tangent space normal mapping

tangent space normal mapping

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NeOmega
Posts: 64
Joined: 15 Dec 2010, 11:06

tangent space normal mapping

Post by NeOmega »

back in the day, way back, i actually wrote a tutorial on how to hack blender to make tangent space normal maps. (this was 2003 or so). (aka dot3 mapping)

i did a search to see if spring has it, not seeing much.

It does have normal mapping. (i know it does), but the nice thing about TSNM was you just bake it to the UV from a hi-poly model. no need to paint out a new uv set.

questions:
1) no tangent space normal maps
2) is there a method to bake regular normal maps from high poly to low poly?

(actually, I am not seeing much abotu normal mapping or relief mapping either, I just figured if maps can have it, so too can units....)
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Anarchid
Posts: 1384
Joined: 30 Nov 2008, 04:31

Re: tangent space normal mapping

Post by Anarchid »

Zero-K's Tank Factory now has a fresh model which:

1) Has tangent space normals
2) Which use the same UV map as the diffuse, emissive, specular and all other of this model's textures
3) Has normal map baked from high-poly

Image

It's the thing with gears and tracks. Note that the track mat is actually pretty much a flat block aside from the central bar, all other "geometry" on it is baked normals and AO.

Now, the model was implemented in Max with some Substance, but during implementation and the back-and-forth i also was able to bake the normals to test the process myself and it was all fine.

Now, if you've been away for a while, the reason you won't easily find normal mapping in Spring documentation is because it's not there; not supported natively in engine. However, the engine allows Custom Unit Shaders, and an extremely common Custom Unit Shader is on that applies normal mapping.
NeOmega
Posts: 64
Joined: 15 Dec 2010, 11:06

Re: tangent space normal mapping

Post by NeOmega »

awesome. i have read almost the entire wiki now. very excited, this was concerning me, but now those concerns are allayed. (i really did not want to do 2d texture painting, as making a high poly model and baking it to a low poly gives you an artpiece you can use forever, as game engine progress, you can continue to bake it to higher and higher poly models).

yeah, at first i thought you were taliking about the ground tank tread, but now i see what you mean. dot3 mapping can really help blocky units look smooth and rounded, as evidenced by those factory gears, which look awesome.

btw, little low-poly trick i discovered: if you make a polygn with an odd number of sides, (like 7 instead of 8 or 6), you can fool the eye even greater. in fact, id bet 7 is good enough for a wheel that is not going to be closely scrutinized. (i cant tell what your gears use, they look good!)
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smoth
Posts: 22309
Joined: 13 Jan 2005, 00:46

Re: tangent space normal mapping

Post by smoth »

People used to use pentagon cylinders in ta
ivand
Posts: 310
Joined: 27 Jun 2007, 17:05

Re: tangent space normal mapping

Post by ivand »

Now you can switch to PBR workflow: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=37691
Not only it has normal mapping, but you can also enjoy parallax mapping (in case your graphical assets have bump/height map).
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