The technical artists over at Project Offset have a Photoshop action that will let you adjust the normal map intensity (by duplicating the normal map itself or by using an overlay) without killing detail. The action script is at the end of the article: http://www.projectoffset.com/blog.php?id=74
Thank you @monster I'll give this a shot today within my script and let you know how it goes. Funnily I did try tmGizmos.usegizmo = true/false but didn't know about redrawviews so assumed nothing was happening :/
You can check out Ninja UV. You can map to a specified pixel ratio. Scale to a pixel ratio. Plus alot more tools http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/marketplace/scripts-plugins/texturing/c/ninja-uv--2
struct someShit( --Fucking Kill me pixels = #(), points = #() )fuckYou = someShit() Max script wasn't working, so I started again where all the variables and functions have the word fuck in them. I feel slightly better now.
If you get into more complex foliage, like a bush made out of planes you might want to check out a script called "Normal Thief". It aligns the somewhat chaotic normals of the planes to match a target object and it really helps with shadowing.
could we pleaaaaase use the definitions "offline rendernig" and "realtime rendering" just rendering does say nothing you don't render an fx-shader offline.. you can use a script like this to make a high resolution screenshot though
I switched from Max to Blender largely as a result of this, but I am also not a professional so I'm sure I'm not a good representation. I doubt people in professional settings with tons of investment into inhouse scripts and tools have much flexibility.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/VertexNormal This has a lot of useful links, scripts, and software specific descriptions (not for all of them) related to this topic. I didnt judge it though. I didnt want to go into an argument so im out. Good luck.
and that's why I don't use services like dropbox :( Although I'd love to have a good script for dropbox like sharing which I can run on my own webspace so I can send stuff to other people.
try running this when you first fire up maya, its the easiest hack (if it is the same problem) source "GoZScript"; weve had a few issues with the goz environment not starting correctly due our scripts setup. (maya 2015 though)