[|P|Nitro]

it would be nice if one or two of the sweeping doors showed their age of the map style by only opening half way (or slighty more but not fully) and perhaps making a grinding noise and sending sparks flying, they could be strategically placed so that it makes a tight fit so fast slides through them provide cover as a benefit for those who get the slide correct and make it through the space.

[FS BladeKiller]

Rayne, what program do you use to make your normal maps? Do you make a model of the bricks or blocks or whatever and make them from that or just use the diffuse texture? I usually make them from a bump map that I adjust so the higher areas are lighter grey than the lower areas and then make the normal map in Crazy Bump.

[Rayne]

BladeKiller, on 24 April 2012 - 09:00 PM, said:

Rayne, what program do you use to make your normal maps? Do you make a model of the bricks or blocks or whatever and make them from that or just use the diffuse texture? I usually make them from a bump map that I adjust so the higher areas are lighter grey than the lower areas and then make the normal map in Crazy Bump.

I use crazy bump too. Tried nvidia plugin for photoshop and threw it in the trash after an hour.

Adjustments i make depend on the diffuse map itself. If i notice some areas that should be higher are dark i try to adjust them but that isn't always possible, so smaller errors in the normal map are present.

One thing i often do is generate 2, in rare cases 3 normal maps. Each with a task of adding specular or occlusion to specific part of the diffuse map and then blend then together in photoshop.

I don't convert the the diffuse map into a gray scale bump map cause sometimes the lack of color confuses me and i no longer know what do the smaller details represent.
Crazybump allows importing a diffuse map as height map anyway so in the end the result it more or less the same.

I was asked by some guys on CMM to make them a video that shows how i make my normal maps (my, text+pictures tutorial failed to explain it).

[Rayne]

The normal map above was made in one go. No testing before making the video, no adjustments to the diffuse map, none of it.
If i really wanted to go into details I'd generate 2 normal maps.
1'st For the outer frame, that would have sharper edges.
2'nd for the inner engraving that would be softer like in the video.
And then load them both in photoshop and mask out unwanted details in one of them.
That way i usually achieve softer and sharper edges in one normal map.

This post has been edited by Rayne: 24 April 2012 - 09:28 PM

[FS BladeKiller]

OK, that's similar to how I do mine. I do desaturate my diffuse maps first and work on the shades of grey though. I know what I want especially with the player model skins. I blend normal maps together with Crazy Bump also. I find that with the player skins Crazy Bump inverts the normals compared to max so I have to invert them to match. Most people don't make the specular map dark enough and end up with plastic world. As TwentySeven says "a little light goes a long way".

[Rayne]

Yeah CB can blend some normal maps rather nicely. But it uses some sort of opacity based blending so they mix together and that's usually not what i want. And in photoshop i have absolute control, and that's always a good thing.

The blue channel i remade for the normal map is the occlusion channel. It's what gives my normal maps that depth. It's good cause it fades out as light intensity goes up but on the down side it can look odd if you take a good look and realize that the occlusion is on the left and the light source is on the left side too.
It should be opposite, but as long as it looks good, most players wont pay much attention to it.

[FS BladeKiller]

Yeah, for the purpose you described earlier Photoshop makes sense. I haven't tried it for the MD5 player model normal map blending. I'll have to give it a try the next time I work on them and see which looks better in game.

[[Sk&Bh]Txc]

I forgot to ask about the blood , in the ut4_Nevada's video was shown & I saw that on surface have new spot image , but in the air the ''blood cloud'' seems is not touched since 4.1. . Will be nice to have developed UT's style of blood (maybe & bleeding animations too) . Yes , not the most important thing , but still it is .

[FS BladeKiller]

Effects are not finished, yet. Lots to do.