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Activity #3 - Normal Mapping a Rock

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on
Forum

I've finaly gotten around to doing this little normal mapping activity. Here you will be modeling a distinctive rock formation. I have supplied a few reference pictures on what types of rocks you can use. Basically ones with nice shape and texture. The more cuts and gouges, layers and errosion the better.

All you need to do for this activity is:

- Model a low polygon mesh around 800 triangles.
- Unwrap the model into 1 sheet
- Create a high polygon source model. I recomend zbrush for the more organic types.
- Render out a normal map at 1024 or if you can 2048 to be shrunk down to 1024.
- Apply the Normal map to the low polygon mesh.

Now you can texture your pet rock if you wish but it is not required.

Here are the reference images I have provided.

[img]http://206.169.164.231/kalescent/StephanieMisC/Rock01.jpg[/img]
Scource from http://alan.fasick.net

[img]http://206.169.164.231/kalescent/StephanieMisC/Rock02.jpg[/img]
Scource from http://yasui.anjiro.com

[img]http://206.169.164.231/kalescent/StephanieMisC/Rock03.jpg[/img]
Scource from www.xanterra-corporate.com

[img]http://206.169.164.231/kalescent/StephanieMisC/Rock04.jpg[/img]
Scource from www.route66.com

Remember, make your model as if you were making it for a next gen game (well have those intentions in mind) so try to use up your 800 poly limit budget as best you can! [;)]

If you have any problems with the normal mapping process, post here and myself or anyone else can post a possible solution. I will try to check this every day to see if anyone is having problems :)

Anyway that all from me. If I have left something out just tell me and I'll put it in.

Goodluck!

Submitted by Makk on Fri, 26/08/05 - 8:56 AM Permalink

Rock on!!!

HAHAHAHA!!

Seriously though, this should be fun and Im down for it.
Might I add though if you dont have zbrush, grab the photoshop normal map plugin, overlay a rock texture and use the plugin. You might be able to get some decent results with that.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Fri, 26/08/05 - 6:29 PM Permalink

Yes very true about the phtoshop thing, but I'd like everyone to try the normal mapping from a high polygon scource model as that is a little trickier but much more effective :D

A basic process of how I would go about this...

1. Build the low polygon base mesh

2. Create a high polygon source mesh from the Low polygon mesh. Make sure they match as close as possible!! This is very important especially if you ware doing mechcanials or characters, you will find glitches and wonky lines which are very hard to paint out.

3. Unwrap the Low polygon base mesh. You can do this before the high polygon mesh which might help woth displacement maps in zbrush bu I honestly haven't tried.

4. Normal mapp your pet rock. I like to use Kaldera and haven't played with Max 7's normal mapping funtionality. Try to normal map at double the intended resolution. My settings for kaldera are Ray ofset - usually 3-5 (depending on the type of model. you will need to scale it up and down to get it right though.) Anti aliasing - I'd like to set it at 3 or 4 but sometimes it takes forever to do it so I usually render at 2 if im doing a large 2048 map. and Skirt Filter at 1-2.

5. Take the normal map into photoshop and create a new layer. Use the snudge tool set to about 60-70% and 80% hardness to smudge out glitches. View your normal map in your 3D software and see if there are any parts that look funny. Most things happen around places where the ray has clipped another part of the high mesh (if that makes any sence). EG: I have a hand near the leg, i normal map it and the hand is now imprinted on the leg. Too close to the ray of the leg. Either break the hand away and normal map it seperately or paint it out.

6. You can paint your texture using the normal map. Use the normal map as a slight overlay to see where your detail is and you can paint the texture accordingly.

7. Use the Nvidia photoshop plugin to create a normal map from your texture. It will save it out as a .DDS and then just apply this as an overlay on your normal map. Set it to an opacity of 40 - 50% depending on how intense it is and then flatten, then do another filter pass but normalise it only.

