Hey Teddy, got a slight problem with the view cube in CS5. When NDo2 opens, the view cube appears in the middle of the screen, with a shadow of the cube off towards the right.
Hey Teddy, got a slight problem with the view cube in CS5. When NDo2 opens, the view cube appears in the middle of the screen, with a shadow of the cube off towards the right.
Heres a screen grab.
Im running dual displays, if thats relevant.
Strange huh.
NDo2 still works fine all the same. I just have to turn the cube off as it gets annoying.
Just a quick post to say that turning off open gl under preferences/performance in CS5 has improved things considerably for me. I've been trying to test the program but it's been so slow for me that it's been practically unusable. Adjusting slider and seeing the results took upwards of 10 seconds, now its pretty much realtime for me.
Really looking for to actually testing the program now.
Now, I'm not about to knock on Crazybump, because it's awesome, but it was causing a seam at the edge of my UV shells for this plane I'm working on:
After hearing about nDo2 just a few days ago I figured I would give the beta a shot, and wouldn't you know it, it worked a miracle!
I'm going to explore it more since I've only had it installed for an hour but you've probably got a new customer already.
(Note that those are both incomplete works in progress and the specular power is blown way way out of proportion to make it easier to examine the normal map details.)
[edit] Oh, also, RE: Freaky floating shadow: I also run a dual monitor setup and I don't have that issue. Win7x64, Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB on 11.7 drivers. [/edit]
We're really excited to say that nDo2 is now out of beta! Thank you all for your tremendous help along the way. Your support has been invaluable. Hopefully now, all major bugs and glicthes are erradicated. We hope you have tons of fun with all the new features that are introduced in the release version. Some are featured below!
Teddy, I'm not planning on doing any commercial work in the present time, can I get the non-commercial license now and upgrade to the freelancer license when the need arises, paying the price difference?
im having an issue with the mesh previewer. i imported a .fbx for a custom mesh, and the mesh disappeared. also because of that, the backdrop is currently always ontop of my screen because i cannot find a mesh to click and remove it. is there any way i can reset the mesh?
Oh yeah, I've experienced the same issue Oniram's describing in the beta, totally forgot to mention it here. I didn't h have the backdrop active though, but it disappeared forever.
59 bucks seems a little steep for a student/academic license. Do you have any discounts or anything else available for students? Tight budget but really want this to help portfolio
HUGE thanks for the uplifting comments everyone! I don't know where to begin to tell you how happy I am that you like it
OBlastradiusO,
The "Hard Surface" button is only available when working with nDo2 normals -- i.e. multilayered normal maps created entirely in nDo2. To clarify the difference between the two height generators:
Where the all-round displacement generator works for any type of normal map and is biased towards organic normals, the hard-surface generator yields non-biased, perfectly plane height -- provided that the normal is in nDo2 format.
I love this program. Can't wait until I can scratch together the 60 bucks to get myself a copy.
I do have one issue with it though. I made some normals with Ndo2, saved them as PSD files and I reopened them again today so I could make some heightmaps from them.
However when I go to convert the normal to height map now Ndo2 doesn't give me the nifty large conversion popup that it had before and when I try to do the conversion from the dropdown list it does provide I end up with a tiny square of a height map.
Does Ndo treat normals that are made entirely within the program and ones you open separately differently?
What I don't get is the lack of a rotate option? I would be happy with even just a increment of 45 degrees rotate normal's option. If its there i cant see it.
I'm sorry to hear you've had troubles with PayPal. We looked up the cause of your issue -- all PayPal says is the "transaction has been declined to make room for a new one and avoid d07 errors". Even with this information, I have little clue of the error. My apologies for this inconvenience.
As for your question, you are right, this feature has yet to make it into the tool. It's a great request and something we will definitely make a push for. Thank you!
