37 replies to this topic

[Garagarape]

Johnnycore,
Thanks a lot for the information about ShaderMap2.
It looks great. I'm using CrazyBump almost everyday,
but I'm gonna give a shot to ShaderMap too.

[digman]

Here ya go Michalis...
Voxel base was a quick low,low 26,000 voxel model. I wanted to see how well ShaderMap 2 could do on rock details...
autopo mesh and auto uv map. 1928 polygons. I wanted to test the uv island seams so I have lots of them...
Merged for normal map. I needed a clean base, might have been projection errors if I MV the mesh because I used auto mesh and auto uv.
Painted a rock texture on the model in the paint room.
Exported that out as diffuse map at1024 texture size. Only map I exported was the diffuse.
Use the painted diffuse map as a base to create displacement, normal, AO and spec maps. in Shader map 2

Since I was on my windows computer rendered the rock in Carrara.
The rock has a bump map, no real displacement and a color map mixed with the AO.
I push the bump alittle.
Quick render to test the seams...

The reason for not using the Normal map is I wanted to see how the bump would look only, as now I will render the rock in Blender Cycles...

I think Shader map 2 handled what I wanted pretty good. Back later with my impressions of Shader map 2 and so far it works well as a companion of 3DCoat...
I also found out that you can embed up to 4 maps into each map. You also just blend maps with other maps as well, displacement, ao, spec, normal etc...

Edit:
Last picture is real displacement and bump mixed...
A heads up. When you use a diffuse texture to create all your maps, be sure to set your alpha to the max for your diffuse map to blend the uv seams...
This works the same when only using a displacement map to create normal, ao and spec...

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[johnnycore]

Wow great results!

Smart trick with using alpha to blend seams..

[michalis]

Very nice David!
But, what I'm asking from crazybumps or ShaderMap2 is a displacement/bump map from a normal map.
It's that simple, 3dcoat PPP mode can't bake displacement maps, normal maps only. It can bake displ maps from painting only, not from the vox mesh.
PPP is a forgiving tool, MV is too tricky sometimes. Just saying.

In your experiment you just painted the bumps. So, why not export displacement maps from 3dc? You don't need ShaderMap2 at all.
What you may try is to use some photos and have a displacement map for 3dcoat brushes. Question: ShaderMap2 displacements are 8,16,32 bit images?

[digman]

I added a feature request at the ShaderMap 2 forums for normal mapping to also have alpha blending for seams. The developer responded that he has added that to the list of features for version 2.6.
Once that happens then we can convert our 3DCoat normal maps into a displacement map or use as a bump map.

To me, it's not a one or another way but about workflows and increasing your range of options when creating your objects.
I could have done most of the same work in 3DCoat but sometimes you want different workflows and I was able to quickly create the normal, AO and spec map as well. You have more embedding options in ShaderMap 2, blending of maps and adjustments. I really like the way ShaderMap displaced the painted texture as well.

It's a good software companion for 3DCoat and so far works very well with it. I will check on image bit size exporting....

@Johnnycore
I got the alpha blending trick from a post by the developer...

[philnolan3d]

At $40 I may well pick this up. Looks like it does the same and more than Crazy Bump at a much more realistic price.

[digman]

ShaderMap 2.0.5 was released today. One nice improvement is quad obj support. You no longer have to triangulate your model before using it in ShaderMap 2.

[randomguy_j]

Very cool! At 40 bucks thats hard to beat. Thanks for showing us the examples Digman! I hope they release the version that can convert a normal map to displace/height map soon as that would be a quick and valuable option for when other software fail you

[Creator]

Check this out: http://frozenflameco...ducts&entryid=2 and it's even cheaper.
And there is nDo2 http://quixel.se/ but it's expensive as hell !!

[chingchong]

thanks creator
that nDo2 looks like a must have

[Giuseppe]

Thanks for reporting, NDO2 working with photoshop elements 10?, I have a license photoshop elements

[chingchong]

Thanks for reporting, NDO2 working with photoshop elements 10?, I have a license photoshop elements

IMPORTANT: Compatibility

• Works for Photoshop CS3, CS4 and CS5. Support for CS2 is not in yet, but is currently being implemented.
• Works for Windows XP, Vista and 7. OSX or Linux not supported.

(from their forums)

tried with Pse8 and it doesn't work

[Giuseppe]

thank for the reply

[digman]

SM2 is turning out to be one nice piece of software to use in conjunction with 3DCoat.

SM2 has the ability to invoke an external paint editor right inside SM2. Save the image and it is updated in SM2.

I used it tonight to adjust and clean up a displacement map that was produce by the color image.

I pushed the statues foward, the walls backwards, soften and rounded out areas plus got rid of spikes resulting in a cleaner and better looking map. Your normal map, AO and spec maps are updated as well... Now i can bring it into 3DCoat for some painting and final displacement.

The map is just 1024 and a quick test render with displacement...

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[michalis]

I don't have a PC to test this little freeware. Please have a look
http://charles.hollemeersch.net/njob

[J0linar]

i actually use njob in my workflow, it produces some fairly good results and i can give a comparison between njob/crazybump/shadermap2

and it works under linux with whine, tested and confirmed
teh onyl thing i miss tehre is a 3d preview, i hope the dev includes one in a new version

"...michalis: But, what I'm asking from crazybumps or ShaderMap2 is a displacement/bump map from a normal map."
u can convert a heightmap to a normal map and a diffuse to a normal and height and so on along with some neat filters
(heightmaps are displacement maps for teh ones that dont get it)
and u can do the opposite too and onvert it into a ambient occlusion map

anyways i hope i helped a bit out



sry if teh pic is too big :/ (hope it isnt...)

[philnolan3d]

Can it load a normal map and tweak it? A school friend is at a big game studio now and said that they often bake normal maps from high res, then load the map into Crazy Bump to adjust it.

[J0linar]

just before i hit the bed, yes it can u can adjust blur/sharpness along with some filters that come in handy, try the crispy bacon^^
as for displacement maps it automaticly asks u if u want it to invert so its pretty useful for exampel lets say u go the texture way
u want to get a normal map out of a diffuse map
the 1st u would have to convert it into a heightmap then convert the heightmap into a normal map then back into a heightmap where it asks u if u want to invert it, choose yes and at the end u can get a preety good working normal map made out of your diffuse map

anyways njob is free and we shouldnt ask to much of it but it can easy stay on the level of crazybump or whatever u want
and ye if u like njob dont hesitate to throw some bucks @ http://charles.hollemeersch.net/njob
and maybe he might even update njob in the future, it for sure would be good to have a 3d preview