Home› Technical Talk

adding normal map detail 2d

Ruz
polycount lvl 666
Offline / Send Message
Ruz polycount lvl 666
so i want to quickly add some extra normal map detail/greebles to the underneath of the cars I am doing. i could model this stuff but its not a subd model. I could use something like the xnormal plugin for photoshop, but really whats the best way to do this ? any great little programs or should I do it in a 3d paint program like substance painter or similar
· Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Replies

  • dimwalker
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    dimwalker polycounter lvl 15
    You can generate normal from mask in PS and then combine it with car normal.
    Or model all the details on temporary mesh, properly bake to plane and combine using substance. Depends on what software you have and how much time you want to spend on it.
    pasha_sevez said:
    There's a pretty easy and completely correct (from mathematical point of view) method to combine two normal maps in PS. Say, layer A is basic NM, layer B is detail NM. So to put detail from B over A you have to do the following steps:
    1. Clone layer B - B2
    2. Go to blue channel of B2 and fill it with neutral gray.
    3. Set B2 layer blending to Overlay
    4. Select original B and set it to Multiply blending mode.
    5. Select red and green channels of B and fill them with pure white.
    6. Put B and B2 into the new group, use group mask and opacity to adjust blending.

    7 (Optional). If your target engine doesn't perform runtime NM normalization - you have to do in manually using for example Xnromal's plugin. But actually everything always works fine even without normalization.

    This method works flawlessly with any bit depth and doesn't require any standalone utils. Good luck in normal maps compositions 

    P.S. Here's an action I use all the time.

    http://l.sevez.net/NM_COMB

    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
  • Ruz
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    cheers for that @dimwalker , will take a look at that today
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
  • Klunk
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Klunk ngon master
    that method isn't mathematically correct btw, you need to actually transform the perturbing normal into the coordinate space of each pixel/base normal. then do the addition.
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
  • Ruz
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    cheers
    Klunk
    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
  • Ruz
    Options
    Offline / Send Message
    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    This is the kind of detail I  want to replace (in the panels). its fine just for renders, but I want to be able to export this stuff  as FBX,
    but using that boolean workflow means a 'lot' of tidying up


    · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Sign In or Register to comment.