process, but have not been able to experience the issues you have been exposed to. This machine produces 10-15 FPS, however is less powerful compared to your specs. Tweaking is instant.
Are you perhaps working with large documents (2-4K), containing many large unzipped normal layers? This could explain the waiting time. When tweaking, nDo2 actually updates the normals instantly -- what takes time is Photoshop redrawing the image. If you have many large and unzipped layers, perhaps this is why PS redraws very slowly for you?
copyright,
Thanks for sharing Nice to see you've really gotten the hang of it now!
Hey everyone! The last few weeks at the Quixel office have been hectic, where we've mainly been swamped in bureaucracy, crazy complex tax rules and other corporate mumbo jumbo madness. We've kept our sanity by affording ourselves this next release!
Improved licensing system -- now possible to activate license without port 3306 access. This is good news for everyone who were previously experiencing firewall issues (mainly large companies)
Tileable photo-normal displacement (note: extends the functionality of the nVidia Filter)
Fixed occasional crash when applying preset to file or clipboard
Bunch of new presets!
Some of the new presets:
(All height maps have been generated with the tileable photo-normal height mapper)
Thanks again for all your awesome feedback and ideas!
Alright, my tests with the nvidia heightmap filter are disapointing. It seems to produce really different results depending of ratio details. I lose lots of informations and I don't really know why. Ofc i get that's a totally faked approximation.
Sorry to bother you with the displacement thingy, but then ndo could be useful for pre-rendered stuff aswell.
Anyway, don't you think it's possible to play with the layer effects, to get the real (or approaching) displacement map similar to the normal map ? I mean, playing with inner glow and stuff. I dream it's possible !
I'm pretty sure that's what crazybump is doing, and that's why displacement from a normal created on the fly in crazybump looks better than a displacement created from an existent normal map.
awesome update teddy i'm still occasionally having problems with the convert layer to normal button though, the application gives an error with a terribly long error code, seems like a large patch of the underlying application code that is being displayed. this doesn't happen when I use the presets though, only when I use the standard convert button. other than that, this is by far my favourite solution for normal maps
Is the update supposed to renew your trial period? I installed early on and didn't get that much time to mess with it because of work and now there are all these awesome updates that I can't try out. I installed the update yesterday, but it still says my trial expired.
Thanks
when i first tried this it was crashing before i did anything, now it seems to work fine. all i can say is wow!! this is a great program, ive been using it to generate a normal and AO map for a 3d motive tutorial im doing.
one problem i did have was once i was happy with my normal, i wanted to convert it to an AO map, when i tried to do it, it crashed and i got a huge page of code. i found a work around though by saving my normal map, closing everything in photoshop, reloading ndo2 then opening my normal map and converting it to an AO map.
Stertman,
Glad to hear it! We really appreciate your confirmation
Noors,Thanks for the feedback! The displacement map is based on nVidia's height conversion algorithm, which produces a pretty accurate approximation of the original normal. All the missıng detail you're describing is actually there, only not visible in the 256 levels of gray perceivable on a computer screen. What you are talking about is detail enhancement, basically a type of auto-leveled high-passıng -- support for detail enhancement control is on its way!
cdevens,
The trial period is static and cannot be renewed, however you will get unrestricted beta access until release by getting your beta key (by creating a user account on http://quixel.se). Let me know how it works out!
Thanks everyone for reporting 32 bit crashes! We're trying to find the cause of this, I apologize for the hassle. To go back to the previous versions of nDo2, you can get them here: http://www.quixel.se/nDo2/nDo2_installer_3.exe (all the way down to _1).
