Baking vs Texture based normals
polycounter lvl 10
I've been learning 3D for quite a while now and I've noticed in more recent years hi-poly sculpting/modelling and baking seems to have become standard, regardless of the complexity of the model. I suppose it is ability dependant, but I find the process can take a lot longer when baking, and I wonder whether similar or identical results could be achieved from normals created off a decent texture. I'm going to try making a model first with texture based normals, and then again with hi-poly baking and see how far I can push the results. Perhaps it is just personal preference but I was wondering what other people thought? Where do you draw the line with regards to baking vs texture based normals?
Replies
Photo based normals are ok for high frequency small details but really fail on broad forms.
Hand painted/photo based normals will never be able to do this, you'll end up with a lowpoly model with crappy shading and a bump map applied. The only situation where you may not be able to tell a difference is if you're applying your texture to a flat plane. Tiling textures are generally a good application for painted normals, especially more organic shapes that would be time consuming to model, however technical hard edge shapes would likely be much faster to model than paint even for tiling textures.
For unique assets, at the end of the day its the difference between and old-school lowpoly looking model with a bump map applied, and a lowpoly that actually looks like a highpoly model.
As this is a learning/understanding process for me I'm going to press on, and try to make a relatively simple model that includes a variety of detail levels and depths, so I can see how the results vary.
I am mainly concerned with architectural modular pieces.
I was wondering if Earthquake could go into a little more detail on what you mean when you say "The only situation where you may not be able to tell a difference is if you're applying your texture to a flat plane. Tiling textures are generally a good application for painted normals, especially more organic shapes that would be time consuming to model,"
I am having a hard time visualizing. When not to bake.
I mean does any current AAA next gen game actually apply tileable textures to flat planes anymore? Besides in the source engine.
Most games model pretty much everything. Atleast from my observations. Concerning walls and floors and pillars. (Architecture stuff)
Any insight to this would be great.
Thanks a lot.
Great thread.
To flat planes? not so much, but they are still used quite a bit..you can just export more geo to be thrown at it. You get things like broken tiles which are still mapped to the tiled texture, and rocks/cliffs that were modeled but use tiled texture.
I think that for environment stuff, using high poly models is good for any prop. I will make a high poly for any prop that I'm asked to make at work. The only 2 reasons I wouldn't are:
A) My boss just doesn't give me enough time to. If I'm only given 2 hours for a prop, I don't use a high poly.
But for the basic layout of an environment...the terrain, walls, floors, etc...I usually stick to image based. Thats often tied to the fact that they use tiled textures. But sometimes, even for tiled textures..people will sculpt or make a high poly model for those. Just depends on how much you expect from your normals. Sculpting tiled rock faces makes sense, but sculpting a tiled carpet floor doesnt.
Thats just my opinion though...really it depends on you, the time you have to invest, and the project you are working on.
They use a LOT of photoshop/crazybump based normal maps for their stuff. I think maybe the characters and a few select vehicles are the only things that they bake out.
But EQ is right, there is no comparison. Ultimate quality requires a sculpted model, there's just no way around that. Using tiling painted normals is okay for some things, just like HL2 uses. Looks good, but could be better.
Besides, recently a new school of thought is to use procedural textures as a base for your textures..., MapZone is one such example I use alot to save my time, since you're directly going for the money shot in one skip rather then modeling it (although the amount of time saved is debatable pandering from user skill to user skill).
To your original question, Arch and Design stuff? Well, same idea, granted again, it depends on WHAT you're making and what LOQ the boss is asking on what time frame. If you're making say a Grim Reaper statue, holding a scythe in the desert on a pedestal, taking cheap shortcuts won't help, if it's just a column which is big enough that the player cannot see each side at the same time, then you're going to cheap tile it.
Doing hand painted normals/generating normals from photosource is a huge part of environment art. Even if you've got a highres source, you'll still likely be mixing in a good deal of hand painted bump generated normals. When you've got tiling textures it doesn't always make sense to model out a highpoly, but sometimes it does. It really depends on what sort of material and structure you're trying to create. Like if you're doing sci-fi panels, you would virtually always model that sort of detail out, but if you're doing some basic concrete/stucco walls, it would be faster to do it all in photoshop, likely with not much difference in quality. Sure you could sculpt that, but its probably not worth the effort in most cases unless you have some very specific damage to add to the texture.
Now when it comes to unique assets and props with unique uv layouts, you're generally going to want to bake those from a whole highpoly source mesh. You can also add additional bump generated details in photoshop. I'm not a big proponent of throwing everything into zbrush/mudbox, often times small details are quicker to add in the texture.
Found here:
http://cmpmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/vault/gdc10/slides/Pangilinan_Erick_Uncharted2ArtDirection.pdf
70% of Modern Warfare environments are brush based? That's crazy. Must take forever to create.
So it looks like sculpting your tiling textures in zbrush will make your normals pop the most.
Unless of course as stated earlier if you are doing a flat texture like carpet/concrete or something it's just not necessary. Photo source will suffice.
Thanks for all the help on this thread.
If I had 2 unique tileable 1024x1024 textures including diffuse and normal maps for each, that I wanted to combine onto my modeled Modular wall piece uv layout.
How would I do that? Import the UVstamp from my 3d app into Photoshop. Than how would I combine the two separate textures onto the right spots on my uv stamp while keeping the diffuse aligned with the normal map of each texture?
I have two sculpted textures I made in zbrush. (Diffuse and Normal). I want to combine them onto my wall model's uvstamp in Photoshop but in different spots.
Please help!
Thanks.
I would say create a mask so you can use that as your...mask...har har, sorry, but um...yeah, create a new layer and create a mask and use that as your guide to extracting the detail from your two maps.
Unless you're asking something else?
Pretend that those two textures I sculpted in zbrush and exported the diffuse and normal.
Now I want to apply those to my uv map on the right.
I want to scale the 2nd texture to fit my needs. But how to get the normal map to follow exactly with the scaling?
Thanks.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/32/polycounthelp.jpg/
Just copy those values to your other map, and presto done. If you're resizing it, why not resize by the same value for the other map?
When the final UV layout is done. Do I have to renormalize the normal map? Because it comes from two separate textures?