Great little plug-in for GIMP. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
is there a dedicated person making normalmaps? as ive made me a simple automation for photoshop 7 that can make normalmaps in batch with a scale factor of 4.
note, you need nvidia's texture tools (<a href='http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html' target='_blank'>Here</a>) to run the automation.
just had an idea . wouldnt zbrush be the perfect tool for creating normal/bump maps for textures seeing that you can paint 3D geometry. i'm going to look into it
the nviodia texture tool is great for normal maps /bump maps, it looks at the texture for fine lines it would expect, and you can manipulate it also, and it outputs to the standard to hl2 uses,
<!--QuoteBegin-Dredfurst+Feb 27 2005, 09:37 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dredfurst @ Feb 27 2005, 09:37 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> the nviodia texture tool is great for normal maps /bump maps, it looks at the texture for fine lines it would expect, and you can manipulate it also, and it outputs to the standard to hl2 uses, <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> No. It is not great. It produces shoddy normal maps that only work on low detail textures. No self-respecting professional texture artist would use it for any more than normal mapping straight lines on a simple floor tile texture. It is not adequate in the least compared to XSI or a comparable 3d package.
Any input on this? Not especially useful at the rate I'm going (over an hour on this floor texture.) <a href='http://img229.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img229&image=teckfloor013nw.jpg' target='_blank'>TeckFloor01</a>
Here's the old texture: <a href='http://img194.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img194&image=teckfloor01old9gq.jpg' target='_blank'>TeckFloor01Old</a>
Wow BCK, one of the nicest first posts I have seen in a while. Your texture is ok... the things that concern me most is that many of your hinges and whatnot have false highlight on them, which will only mess up the normal mapping process, and some of the texture I just can't tell what the heck it is trying to represent.
It is more important that the texture looks good then that it copies the original perfectly, so if you can't tell what the hell that wierd dot on the original texture is supposed to be, either take it out or replace it with something that makes more sense in your mind. Remember, no false light strikes, only texture the hard lines and the material changes. If you can't get a sense of what the texture is supposed to look like in 3D, then it will just be hard as hell to bumpmap and it will probably look ugly in game.
I'm used to doing retexturing projects where the priorities were just the opposite: close-as-possible to the original instead of good looking. This is a nice change really.
Secondly, though, I don't really know the context for all of these textures - I haven't been playing long enough. It seems to me that the giant metal thing on the right side of the texture would look weird when tiled - this complex-looking thing every few feet along the wall.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited March 2005
This thing is driving me crazy, can someone tell me what to do - this is my result so far, still needs tidying up, and i can save it in TGA format. I can't convert the bloody thing, what am i doing wrong?
<a href='http://Picture' target='_blank'>http://Picture</a> deleted cos i just realised how crap it is.gif
Wow... doing this without any shading is so counter-intuitive. Kinda weird to draw things as though they aren't lit. This is my continuing effort on that first texture... I thought it might look better clean (some of the things that don't look good at high-res removed), and the process was much cleaner this time, so it's easier for me to edit. I also doubled the resolution. Just for kicks. There's like fifteen layers on this image right now. Once I finish this I'm going to do a quick bump map for it by shading it and then using the Nvidia plugin but applying it to the original (non-shaded) image. I have no idea what to do from there.
So, suggestions for what I should add back in? Comments in general?
EDIT: Forgot about this. Link was found on HL2 forums, but some of these textures might apply here anyway. The metal I used was modified from a texture in this pack (they're 512x512, and I wanted 1024x1024, so I tiled it 2x2 and then heal- and clone-brushed the inside randomly so it wouldn't be so repetitive). <a href='http://www.planetquake.com/berneyboy/textures.htm' target='_blank'>Massive Number of Photo-Realistic Textures</a>
This one I spent much less time on... which will probably change. I have no idea how powerful bump/normal maps are, so I didn't know how much of this should be the color layer and how much would be done with special effects or whatever.
When you are building textures without bumpmapping pixture them as if they were lit in a fullbright environment, there are no light sourses at all striking them, just a general light field. All the shadows and light highlights the bumpmap can handle (unless they are too deep, in which case they should really be modeled anyways). you still draw in lines that less light just gets in, like creases between tiles, but you don't draw false light highlights on it.
If you can't handle not lighting your textures because they are just to hard to visualize without lighting, do the lighting, just do it on a seperate layer and remove it in the end result. In actuallity, it will probably help whoever bumpmaps them to have a copy of the texture with false lighting and a copy without anyways.
Walls do *not* need to be 1024x1024. That's really only necessary when you have a texture that will be looped alot (for terrain for example). It will just be annoying for mapmakers having to rescale whenever they want to use that texture. 512x512 will work perfectly fine.
i recomend starting with the "yelgrey" set, every texture in it needs a detailed normal map. Get crackin! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
No, but the yelgray set isn't done yet. So asking him to start z-brushing for the texture before someone does the color layer makes no sense - the "high res" textures will undoubtedly end up slightly different than the originals (besides just being bigger, they'll have different scratches, etc.)
Well, you're welcome to either of the two textures I put up there. I'd really like to see what the vent looks like with normal mapping... at this point I think it's probably better if it's modelled in future maps anyway (vents in HL2 were almost all modeled, and vents that have actual gaps (like that texture) are modeled in CS:S too, I believe.) It'd be cool to see if we can get away with not doing that.
just had a look at this thread again. progress _seems_ to be quite slow but maybe i got that wrong <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo-->
i wanted to know if there is any general overview (apart from that .txt file in the first post) where one can see xxx% of textures done.
