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FlowMap Painter

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  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    Yeah, early morning brainfart, sorry :p
    corrected my previous post

    One other thing to note is that since DXT compression doesn't handle large, smooth gradients very well, you might want to consider using an uncompressed format for the flowmap (otherwise you'll start noticing compression artifacts; this is especially noticeable if you're flowing normal maps in addition to the diffuse).
  • 16bit
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    16bit polycounter lvl 13
    All the examples from Flow Mapper use TC_NormalmapUncompressed. The one that looks blocky is from the Portal 2 flow map pdf. Uncompressing it makes it not swirl though. I have no clue how to reproduce valves tiny flow maps so well like they did.
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    Use VectorDisplacement compression, it will quad-ruble the file size, but since UDK already has a hard time reading above 512/1024 UV coordinates in texture form, it shouldn't matter too much.
  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    Hmm, TC_NormalmapUncompressed works fine for me. VectorDisplacement totally killed the file size, though! Went from 10.67mb for a 2k texture, to 85.33mb, lol.
  • 16bit
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    16bit polycounter lvl 13
    I have taken comparison shots of 4 different compression settings of a 2048 flow map.

    norm_zpsec7d9d6a.png

    This is your standard normal compression. It's very blocky and pretty unconvincing.

    It clocks out at 2.00 Mb of memory.

    nm_uncompressed_zpsaca924a0.png

    This is normal uncompressed. It looks pretty convincing and checks out at 8.00 Mb of memory

    nm_bc5_zps0fee5c70.png

    Here is Compression_BC5 for our DX10 users. It looks nice as well. It only uses 4.00 Mb of memory.

    vectordisp_zps5c496e9a.png

    Here is the Vector Displacement Compression. It looks exactly like the normalmap uncompressed option. It uses a whopping 16.00 Mb of memory.

    If it came down to it I would probably use BC5 if more users used DX10, if not, then NormalUncompressed.
  • AlanSMitchell
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    AlanSMitchell polycounter lvl 14
    @16bit: Hey I may be ignorant to all of the new updates for UDK but is Compression_BC5 the best option for all your normal map needs when running DX10? Seems to me it's the best result with the least cost, I read how it renders doesn't make much sense to me, I kind of understand. I guess what I'm asking are there any disadvantages to BC5? Right now I only see it on a flat plane but it looks pretty good to me.
  • 16bit
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    16bit polycounter lvl 13
    Well BC5, like NormalUncompressed can't use a normals blue channel. For the purposes of a flow map, which doesn't use the blue channel this is fine. I don't think it makes the normal map smaller like NormalUncompressed does. Atleast that's what the UDN leads me to believe.

    http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/NormalMapFormats.html
  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    I have no clue how to reproduce valves tiny flow maps so well like they did.
    I got curious and just did a bit of testing, and up to a certain point, I'm actually getting more visually-pleasing results with smaller flowmap textures. Try changing the lodbias with the material instance loaded to have a go of it. Go too small, and you can notice that you get large areas of flow in the same direction (as expected), but down to a mid-sized texture (in my case, lodbias 4 on a 2k texture) and you get much more pleasing results (I get a bit of shimmering with more "accurate" flow maps).

    Of course, your mileage may vary, depending on the scale of the textures and tiling, as well as the scale they'll be viewed at.
  • Santewi
    LoTekK wrote: »
    Hmm, TC_NormalmapUncompressed works fine for me. VectorDisplacement totally killed the file size, though! Went from 10.67mb for a 2k texture, to 85.33mb, lol.

    My 4096 normalmap (BC5) is 21.33 MB, but my 4096 grayscale AO map is 85.33 MB... Explain that :S



    But yeah, BC5 is usually the best option unless you are really concerned about file sizes. Although in my opinion a normalmap with half the resolution but BC5 compression still looks better than the default DXT1.
  • Macrow
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    Macrow polycounter lvl 8
    Thank you kindly, LoTekK! Very useful tool!
  • AlanSMitchell
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    AlanSMitchell polycounter lvl 14
    16bit thanks for the explination makes so much more sense now!
    Also LoTekk I love your face! OMG this tool is so flipping fantastic.
  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    I've been working on a bit of an update to the tool, based on some great feedback I've been getting.

    http://teckartist.com/?page_id=107

    There's a changelist on that page, but I'll sum up the big ones:
    -Now you can load flowmap textures (tweak existing ones, or continue working where you left off last)
    -toggles for flipping R and G channels, or swizzling RG -> RB
    -optional wrapping mode, with tiling preview

    Get it while it's hot :D
  • SirCalalot
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    SirCalalot polycounter lvl 10
    I love you.

    *downloads*
  • Computron
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    Computron polycounter lvl 7
  • 16bit
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    16bit polycounter lvl 13
    I have a suggestion. Can you do flow strength by a value instead how fast you move the mouse? If part of the river needs to move fast, I have to move my mouse fast, but its easy to to mess up other parts of the flow map by overshooting where I need to go.
  • LoTekK
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    LoTekK polycounter lvl 17
    SirCalalot, Computron: Cheers! :D

    16bit: That's a good suggestion, I'll see about adding that into the next update, thanks! :)

    btw, I realised that I'd zipped up the build after I'd done a test run, and forgotten to get rid of the generated defaults.ini file (which keeps track of your last-used paths). I've since uploaded a corrected zip, but if you've already downloaded, navigate to FlowMapPainter_Data in the installed directory, and delete defaults.ini. It'll regenerate it, so it defaults to the FlowMapPainter_Data directory.
  • ablaine
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    ablaine polycounter lvl 14
    Has anyone used this to paint a comb map for anisotropic hair shading?
  • am0000
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    am0000 polycounter lvl 6
    Hello LoTekK, thank you for sharing this useful/awesome tool !
  • naturon
    This is awesome, really user friendly ... don't suppose there's any chance getting the unity shader you've used? I can't seem to find any and my shader making skills are less than none unfortunately :(
  • jgreasley
    Sorry for the thread necromancy, but for anyone interested in flowmap painting, Mari 1.6 has just been shipped that has 3D flowmap painting and visualisation.

    [vv]55865390[/vv]

    More information here
  • CompanionCube
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    CompanionCube polycounter lvl 12
    jgreasley wrote: »
    Sorry for the thread necromancy, but for anyone interested in flowmap painting, Mari 1.6 has just been shipped that has 3D flowmap painting and visualisation.

    [vv]55865390[/vv]

    More information here

    amazing, you blow me away with every release.
  • Skiffy
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    Skiffy polycounter lvl 15
    I rather use this tool. Mari is not cheap to say the least....
  • Alphavader
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    Alphavader polycounter lvl 11
    Hey Teck,

    thanks for that awesome tool. Working on 2d/spritesheet based animated games,
    would be interesting to render the viewport outcome in many separated images. ;)
    Maybe with a saving path and a "type in" a field for the number of "frames/images" - to keep it simple
  • invadererik
    LoTekK any chance you can just release the source code for this ( open source it ? )

    Main issue I'm having is that I would love to be able to control the strength of the flow using a slider instead of the speed at which you draw the stroke... it gets kind of hard to get a fast flowing and detailed map ... Or am I missing something I have strength set to 100% all the time
  • Fishypants
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    Fishypants polycounter lvl 18
    That! Is awesome!
  • Kalami
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    Kalami polycounter lvl 5
    This is amazing :) so happy I found this, thanks!
  • KyleBriggs
    If possible, I would be very interested in taking on development of FlowMap Painter as a free tool.
    I sent you a private message with more details.
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