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Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 15 Feb 2015, 05:30
by aeonios
err.. well, did I manage to fix it? :|

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 15 Feb 2015, 21:35
by zoggop
Ya, the metal spots are shiny now. It's pretty subtle b/c of the lighting angle and the fact that the heightmap is smooth & flat where the metal spots are (only one angle to glint).
Image

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 16 Feb 2015, 05:12
by aeonios
awesome, thanks.

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 16 Feb 2015, 16:31
by Anarchid
smooth & flat where the metal spots are (only one angle to glint).
... this is where you get normals :)

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 16 Feb 2015, 22:04
by aeonios
The new skybox sets the sun directly overhead, which may help. :P

Normals would probably be pretty complicated and I don't think they'd have the effect you expect, but maybe.

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 00:46
by zoggop
i can confirm normals do have that effect. i once tried it:
Image

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 01:39
by qray
aeonios wrote:Normals would probably be pretty complicated ...
Quick'n'dirty/poor-mans approach to normals: there's a Gimp plugin which converts greyscale image to normal map. If you just want to apply to metal spots, this might be an easy and quick solution...

And now I wait for the Blender users to hit me :wink:

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 15:00
by aeonios
qray wrote:
aeonios wrote:Normals would probably be pretty complicated ...
Quick'n'dirty/poor-mans approach to normals: there's a Gimp plugin which converts greyscale image to normal map. If you just want to apply to metal spots, this might be an easy and quick solution...

And now I wait for the Blender users to hit me :wink:
I think I would still take easy and quick over blender as long as easy and quick works well enough. :P

After taking a look at it it seems like it should be more than sufficient. I threw together a dev version in only a couple minutes and it was really easy:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7k9m92z248isb ... 4.sd7?dl=0

Now I just need some confirmation screenshots and I think this map should be about finalized.

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 15:52
by qray
With the current normal map:
Image
A bit on the dark side (normals are quite strong) - even when chaging viewing angle.

So I quickly tested with 50% tranparency on the normal map:
Image

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 16:32
by aeonios
hmm, that dark appearance most likely means the height contrast for the normals are too high. I was going based on the 3D preview in gimp, but it seems in game uses a different scaling.

I made up a new normal map with different settings. I'm linking the normal map only so you can just plug that in instead of downloading the whole map again:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sq2r6xbi01wgp ... s.png?dl=0

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 16:41
by qray
New screenshot with the new normalmap file:
Image

BTW: the slight 3D effect of the normals looks nice when changing viewing angle.

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 18:23
by aeonios
I figured it would. :)

That's still a bit dark though. I think when I figure out the proper scaling factor I'll post it on the wiki for future reference.

Here's the next version of the normals, using 2.0 scaling instead of 3.0:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sq2r6xbi01wgp ... s.png?dl=0

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 22:28
by qray
Get 404 when trying to download. You still need a screenshot?

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 23:26
by aeonios

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 17 Feb 2015, 23:39
by qray
Filename says "specmap.png" :wink:

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 18 Feb 2015, 00:50
by aeonios

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 18 Feb 2015, 22:37
by qray
better late than never :wink:
Image

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 20 Feb 2015, 12:26
by aeonios
hmn, thanks for the help so far, but I ended up buying a gfx card so I can do this stuff myself. When I get that set up I think what I'm gonna do is try to make a normalmap for the entire diffuse instead of just the metal spots. I'm thinking that might look ridiculously awesome. :P

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 21 Feb 2015, 08:01
by Orfelius
These metal spots with normals look like 10 times better than without normal mapping :shock:
ME WANT

Also all things considered, I don't think this kind of metal spot indication is very fitting for your map :|

Re: Specular Tex issue

Posted: 21 Feb 2015, 08:55
by smoth
Relying on normal maps causes issues when you are doing larger or oblong maps. why not make a neutral, nondamagable, always visible unit with a better normal map?