6john are you still on this project? if thats the case ... you might be the only one whos got the big plan <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> ... i think a little progress bar might really help sometimes
KungFuSquirrelBasher of MuttonsJoin Date: 2002-01-26Member: 103Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<!--QuoteBegin-brute force+Mar 17 2005, 09:15 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (brute force @ Mar 17 2005, 09:15 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Walls do *not* need to be 1024x1024. That's really only necessary when you have a texture that will be looped alot (for terrain for example). It will just be annoying for mapmakers having to rescale whenever they want to use that texture. 512x512 will work perfectly fine. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Proportionally, based upon the texture resolution on existing NS wall textures, all the 256x256 walls should actually be done in 1024 to have the same fit to geometry people are used to from the HL version - Default scaling in the editor is .25, so a 512x512 is only 128 world units.
In HL, it was detrimental to scale down textures because of the poly splits based on texture UV coords, so the 256x256 textures (which probably should have been scaled to .5, technically, and built in with extra pieces from there) were generally left at default scale.
From a resources standpoint, 512s make sense, but so much use has come out of the existing NS set at mostly 256 rather than 128 that for familiarity's sake you should really probably keep everything proportional to the original - if you just go with 512s and want to, say, match some of the work in the original maps, you're going to have to start scaling up textures and lose that resolution jump that Source should be giving.
Comments
oh and its availibe in free trial for 30days which is plenty of time to remake some textures.
<a href='http://registry.gimp.org/plugin?id=3892' target='_blank'>Windows Gimp Deweirdifyer</a>
note, you need nvidia's texture tools (<a href='http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html' target='_blank'>Here</a>) to run the automation.
hope this helps!
Anyways, I think I'll get started on the NS:S textures as soon as I can get Wally working...lol...
No. It is not great. It produces shoddy normal maps that only work on low detail textures. No self-respecting professional texture artist would use it for any more than normal mapping straight lines on a simple floor tile texture. It is not adequate in the least compared to XSI or a comparable 3d package.
<!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->
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Any input on this? Not especially useful at the rate I'm going (over an hour on this floor texture.)
<a href='http://img229.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img229&image=teckfloor013nw.jpg' target='_blank'>TeckFloor01</a>
Here's the old texture:
<a href='http://img194.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img194&image=teckfloor01old9gq.jpg' target='_blank'>TeckFloor01Old</a>
I can keep plodding along if you like.
It is more important that the texture looks good then that it copies the original perfectly, so if you can't tell what the hell that wierd dot on the original texture is supposed to be, either take it out or replace it with something that makes more sense in your mind. Remember, no false light strikes, only texture the hard lines and the material changes. If you can't get a sense of what the texture is supposed to look like in 3D, then it will just be hard as hell to bumpmap and it will probably look ugly in game.
Secondly, though, I don't really know the context for all of these textures - I haven't been playing long enough. It seems to me that the giant metal thing on the right side of the texture would look weird when tiled - this complex-looking thing every few feet along the wall.
I'll see what I can do.
<a href='http://Picture' target='_blank'>http://Picture</a> deleted cos i just realised how crap it is.gif
and original
<img src='http://www.metempsycosis.co.uk/eclip_lab5old.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
So, suggestions for what I should add back in? Comments in general?
<a href='http://img149.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img149ℑ=teckwall01big0it.jpg' target='_blank'><img src='http://i149.exs.cx/img149/3995/teckwall01big0it.th.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' /></a>
EDIT:
Forgot about this. Link was found on HL2 forums, but some of these textures might apply here anyway. The metal I used was modified from a texture in this pack (they're 512x512, and I wanted 1024x1024, so I tiled it 2x2 and then heal- and clone-brushed the inside randomly so it wouldn't be so repetitive).
<a href='http://www.planetquake.com/berneyboy/textures.htm' target='_blank'>Massive Number of Photo-Realistic Textures</a>
<a href='http://img186.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img186&image=teckfloor045zf.jpg' target='_blank'><img src='http://img186.exs.cx/img186/9372/teckfloor045zf.th.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' /></a>
This one I spent much less time on... which will probably change. I have no idea how powerful bump/normal maps are, so I didn't know how much of this should be the color layer and how much would be done with special effects or whatever.
If you can't handle not lighting your textures because they are just to hard to visualize without lighting, do the lighting, just do it on a seperate layer and remove it in the end result. In actuallity, it will probably help whoever bumpmaps them to have a copy of the texture with false lighting and a copy without anyways.
i'd like to put into practice what i've learned. pm me
i recomend starting with the "yelgrey" set, every texture in it needs a detailed normal map. Get crackin! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
preferably something more challenging than a tile floor. something with some interesting detail
just had a look at this thread again. progress _seems_ to be quite slow but maybe i got that wrong <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo-->
i wanted to know if there is any general overview (apart from that .txt file in the first post) where one can see xxx% of textures done.
6john are you still on this project?
if thats the case ... you might be the only one whos got the big plan <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> ... i think a little progress bar might really help sometimes
Proportionally, based upon the texture resolution on existing NS wall textures, all the 256x256 walls should actually be done in 1024 to have the same fit to geometry people are used to from the HL version - Default scaling in the editor is .25, so a 512x512 is only 128 world units.
In HL, it was detrimental to scale down textures because of the poly splits based on texture UV coords, so the 256x256 textures (which probably should have been scaled to .5, technically, and built in with extra pieces from there) were generally left at default scale.
From a resources standpoint, 512s make sense, but so much use has come out of the existing NS set at mostly 256 rather than 128 that for familiarity's sake you should really probably keep everything proportional to the original - if you just go with 512s and want to, say, match some of the work in the original maps, you're going to have to start scaling up textures and lose that resolution jump that Source should be giving.