Then you have you normal mapped pet rock. :D

Submitted by J I Styles on Fri, 26/08/05 - 6:38 PM Permalink

great job with the activity, I'm really glad other people are posting them! As an alternative to zbrush, when you simply don't have access to it on your box, I'd suggest max7 and 8 - here's how:

- chuck your viewport on faceted fullscreen (for speeds sake... also a quadro helps there [:D])
- set up your selection to lasso type
- map edit/editable poly keys for hide selected, unhide all, hide unselected, meshsmooth, paint/pull and relax (both of these, the paint deformation ones)
- bung on a edit poly modifier, or collapse to editable poly
- msmooth your mesh a few times, go into paint/pull and start playing around with brush settings to what you like (I usually have value=50,size=15,strength=0.1)
- when you're ready to start working on your mesh, select off areas you want to work on and hide everything else. This is again purely for speed boosts since that's its main bane. Other tips for improving speed... make sure you have one viewport, don't use wireframe, and buy a quadro [:)]

It works surprisingly well, barring the speed issues, even though it still isn't zbrush - on the other hand it's very nice to have the mesh paint/sculpt functionality native in max... no exporting or importing, and no crazy viewport controls.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Fri, 02/09/05 - 3:33 AM Permalink

I also forgot; please show your highpoly as well! I'd like to see how your highpoly went :D

Submitted by Killa Dee on Wed, 07/09/05 - 1:19 AM Permalink

!!! YIPEE !!!

Been looking forward to abit of Z brush ACTION....

Submitted by souri on Thu, 29/09/05 - 1:29 AM Permalink

This activity needs more love [:(]

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Thu, 29/09/05 - 9:01 AM Permalink

Perhaps rocks wasn't everyone's idea of fun :p

Submitted by Kizza on Thu, 29/09/05 - 9:21 AM Permalink

I love the idea. It's high on my todo list, especially as a friendly intro to normal mapping.
Oh so soon I hope.

Submitted by Mr Garbage on Fri, 04/11/05 - 9:51 AM Permalink

Well, I'd thought Id give this a go,should be fun, Ive got to learn to walk before I run;-)
I havent done any normal mapping so I thought Id have a go, any way below is my wireframe of my rock, slightly rotated.

hehe, Onto unwrapping[?]

wish a newb luck.
[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Mr Garbage/200511364751_Rock_Wireframe.jpg"]Rock_Wireframe.jpg[/url]
41.77 KB

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Fri, 04/11/05 - 8:08 PM Permalink

Hey Garbage! Nice work! :)

Don't be afraid to use up all 800 of the poly budget in making your rock. This is important as engines like Unreal 3 will have budgets like that for the medium sized rocks.

Submitted by IronhideNT on Thu, 02/03/06 - 11:33 AM Permalink

First of all thanks for this post that was done all that time ago!

It's been awhile since I touched 3D and thought I'd make a fresh start with normal mapping.

And umm yay...first attempt?

It's sorta frustrating really, I don't get Zbrush all too well and I was generally painting upside down cause it doesn't do what I want it to do!!!

Anywho after all these weird things happened to my model I just went back to real basics and saw if I could get the thing working in the first place. And finally through some tutorial help in CGTalk this happened!

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/IronhideNT/2006318203_firstRocky…"]firstRockyay.jpg[/url]
7.9?KB

And I know it's working because when I change the position of the light the bumps change.

But now I'm thinking I could've done something better using plain old colour maps. It just looks so pixelly- and I subdivided the rock about 4 times from my original -

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/IronhideNT/20063182315_wire.jpg"]wire.jpg[/url]
48.14?KB

And even at max subdivisions i click the create normal map button and nothing happens. So I'm forced to take it down a couple of notches?

The shader netowrk I downloaded from headus.com is great but also expects you to be a a texture dude genius and im in a"what do i do now?" mode - like where do I put the colour/spec map?

I know it's a stab in the dark question, but what am I doing wrong? Anyone know how normal mapping works between zbrush and maya? Maybe I haven't looked around enough for tutes...??