Also, BreaK-, sorry for keeping you waiting with the CS2 support. We ran into a few snags with the localization, but I just want you to know we haven't forgotten about you, or CS2 for that matter
tyddynroger,
On it! We'll try to have a fix for this in the next release. I can't wait to see your tutorial!
sorry! im following a 3d motive tutorial not creating one! im still a beginner unfortunately!
ive come across a problem with tiling, im following a 3d motive modular buildling tutorial and have a tileable brick texture. i tick the "tile" option and have tried ticking the "no outer bevel" option, but i keep getting a bevel around the texture which shows when i plug it into the material editor in udk, any suggestions?
sorry! im following a 3d motive tutorial not creating one! im still a beginner unfortunately!
ive come across a problem with tiling, im following a 3d motive modular buildling tutorial and have a tileable brick texture. i tick the "tile" option and have tried ticking the "no outer bevel" option, but i keep getting a bevel around the texture which shows when i plug it into the material editor in udk, any suggestions?
It's cause your brick texture is on your texture sheet. Cut it out, work with ndo and paste it back. That will do the trick.
Replies
morph,
Thanks for reporting! Is this 100% reproducible or does it only happen on occasion for you? I'm the one who should be getting a PayPal account! All your feedback is invaluable
purkie103,
I sent you a mail a couple of days back with the solution, but I'll post it here as well should any one else runs into the issue: I found the problem is your units are not set to pixels -- just go to Edit>Preferences>Units and Rulers... and change both Rulers and Type to 'pixels'. Now the height map size should work for you! I will add an automatic pixel unit setter in the height conversion function to make this a non-issue.
Uly,
Thank you for sharing your problem, it's quite baffling it just stopped working without any updates being applied. In the next release we've done some changes which might have a positive effect on this crash.
I am opening a texture, convert it to normal and then rightclick on "photograph" to rename it.
Same message then pops up when exiting ndo.
Now, for future installers, do I have to uninstall the current version before installing or can I just run the new installers and it will take care of itself?
Until then Im trying to edit a normal map. All I want to do is add a circular inner beval to a map I've already created in XNormal.
At the minute when I run NDo on the layer, the beveled circle just stays white and no normal information is added.
Am I right in thinking to edit a pre-made normal map I use the "Overlay Normal" script rather than NDo? Ive tried to follow Phillip K's tutorial on creating normals from shapes but It doesn't seem to want to work.
Also, I've downloaded the NDo2 Beta, and Its crashing as soon as I try to create a new map.
64Bit Windows 7. CS2.
Thanks! Any help would be awesome.
But the workflow would be following:
make circle, change it like you want and then collapse the layers ndo created.
then open your normal map and copy the newly created image over there.
be carefull to rotate the additional normal corresponding to your unwrap though. (if your islands are roatetd that is)
Thanks man, but im still struggling. TBH I'm not really sure what im doing with NDo. Only use it a couple times.
So heres what I'm doing. (Obv totally wrong).
If I open my Normal Map which I want to add details to and run NDo, it changes my map. No matter what layer its on. I take it NDo doesn't take layers into account?? Just seems to do the whole thing.
Whats would the workflow be when trying to do this. i.e. Open a new scene and run NDo straight away - then create the bevel. OR create the bevel and then run NDo?
Its just that once NDo has ran, it wont let me make any adjustments to my scene, and creating a sculpt layer doesn't take the shapes into account for some reason?? If I create a sculpt layer, and then create a circle, it just appears white.
Im lost. Sorry for the long winded and totally confused reply.
So, NDO 1 isnt actually extracting normal map info from your normal map layer.
What u are looking for is the following:
Create a new file within photoshop.
IN the middle of the document erase the circle. you want to be beveled in at the end
You could now add a bevel to the layer, depending on how you want it to behave you could do that in the ndo menu, too.
Leave it Black and White for now.
Now run NDO, it will convert the selected layer only to a normal map.
Make your adjustments and you will see that it created a bunch of layers in a group.
Collapse this group! (Dont collapse the background with it.
No open up your first normal map and duplicate the ndo map on top of it.
Change the layer to overlay blending mode or whichever technique u prefer.
Done
Also NDO2 Beta is free to test. You dont need any money at the moment.
Thank you! Yes, the installer takes care of everything, no need to manually uninstall first!