Norron,
I'm glad you like it! It sounds like you've accidentally booted up the last beta version instead of the release version. This explains why you have a drop-down instead of the conversion popup interface, and it explains the "small square" bug you are talking about -- this has been fixed in the release version.
Thegodzero,
Norron is right, just use Photoshop's own transformation tools and you're good! Remember that nDo2 is an extension to PS, and in turn, virtually everything PS has to offer is supported by nDo2!
As for your question, you are right, this feature has yet to make it into the tool. It's a great request and something we will definitely make a push for. Thank you!
Well I hope it doesn't take too long to implement, that would be a very useful feature.
Hi guys, just a couple of issues im having at the minute.
So I bought the full version a couple weeks ago and I've had a little play around today and I've found 2 things that are annoying me.
Before I get started heres my specs.
i7 920 CPU
6GB Corsair Dominator Ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX580.
OK
1. NDo2 completely eats my cpu for breakfast. Tweaking attributes takes forever to update. Even when I've opened CS5 a fresh and only have 3 or 4 layers open in a 512x512 document it runs so slow!
2. So this just happened randomly, but sometimes when I convert a layer to normals, it converts a little opaque. The normals seem see through and dont come though strong at all.
Zipping the normals doesn't seem to do much. Nothing really happens in the layers tab, just a few updates, but its not like all the normals have to converted into 1 layer. I dont know what zipping them is suppose to do?!
Any tips on improving performance in CS5 and that strange opaque normal creation thing would be awesome.
i do think ndo2 need a better preview for tessellation system ^^ aside all of that, it's a very cool software ! i will soon buy up it when i have enough money ^^
More is on the way, including a comprehensive, complete overview (this time humanly paced). If you have any requests as to what you would like to learn about, we'll be happy to cover it
BreaK- & elementrix,
Thank you for this report -- I'm not 100% sure what's causing the slow-down for you, but I'm eager to find out. Even on a low-end Intel Core2 Duo T7600, 2GB RAM laptop, nDo2 runs smoothly with multiple normals at 1K resolution. A few things we could try:
One potential issue could be slow HDD:s -- when a tweak is done, a file is instantly saved to disk and then loaded into the previewer -- perhaps slow disk writing is the bottleneck for you. If you turn off previewer auto-updating (File>Preferences>3D Previewer>Auto-update), does this improve the tweaking performance for you?
Another thing worth noting is we've had reports saying that toggling "Enable OpenGL Drawing" off has resulted in a significant speed boost. This option is accessible through Edit>Preferences>Performance>GPU Settings in Photoshop. Does this do any difference for you?
The reason Photoshop gets slow is mainly because of CPU intensive layer effects. Zipping compresses 6 layers, all with layer effects, into 2 layers without effects. This results in a significant performance boost. Try zipping each normal layer, one by one, except the active layer. After this, is tweaking still slow for you?
The opacity of your normal is directly dependent on the opacity of your source layer -- this means white pixels translate to 100% opaque normals, whereas black pixels result in a completely transparent normal. Thus, if you convert a mid-gray layer to a normal map, it will come out 50% transparent. If you wish the normal to be opaque, simply bump up the levels of the input layer to near white
Visceral,
You better watch out! Santa Claus is coming to town :O
I noticed that in the video on custom presets that Anti_alias is set to zero on all layers. By default on creating a new normal map ndo2 defaults to setting Anti-alias to 1 which results in significantly slower performance, at least on my machine. Maybe in an update you could default the anti-aliasing setting to off.
I'm still not running as fast as in the video though. Adjusting a slider shows a visible redraw of what looks like 9 squares starting from the top left.
There is now a new release based on your latest requests -- get the installer here: nDo2 Release Installer
Irreal,
Great feature suggestion. We've now made a new release of nDo2 containing this functionality. Anti-alias is set to 0 by default, and all default settings can now be customized.
GabrielP,
That's strange, we have had no indication of server down-time -- could this perhaps be firewall related?
