Mostly handpainted, I don't know what I was thinking haha. I even recall getting some advice on this from Poop as I was trying to brush out the stuff to account for shading the lowpoly. About 2 years ago, though it feels longer.
awesome stuff. I can't even finish one normal-mapped character without something catastrophically failing. Tried twice, a witch and a minotaur. Next model I'm working on is a WoW character to fluff up the 'folio. Then, I'll attempt something small for Normals. Again.
I made this for Elder Scrolls IV while working at Liquid Development. It was our very first "next-gen" project and we really had no clue what we were doing. All of the normal maps were hand painted in grey-scale in Photoshop and converted using the Nvidia plug-in filter, which came back to bite us in the ass later when Bethesda asked for our high-poly source :-s Some of you may remember when I posted it with wireframes a few years back that there was WAY too much modeled in detail (cloth folds, larger hair detail, etc) which is why I do not include the wireframe version in my 'folio.
Great, now we know who to blame for all the terrible assets in oblivion!
Renaud and Astro! YOU WILL NEVER LIVE THIS DOWN.
Hey now, we met or exceeded the client's expectation according to contract, the blame for horrible assets falls squarely on Bethesda's shoulders :poly124:
Hi! I'm new and I thought I'd start off with my first normal map. This is from 2004 and it's a test model for Massive Black. They sent me the concept art and I was supposed to model it to the best of my abilities.
The first one is the high poly model modeled completely in LightWave, since I hadn't learned Zbrush yet (and mudbox didn't exist).
And the second one is, of course, the low poly model with normal maps. I never could get it to work 100% and I realized just now when I was looking through the old files that I somehow had inverted one of the color channels of the normal map.
If I got the job I was supposed to work as some sort of semi-employed freelancer (since I live in Sweden), I don't really remember. I sent the model and waited, for a long time. After a while I started to mail and call them, and that went on for a few months. In the end they decided they didn't want to use freelancers. Or maybe it was just a nice way of saying 'you suck'.
Funny this should come up...I finally managed to get a decent working normal map from a high-poly last week! I am so proud of my little tire, so many other failed attempts! This is actually a tire from a bigger piece, a post-apocyliptic VW Micro van. Still have stuff to add to it, like maybe lettering and a descent spec map.
It's quite a straightforward process in Blender actually, way easier than Max. So the next hurdle is getting one out of Max.
The errors you see on the side of the high-poly are just because I am new to the array modifier in Blender, and I can't quite get the hangs of the vert merging yet. I'll paint the errors out of the map. The low-poly is 318 triangles.
If I got the job I was supposed to work as some sort of semi-employed freelancer (since I live in Sweden), I don't really remember. I sent the model and waited, for a long time. After a while I started to mail and call them, and that went on for a few months. In the end they decided they didn't want to use freelancers. Or maybe it was just a nice way of saying 'you suck'.
Yeah, I went to an on site interview while I was still in school to show a texture portfolio.
Never heard back even after they said they would, and had to pry them. Got the same reasoning. Decided 'not to use interns'. Ok, nice bs. I would much rather be told I'm not suitable or good enough for their purposes than be lead around like that.
also Marko Djurovic was also a total dick. Guess he's gone now though.
Massive Black Cock definitely deserves some of their rep.
The interviewer was cool though.
Been modeling for like 2 years now, and I think this is the first one I actually bothered to make a normal map for (not just photo shopping the texture).
Honestly, you guys are insane! posting crazy quality work as ur first normal mapped model well i guess maybe alot of you did diffuse only before that but yea mine was shite! but here it is anyway hurts lookin at it again tho!
Oh EarthQuake did u ever work on any Doom 3 mods ? or was that model just for funtimes ? ;o
Hahah I just caught this thread, Renaud and Astro I also worked on Oblivion, and did alot of the concepts for the statues that I see you created:) Ahh brings back memories, and I think Oblivion was the first normal mapped stuff I did as well, will have to post up something soon from it.
Last year's Dominance War. I figured I could just learn spec and normal maps, as well as rigging and lighting in one challenge.
Little did I know back then the intricacies of Blender. Unless you check a hidden checkbox, it'll randomly flip some vertex normals on your models. By default, normal map strength is set to .5. Blender does not ever mirror normal maps, so it's screwed up everywhere were it was mirrored. I didn't yet know about Catmull-Rom anti-aliasing either.
That said, it all rather pales in comparison to my awful, awful rig. Shouldn't have learned to rig 4 hours before deadline... or maybe I shouldn't have made a dancing character when I couldn't rig.