BreaK-,
I think xXm0RpH3usXx may have provided you with the answer you were looking for -- if not, I'll do my best to help out as well. I'm very sorry to hear nDo2 crashes for you
- Run PS as administrator
- Close PS
- Run PS as regular user
This you should only have to do once, and once these steps are completed, you should be able to run nDo2 without the connection error. Or have you perhaps tried this and still get the crash? Thanks for taking the time to report!morph,
Thank you kindly for taking your time to help out! As a side note, I have unfortunately not been able to reproduce your error yet. With the next build you should however not get the error pop-up any more. I'll keep investigating.
Alright guys, finally time to share what's been cooking!
nDo2 Beta v0.0.3.5
First off, a few minor updates and new features:
- Improved normal creation speed
- Photo-normal pre-processing feature
- Previewer map binder improvements (now possible to bind map channels to unsaved PS documents)
- Unreal-style light rotation support
- Maya-style mesh interaction support
...but the major news in this build is:The preset browser makes creating normals from photos a whole lot easier. There is also no longer a need to first generate normal, then apply the preset. You'll feel the speed boost! A few key features:
- Photo-normal from file, with batch-processing support
- Photo-normal from clipboard
- Photo-normal from active document
- Easily add and categorize your own custom presets
- Quick-search your presets
- 14 new presets!
Here are some results using a few of the presets:The nDo2 Beta is set to expire in three days. However, we thought that would be pretty sad, so we've now upgraded all 1,500 nDo2 beta accounts with unlimited access to the tool until the day it launches!
Grab your nDo2 upgrade now!
Thanks man, massive help. I'll give this a go now.
Yeah I've got NDo2 Beta but it crashes on startup.
I'm still running CS2, if it runs better with CS5 im a little screwed atm.
And wow at those Normal previews. :poly121:
Aha! I'm afraid CS2 is not yet supported, hence your crash. A fully CS2 compatible version of nDo2 is in the making.
Woooo! Great news. Any ideas of how long it'll take?
And "xXm0RpH3usXx" I followed what you said and it was a piece of cake. I owe you one! Thanks.
thats what we're here for.
@teddy:
gratz on a new release and thx for expanding the beta!
just a thought, only luxury:
would u be able to make ndo mini- and maximize with photoshop?
i think it'd feel a lot more integrated and compact then...
havent tried it yet, but are we able to save own presets in custom categories?
I have scheduled for it to be done next week!
morph,
Yup, you can save in custom categories. You can add as many custom folders/subfolders and presets as you like under .../Presets/NormalPresets, they will all show up in the browser. About the auto minimization/maximization, it's a good idea and I have given it a shot a while back. It's not quite as simple as it seems, but I'll put it back into the backlog and see what else can be done.
Still cant use it at work though. firewall or something makes it impossible to use the presets and previewer. Still if i plug it in to the adsl here at work everything works like a charm. But if I do that the licenses for my 3d apps wont work.. meeh=(
Wow, thanks man, that's just awesome. Also, I didn't wanna come off as if I was doubting the power of the tool and was demanding proof, I just wanted to see what kind of input was required to get these mind blowing results to try to match my source photos as much as possible regarding lighting, color and contrast. Again, congratulations on such a powerful tool and thanks for the comprehensive, constant feedback. :thumbup:
Thank you! No worries, I completely understood the innocence of your request
Stertman,
We think we may have finally found the solution to your problem! It'll be part of our upcoming release.
In other news!
nDo has its first birthday today, and to celebrate there are a few announcements we'd like to share! First, we're kicking off the nDo2 1080p video tutorial series with the following leathery piece:
[ame="
Another announcement we're making is we're upgrading our pricing model with the new Freelancer option -- this license will go for just $99, and will allow full commercial use for freelancers.
Happy birthday nDo!
In fact i'd like to use the heightmap in my renderer to have real 3d distortion.
The heightmap generated by Ndo from a pic just slightly looks like a desaturated version of this pic, so it's very flat.
nvm, the nvidia photoshop filter does a decent job from the normal map. So, this is a quick displacement test, with the help of ndo2
Thats great news teddy! Cant wait.
Is the model preview meant to spin quite fluidly? I get about 1fps on that.