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on
Forum

I've finaly gotten around to doing this little normal mapping activity. Here you will be modeling a distinctive rock formation. I have supplied a few reference pictures on what types of rocks you can use. Basically ones with nice shape and texture. The more cuts and gouges, layers and errosion the better.

All you need to do for this activity is:

- Model a low polygon mesh around 800 triangles.
- Unwrap the model into 1 sheet
- Create a high polygon source model. I recomend zbrush for the more organic types.
- Render out a normal map at 1024 or if you can 2048 to be shrunk down to 1024.
- Apply the Normal map to the low polygon mesh.

Now you can texture your pet rock if you wish but it is not required.

Here are the reference images I have provided.

[img]http://206.169.164.231/kalescent/StephanieMisC/Rock01.jpg[/img]
Scource from http://alan.fasick.net

[img]http://206.169.164.231/kalescent/StephanieMisC/Rock02.jpg[/img]
Scource from http://yasui.anjiro.com

[img]http://206.169.164.231/kalescent/StephanieMisC/Rock03.jpg[/img]
Scource from www.xanterra-corporate.com

[img]http://206.169.164.231/kalescent/StephanieMisC/Rock04.jpg[/img]
Scource from www.route66.com

Remember, make your model as if you were making it for a next gen game (well have those intentions in mind) so try to use up your 800 poly limit budget as best you can! [;)]

If you have any problems with the normal mapping process, post here and myself or anyone else can post a possible solution. I will try to check this every day to see if anyone is having problems :)

Anyway that all from me. If I have left something out just tell me and I'll put it in.

Goodluck!


Submitted by Makk on Fri, 26/08/05 - 8:56 AM Permalink

Rock on!!!

HAHAHAHA!!

Seriously though, this should be fun and Im down for it.
Might I add though if you dont have zbrush, grab the photoshop normal map plugin, overlay a rock texture and use the plugin. You might be able to get some decent results with that.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Fri, 26/08/05 - 6:29 PM Permalink

Yes very true about the phtoshop thing, but I'd like everyone to try the normal mapping from a high polygon scource model as that is a little trickier but much more effective :D

A basic process of how I would go about this...

1. Build the low polygon base mesh

2. Create a high polygon source mesh from the Low polygon mesh. Make sure they match as close as possible!! This is very important especially if you ware doing mechcanials or characters, you will find glitches and wonky lines which are very hard to paint out.

3. Unwrap the Low polygon base mesh. You can do this before the high polygon mesh which might help woth displacement maps in zbrush bu I honestly haven't tried.

4. Normal mapp your pet rock. I like to use Kaldera and haven't played with Max 7's normal mapping funtionality. Try to normal map at double the intended resolution. My settings for kaldera are Ray ofset - usually 3-5 (depending on the type of model. you will need to scale it up and down to get it right though.) Anti aliasing - I'd like to set it at 3 or 4 but sometimes it takes forever to do it so I usually render at 2 if im doing a large 2048 map. and Skirt Filter at 1-2.

5. Take the normal map into photoshop and create a new layer. Use the snudge tool set to about 60-70% and 80% hardness to smudge out glitches. View your normal map in your 3D software and see if there are any parts that look funny. Most things happen around places where the ray has clipped another part of the high mesh (if that makes any sence). EG: I have a hand near the leg, i normal map it and the hand is now imprinted on the leg. Too close to the ray of the leg. Either break the hand away and normal map it seperately or paint it out.

6. You can paint your texture using the normal map. Use the normal map as a slight overlay to see where your detail is and you can paint the texture accordingly.

7. Use the Nvidia photoshop plugin to create a normal map from your texture. It will save it out as a .DDS and then just apply this as an overlay on your normal map. Set it to an opacity of 40 - 50% depending on how intense it is and then flatten, then do another filter pass but normalise it only.

