Reality Factory

Normal mapping uses a fake default light from the west to the east.
There is need for a second default light(a little darker)
from the east to the west,because when you look at a monster at its unlit side.you see only a dark outline.

hmm I don't know the exact code for noral mapping right now... would it be better if the one light would come from above instead ?

In either cases you cant see much.
ere is an example of two (unfinished) actors,with a temporary flat normal map.

Only the human has some bumpyy normals,on his armour.

Anyway-the first pic is with a spotlight directly above their origin.
Still too dark.

Here is the default light from the west to the east.
The actors are facing north.
Maybe this is the best that direct-x 7-8 can do.

Nice looking models, Veleran! What are you making your
normal maps with?

yeah it's nice

I was wondering the same thing what are you using to make your map?

First i broke the actor into pieces,made them a bit flat,and attached them to a quad patch.
A pluggin from peter watje called objecttexture generates a heightmap from it.

This is the map rollout for the objecttexture material.

If the heightmap is too bright and the normal effect is too intense,
add an object that is higher than the rest,and when you are sure,attach it to the quad patch
.
I used a pyramid to tweak the maximum height level.

In 3ds max,click on the bump map slot,to go to the object texture rollout,
right click on the main material (the big sphere)
and choose render map-then save the rendered map as .tga.

I have previously posted the TGAtoDot3 material pluggin for Max4 in the forum.
If i find a Max3 version,i will post it.

Untill now,only the front of the upper legs have some bumps-the rest actor is almost flat.

Compare the legs-the left is normal mapped,and the right is standard mapped.
The actor is rather small-its about 23 inches tall,so when its done,detail likeon the legs will be enough.
Both pics are taken with a spotlight of 660 light intensity,with a 45 degrees angle.

If i make the rest of the normal map,and diffuse for the body,i will post a new pic.

There is another more common way of making normal maps-
You need a utility for the 3D modeler like crytec of farcry has for Max,

which lets you choose high poly model,and a target low poly model,and creates a normal map according the mapping coordinates i think.
or find a standalone program that does the same.

This pic shows some scale armour.

The texture is temporary and not yet finished.

I don'T have anything against 2 lights for normal mapping, but it is really important that the lights come from up-east and up-west and not from east and west because two lights that are lit by the same color and are in exactly the opposite direction would nullify the shadows and so they would nullify the bumps on the normal map, causing it to be useless.

I don't understand the problem that you are experiencing but I can tell you how it works:

The code right now has no way right now to similuate any kind of fall off or etc... It also can't distinguish between brighter and dimmer lights... So ALL lights are the same... that is all lights are parrellel lights or point lights... right now everything is basically a parrallel light... I have code to support point lights as well but I saw no difference between the two so I do the little less intensive point light...

I wish I could tell you that I will get a chance to work on it... but I don't know that I will... am trying to get dot3 working with the world... but I am running into some problems and I don't get to work with this stuff as much as I used to...

Anonymous wrote: I have code to support point lights as well but I saw no difference between the two so I do the little less intensive point light...

I meant to say...

I have code to support point lights as well but I saw no difference between the two so I do the little less intensive parallel light...