CKohl,
It's in! It's now possible to copy & paste normal settings.
With this latest build, you'll also notice the UI will reload itself instantly as you hover over it, eliminating the need for clicking it to "wake it up". If you preferred how it was before, you can toggle off this feature in File>Preferences>UI>Reload UI on mouse enter.
I first heard of ndo a few weeks back when I saw a tutorial but the links to download were dead... I will say now that I was gutted.
Now I see THIS!
Words can't measure how exciting this looks! Imagine the possibilities now with this! It would be interesting to see some workflow techniques. I mean, do you even need to bother modelling certain hi poly assets anymore? Ndo2 looks like it offers much more of an easier, quicker and more creative workflow.
It's in! It's now possible to copy & paste normal settings.
With this latest build, you'll also notice the UI will reload itself instantly as you hover over it, eliminating the need for clicking it to "wake it up". If you preferred how it was before, you can toggle off this feature in File>Preferences>UI>Reload UI on mouse enter.
Thanks for the great feedback everyone!
- Teddy
Huzzah!
Now, about performance. I too have experienced some performance issues, but I chalked it up to the fact that I'm working on a 2048 texture that's ~376MB and composed of literally a few hundred layers.
I did try out the Enable OpenGL Drawing toggle and that seemed to boost performance a bit (15%?). At the time I was also working with one to two dozen unzipped layers in ndo and once I actually finished working on a specific layer I zipped it up and now that most of the layers are finally zipped up I'm experiencing about a 1/2 to 2 second delay instead of a 10 to 15 second delay to updating which is much much better. :thumbup: All of the layers are anti-aliased. I've also taken to turning the preview cube off so that may be helping as well.
Win7 x64, CS5 x64, ndo2 x64, Intel i7 940 (1st gen, not the newer one), ATI 4870 1GB, 12GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB 7200RPM WD Caviar Black.
Thanks a bunch! I'm overjoyed you like it Comprehensive new tutorials are on their way.
CKohl,
Thank you for the status update. I'm really happy to hear the speed has picked up for you. Once all but the active layers are zipped, you should notice an even greater boost.
A new release was just made including a few additional performance boosts. Updating the previewer is now a wee bit faster, and so is creating new normal documents, as well as tweaking diffuse, specular and displacement maps.
Also, this release implements early support for CS2 users. Not everything is in yet, such as advanced normal tweaking, but a few basic features are, such as:
Photo-normals from presets
AO/Displacement/Diffuse/Specular/Cavity from Normal
Teddy, just bought the non-commercial license with the xmas discount and got my key, now it shows up two keys in my user page, one of them probably being the beta key. How do I know which is which?
Replies
Sorry for the low activity on the forums lately -- it just means we've been super busy! Let me get you up to speed on what's been going on:
First off, Eat3D released a tutorial on rendering AO from floating geometry using nDo2. Also, check out industry legend Sjoerd "Hourences" De Jong's new nDo2 work-flow tutorial. Moreover, Wiktor
Is cs2 supported now, Ive read a few post saying its being worked on. Thanks for all your hard work. I'm dying to try this
really man, thanks for working on all these awesome features, you're saving me literally days of time working on normal maps or high polies.
Heres a screen grab.
Im running dual displays, if thats relevant.
Strange huh.
NDo2 still works fine all the same. I just have to turn the cube off as it gets annoying.
Really looking for to actually testing the program now.
After hearing about nDo2 just a few days ago I figured I would give the beta a shot, and wouldn't you know it, it worked a miracle!
I'm going to explore it more since I've only had it installed for an hour but you've probably got a new customer already.
(Note that those are both incomplete works in progress and the specular power is blown way way out of proportion to make it easier to examine the normal map details.)
[edit] Oh, also, RE: Freaky floating shadow: I also run a dual monitor setup and I don't have that issue. Win7x64, Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB on 11.7 drivers. [/edit]
Well, buy it? or get a Beta license or something?