Then you have you normal mapped pet rock. :D

Submitted by J I Styles on Fri, 26/08/05 - 6:38 PM Permalink

great job with the activity, I'm really glad other people are posting them! As an alternative to zbrush, when you simply don't have access to it on your box, I'd suggest max7 and 8 - here's how:

- chuck your viewport on faceted fullscreen (for speeds sake... also a quadro helps there [:D])
- set up your selection to lasso type
- map edit/editable poly keys for hide selected, unhide all, hide unselected, meshsmooth, paint/pull and relax (both of these, the paint deformation ones)
- bung on a edit poly modifier, or collapse to editable poly
- msmooth your mesh a few times, go into paint/pull and start playing around with brush settings to what you like (I usually have value=50,size=15,strength=0.1)
- when you're ready to start working on your mesh, select off areas you want to work on and hide everything else. This is again purely for speed boosts since that's its main bane. Other tips for improving speed... make sure you have one viewport, don't use wireframe, and buy a quadro [:)]

It works surprisingly well, barring the speed issues, even though it still isn't zbrush - on the other hand it's very nice to have the mesh paint/sculpt functionality native in max... no exporting or importing, and no crazy viewport controls.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Fri, 02/09/05 - 3:33 AM Permalink

I also forgot; please show your highpoly as well! I'd like to see how your highpoly went :D

Submitted by Killa Dee on Wed, 07/09/05 - 1:19 AM Permalink

!!! YIPEE !!!

Been looking forward to abit of Z brush ACTION....

Submitted by souri on Thu, 29/09/05 - 1:29 AM Permalink

This activity needs more love [:(]

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Thu, 29/09/05 - 9:01 AM Permalink

Perhaps rocks wasn't everyone's idea of fun :p

Submitted by Kizza on Thu, 29/09/05 - 9:21 AM Permalink

I love the idea. It's high on my todo list, especially as a friendly intro to normal mapping.
Oh so soon I hope.

Submitted by Mr Garbage on Fri, 04/11/05 - 9:51 AM Permalink

Well, I'd thought Id give this a go,should be fun, Ive got to learn to walk before I run;-)
I havent done any normal mapping so I thought Id have a go, any way below is my wireframe of my rock, slightly rotated.

hehe, Onto unwrapping[?]

wish a newb luck.
[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Mr Garbage/200511364751_Rock_Wireframe.jpg"]Rock_Wireframe.jpg[/url]
41.77 KB

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Fri, 04/11/05 - 8:08 PM Permalink

Hey Garbage! Nice work! :)

Don't be afraid to use up all 800 of the poly budget in making your rock. This is important as engines like Unreal 3 will have budgets like that for the medium sized rocks.

Submitted by IronhideNT on Thu, 02/03/06 - 11:33 AM Permalink

First of all thanks for this post that was done all that time ago!

It's been awhile since I touched 3D and thought I'd make a fresh start with normal mapping.

And umm yay...first attempt?

It's sorta frustrating really, I don't get Zbrush all too well and I was generally painting upside down cause it doesn't do what I want it to do!!!

Anywho after all these weird things happened to my model I just went back to real basics and saw if I could get the thing working in the first place. And finally through some tutorial help in CGTalk this happened!

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/IronhideNT/2006318203_firstRocky…"]firstRockyay.jpg[/url]
7.9?KB

And I know it's working because when I change the position of the light the bumps change.

But now I'm thinking I could've done something better using plain old colour maps. It just looks so pixelly- and I subdivided the rock about 4 times from my original -

[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/IronhideNT/20063182315_wire.jpg"]wire.jpg[/url]
48.14?KB

And even at max subdivisions i click the create normal map button and nothing happens. So I'm forced to take it down a couple of notches?

The shader netowrk I downloaded from headus.com is great but also expects you to be a a texture dude genius and im in a"what do i do now?" mode - like where do I put the colour/spec map?

I know it's a stab in the dark question, but what am I doing wrong? Anyone know how normal mapping works between zbrush and maya? Maybe I haven't looked around enough for tutes...??