No.. the ultimapper solution is fine, its the exported maps from external apps I'm having trouble with.
On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 7:45 AM, Stephen Davidson <[email protected]>wrote: > does this help? > http://vimeo.com/19399592 > > > On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 10:40 AM, Adam Sale <[email protected]> wrote: > >> hey Wayne.. Thanks for the tips. >> My case is for Rendering with Mental / Vray >> >> I just can't believe that OOTB SOftimage still doesn't have a proper >> Normal Map. >> >> Its been requested a few times now, but often gets overlooked. >> >> >> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 5:23 AM, Williams, Wayne < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Because Softimage doesn’t have proper cage functionality most folks I >>> know that still use Soft have ditched baking normals with it. Xnormal >>> (freeware) is pretty much the quasi-standard app for baking these days. 8 >>> bit maps are fairly standard in my travels. **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> If you are trying to get more “bump” to your normal you can duplicate >>> the map in photoshop, double click it to bring up the layer dialog and set >>> to overlay and uncheck the blue channel. Merge those together and you have >>> a “stronger” map. Another thing to note is depending on what you will be >>> viewing in you may need to invert the green channel of the normal map, else >>> the normals will look flipped weird. **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> Also, if you are going to be viewing this in a game engine as the final >>> result, it is typically standard workflow to check your normals there, >>> because in the end, it doesn’t really matter what they look like in >>> Soft/Maya/Max. **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> -wayne**** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> *From:* [email protected] [mailto: >>> [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Adam Sale >>> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 12, 2012 2:15 AM >>> *To:* [email protected] >>> *Subject:* Normal Maps in Softimage**** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> So, My Softimage decided to play hardball with me and stopped working >>> earlier this evening. **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> What I had wanted to test out tonight were Normal Maps in Softimage. I >>> don't do a whole lot of texturing , and have known the normal map to be a >>> little strange in my past dealings with it. **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> One of my students is having an issue generating normal maps out of >>> mudbox and getting them to work in Softimage. **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> Is anyone having success with this, or do you generally import high res >>> meshes into soft and use Ultimapper to create the maps.**** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> When creating maps, is it best to create 16 bit or float maps/ Do they >>> always give superior results to 8 bit? **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> My main issue with the normal maps out of Mudbox, is that they don't >>> look like the correct scale or relief of the normals mesh in midbox, or >>> even when I apply the normals to a similar mesh in Maya, and the fact the >>> normal map 3 node doesnt allow us to scale normals is a bit perplexing.* >>> *** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> The workaround with mixing the normal map with a mix 2 color node set to >>> mix with RGB at .5 and B at 1 doesn't quite cut it.. **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> Is there a good working solution that I am simply missing? **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> A better normalMap node perhaps? **** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> Irie..**** >>> >>> Adam**** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >>> ** ** >>> >> >> > > > -- > > Best Regards, > * Stephen P. Davidson** > **(954) 552-7956 > * [email protected] > > *Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic* > > > - Arthur C. Clarke > > <http://www.3danimationmagic.com> > >