We're really excited to say that nDo2 is now out of beta! Thank you all for your tremendous help along the way. Your support has been invaluable. Hopefully now, all major bugs and glicthes are erradicated. We hope you have tons of fun with all the new features that are introduced in the release version. Some are featured below!
[ame="
Even though our minds are set on our next upcoming tool, we'll of course still keep doing new releases and upgrades, based on your feedback
Irreal,
Awesome! This is a really great tip that we were unaware of. Thank you so much for sharing your findings.
CKohl,
Thanks for your post, we were all really happy to read it here at the Quixel office!
BreaK-,
I take it you have an nVidia GTX 570 1GB? The standard drivers for this graphics card is known to cause these issues.
Any of these links should work:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvista-64bit-285.38-beta-driver.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-285.27-beta-driver.html
You may have to uninstall your old drivers before installing these new ones for it to take effect.
Let us know if this works for you! Were extending all Beta tester licenses with 30 days of additional free usage tomorrow.
Best regards,
- Teddy
-edit- Er, disregard that.. something with my browser settings..
Yay for release!
also... how do i activate my discount? i registered quite early...
This.
OBlastradiusO,
The "Hard Surface" button is only available when working with nDo2 normals -- i.e. multilayered normal maps created entirely in nDo2. To clarify the difference between the two height generators:
Where the all-round displacement generator works for any type of normal map and is biased towards organic normals, the hard-surface generator yields non-biased, perfectly plane height -- provided that the normal is in nDo2 format.
I ended up using a different method that was successful but it might be something you should look into.
I do have one issue with it though. I made some normals with Ndo2, saved them as PSD files and I reopened them again today so I could make some heightmaps from them.
However when I go to convert the normal to height map now Ndo2 doesn't give me the nifty large conversion popup that it had before and when I try to do the conversion from the dropdown list it does provide I end up with a tiny square of a height map.
Does Ndo treat normals that are made entirely within the program and ones you open separately differently?
I'm sorry to hear you've had troubles with PayPal. We looked up the cause of your issue -- all PayPal says is the "transaction has been declined to make room for a new one and avoid d07 errors". Even with this information, I have little clue of the error. My apologies for this inconvenience.
As for your question, you are right, this feature has yet to make it into the tool. It's a great request and something we will definitely make a push for. Thank you!
Norron,
I'm glad you like it! It sounds like you've accidentally booted up the last beta version instead of the release version. This explains why you have a drop-down instead of the conversion popup interface, and it explains the "small square" bug you are talking about -- this has been fixed in the release version.
Thegodzero,
Norron is right, just use Photoshop's own transformation tools and you're good! Remember that nDo2 is an extension to PS, and in turn, virtually everything PS has to offer is supported by nDo2!
Well I hope it doesn't take too long to implement, that would be a very useful feature.
So I bought the full version a couple weeks ago and I've had a little play around today and I've found 2 things that are annoying me.
Before I get started heres my specs.
i7 920 CPU
6GB Corsair Dominator Ram
Nvidia GeForce GTX580.
OK
1. NDo2 completely eats my cpu for breakfast. Tweaking attributes takes forever to update. Even when I've opened CS5 a fresh and only have 3 or 4 layers open in a 512x512 document it runs so slow!
2. So this just happened randomly, but sometimes when I convert a layer to normals, it converts a little opaque. The normals seem see through and dont come though strong at all.
Zipping the normals doesn't seem to do much. Nothing really happens in the layers tab, just a few updates, but its not like all the normals have to converted into 1 layer. I dont know what zipping them is suppose to do?!
Any tips on improving performance in CS5 and that strange opaque normal creation thing would be awesome.
I really want to get cracking with this!!!
Using Ndo 64bit in PS3 on a I7 12GB Ram and Nvidea GeForce 560 Ti
I used it after you guys visited and now i cant live without it.....