It's a really promising tool though, so I hope it's just a temporary thing for me, because I can see this really improving my work.
Up until now it has not been possible to generate height from photo-normals. The photo-normal height mapper will be part of next release. It actually communicates with the nVidia height plug-in, and extends the functionality by enabling tiling and detail enhancement.
SsSandu_C,
Can't stop chuckling at your suggestion!
gateian,
Something is definitely up. Normally you should be able to see your tweaks instantly. The previewer should absolutely not run at 1 FPS. If you run Windows XP you will notice a drop in 3D performance, as XP does not handle transparency in an optimized manner, however 1 FPS is abnormally low.
I've been running nDo2 on a 4 year old laptop with XP installed (Intel Core2 Duo T7600, 2GB RAM) throughout the development process, but have not been able to experience the issues you have been exposed to. This machine produces 10-15 FPS, however is less powerful compared to your specs. Tweaking is instant.
Are you perhaps working with large documents (2-4K), containing many large unzipped normal layers? This could explain the waiting time. When tweaking, nDo2 actually updates the normals instantly -- what takes time is Photoshop redrawing the image. If you have many large and unzipped layers, perhaps this is why PS redraws very slowly for you?
copyright,
Thanks for sharing
My friend Curt (WHICKED) made a tutorial of nDo 2 Beta for us to use at ULU. And it is of a very high quality. Here is the link.
[ame="
Hope you all can use it.
Thanks
Lee
CS2 support is still in progress, along with full localization. This is being worked on as we speak!
ArchieVision,
Big thanks for sharing, make sure to thank Curt from the entire Quixel team! We just shared the link via the nDo2 twitter feed
Grab the latest nDo2 here!
Some key additions and improvements:
Some of the new presets:
(All height maps have been generated with the tileable photo-normal height mapper)
Thanks again for all your awesome feedback and ideas!
Sorry to bother you with the displacement thingy, but then ndo could be useful for pre-rendered stuff aswell.
Anyway, don't you think it's possible to play with the layer effects, to get the real (or approaching) displacement map similar to the normal map ? I mean, playing with inner glow and stuff. I dream it's possible !
I'm pretty sure that's what crazybump is doing, and that's why displacement from a normal created on the fly in crazybump looks better than a displacement created from an existent normal map.
Thanks
one problem i did have was once i was happy with my normal, i wanted to convert it to an AO map, when i tried to do it, it crashed and i got a huge page of code. i found a work around though by saving my normal map, closing everything in photoshop, reloading ndo2 then opening my normal map and converting it to an AO map.
Glad to hear it! We really appreciate your confirmation
Noors,Thanks for the feedback! The displacement map is based on nVidia's height conversion algorithm, which produces a pretty accurate approximation of the original normal. All the missıng detail you're describing is actually there, only not visible in the 256 levels of gray perceivable on a computer screen. What you are talking about is detail enhancement, basically a type of auto-leveled high-passıng -- support for detail enhancement control is on its way!
cdevens,
The trial period is static and cannot be renewed, however you will get unrestricted beta access until release by getting your beta key (by creating a user account on http://quixel.se). Let me know how it works out!
Thanks everyone for reporting 32 bit crashes! We're trying to find the cause of this, I apologize for the hassle. To go back to the previous versions of nDo2, you can get them here: http://www.quixel.se/nDo2/nDo2_installer_3.exe (all the way down to _1).
Also, BreaK-, sorry for keeping you waiting with the CS2 support. We ran into a few snags with the localization, but I just want you to know we haven't forgotten about you, or CS2 for that matter
tyddynroger,
On it! We'll try to have a fix for this in the next release. I can't wait to see your tutorial!
ive come across a problem with tiling, im following a 3d motive modular buildling tutorial and have a tileable brick texture. i tick the "tile" option and have tried ticking the "no outer bevel" option, but i keep getting a bevel around the texture which shows when i plug it into the material editor in udk, any suggestions?
It's cause your brick texture is on your texture sheet. Cut it out, work with ndo and paste it back. That will do the trick.