You have no idea how badly I want to participate again this year! I'll probably have to figure out how to export to Maya to render there, though, that lack of mirroring in Blender still isn't fixed because it's not a 'priority'.
Haha, since I started doing normalmaps for my very first assets back in 2005, it was..interesting. This is from 2005/2006 or something, for an RTS school project I did with some friend. This was actually in my portfolio the first time I applied for a job, I think haha! I think it is my second character ^^
Replies
It doesn't look half bad, but it was terribly made. Just... horrendous. The wires are so bad. Texture ain't so good either.
first highres mesh if i remember correctly. before that just photoshopped normals.
what a beauty lol
and then i got jobs that never needed it done properly. *shrugs*
one more experiment pic for the hell of it.
Mostly handpainted, I don't know what I was thinking haha. I even recall getting some advice on this from Poop as I was trying to brush out the stuff to account for shading the lowpoly. About 2 years ago, though it feels longer.
...because you have to start somewhere :poly122:
I made this for Elder Scrolls IV while working at Liquid Development. It was our very first "next-gen" project and we really had no clue what we were doing. All of the normal maps were hand painted in grey-scale in Photoshop and converted using the Nvidia plug-in filter, which came back to bite us in the ass later when Bethesda asked for our high-poly source :-s Some of you may remember when I posted it with wireframes a few years back that there was WAY too much modeled in detail (cloth folds, larger hair detail, etc) which is why I do not include the wireframe version in my 'folio.
Renaud and Astro! YOU WILL NEVER LIVE THIS DOWN.
Hey now, we met or exceeded the client's expectation according to contract, the blame for horrible assets falls squarely on Bethesda's shoulders :poly124:
looks like i found a demotivational poster to put in the general discussion area
early-mid 2004
I could actually give you a few more Polycounter names who worked with us on this title, but I just won't...
The first one is the high poly model modeled completely in LightWave, since I hadn't learned Zbrush yet (and mudbox didn't exist).
And the second one is, of course, the low poly model with normal maps. I never could get it to work 100% and I realized just now when I was looking through the old files that I somehow had inverted one of the color channels of the normal map.
If I got the job I was supposed to work as some sort of semi-employed freelancer (since I live in Sweden), I don't really remember. I sent the model and waited, for a long time. After a while I started to mail and call them, and that went on for a few months. In the end they decided they didn't want to use freelancers. Or maybe it was just a nice way of saying 'you suck'.
It's quite a straightforward process in Blender actually, way easier than Max. So the next hurdle is getting one out of Max.
The errors you see on the side of the high-poly are just because I am new to the array modifier in Blender, and I can't quite get the hangs of the vert merging yet. I'll paint the errors out of the map. The low-poly is 318 triangles.
Yeah, I went to an on site interview while I was still in school to show a texture portfolio.
Never heard back even after they said they would, and had to pry them. Got the same reasoning. Decided 'not to use interns'. Ok, nice bs. I would much rather be told I'm not suitable or good enough for their purposes than be lead around like that.
also Marko Djurovic was also a total dick. Guess he's gone now though.
Massive Black Cock definitely deserves some of their rep.
The interviewer was cool though.
i wont post the textured version, cos you can barely tell its normal mapped :P
This is when i found out what normal maps CAN'T do.
First normal map sometime last year, and I havn't improved much since
Oh EarthQuake did u ever work on any Doom 3 mods ? or was that model just for funtimes ? ;o
Spark
This horrific garbagio.
Haha its like a MGS Gecko USB thingy! Really cool!
Last year's Dominance War. I figured I could just learn spec and normal maps, as well as rigging and lighting in one challenge.
Little did I know back then the intricacies of Blender. Unless you check a hidden checkbox, it'll randomly flip some vertex normals on your models. By default, normal map strength is set to .5. Blender does not ever mirror normal maps, so it's screwed up everywhere were it was mirrored. I didn't yet know about Catmull-Rom anti-aliasing either.
That said, it all rather pales in comparison to my awful, awful rig. Shouldn't have learned to rig 4 hours before deadline... or maybe I shouldn't have made a dancing character when I couldn't rig.
You have no idea how badly I want to participate again this year! I'll probably have to figure out how to export to Maya to render there, though, that lack of mirroring in Blender still isn't fixed because it's not a 'priority'.
For a Polycount challenge entitled "Elementals" if I remember correctly.
I hang my head in shame
That's awesome, he looks so grumpy hehe, nice job:thumbup:
Also my first pimp in this forum...
Normals painted, not modeled