[ame="
More is on the way, including a comprehensive, complete overview (this time humanly paced). If you have any requests as to what you would like to learn about, we'll be happy to cover it
BreaK- & elementrix,
One potential issue could be slow HDD:s -- when a tweak is done, a file is instantly saved to disk and then loaded into the previewer -- perhaps slow disk writing is the bottleneck for you. If you turn off previewer auto-updating (File>Preferences>3D Previewer>Auto-update), does this improve the tweaking performance for you?
Another thing worth noting is we've had reports saying that toggling "Enable OpenGL Drawing" off has resulted in a significant speed boost. This option is accessible through Edit>Preferences>Performance>GPU Settings in Photoshop. Does this do any difference for you?
The reason Photoshop gets slow is mainly because of CPU intensive layer effects. Zipping compresses 6 layers, all with layer effects, into 2 layers without effects. This results in a significant performance boost. Try zipping each normal layer, one by one, except the active layer. After this, is tweaking still slow for you?
Visceral,
You better watch out! Santa Claus is coming to town :O
I'm still not running as fast as in the video though.
There is now a new release based on your latest requests -- get the installer here: nDo2 Release Installer
Irreal,
Great feature suggestion. We've now made a new release of nDo2 containing this functionality. Anti-alias is set to 0 by default, and all default settings can now be customized.
GabrielP,
That's strange, we have had no indication of server down-time -- could this perhaps be firewall related?
CKohl,
It's in! It's now possible to copy & paste normal settings.
With this latest build, you'll also notice the UI will reload itself instantly as you hover over it, eliminating the need for clicking it to "wake it up". If you preferred how it was before, you can toggle off this feature in File>Preferences>UI>Reload UI on mouse enter.
Thanks for the great feedback everyone!
- Teddy
I first heard of ndo a few weeks back when I saw a tutorial but the links to download were dead... I will say now that I was gutted.
Now I see THIS!
Words can't measure how exciting this looks! Imagine the possibilities now with this! It would be interesting to see some workflow techniques. I mean, do you even need to bother modelling certain hi poly assets anymore? Ndo2 looks like it offers much more of an easier, quicker and more creative workflow.
*Purchases*
Huzzah!
Now, about performance. I too have experienced some performance issues, but I chalked it up to the fact that I'm working on a 2048 texture that's ~376MB and composed of literally a few hundred layers.
I did try out the Enable OpenGL Drawing toggle and that seemed to boost performance a bit (15%?). At the time I was also working with one to two dozen unzipped layers in ndo and once I actually finished working on a specific layer I zipped it up and now that most of the layers are finally zipped up I'm experiencing about a 1/2 to 2 second delay instead of a 10 to 15 second delay to updating which is much much better. :thumbup: All of the layers are anti-aliased. I've also taken to turning the preview cube off so that may be helping as well.
Win7 x64, CS5 x64, ndo2 x64, Intel i7 940 (1st gen, not the newer one), ATI 4870 1GB, 12GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB 7200RPM WD Caviar Black.
Thanks a bunch! I'm overjoyed you like it
CKohl,
Thank you for the status update. I'm really happy to hear the speed has picked up for you. Once all but the active layers are zipped, you should notice an even greater boost.
A new release was just made including a few additional performance boosts. Updating the previewer is now a wee bit faster, and so is creating new normal documents, as well as tweaking diffuse, specular and displacement maps.
Also, this release implements early support for CS2 users. Not everything is in yet, such as advanced normal tweaking, but a few basic features are, such as:
- Photo-normals from presets
- AO/Displacement/Diffuse/Specular/Cavity from Normal
- 3D Preview
Get nDo2 v1.0.3 hereWe've also launched our 25% xmas discounts for those interested! These will last for as long as Santa is in town
Thanks again for your feedback!
- Teddy
How long is that likely to be for us people who wont have the money until after xmas :poly124:
If I remember correctly, for me at least, the shorter code is the release key.