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Neat little software


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I found this program on the internet..

It has some cool features.. looks like its working better than crazy bump + the price is quite affordable.. :)

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for pc users only :( . (I already own crazybumps though)

But, shadermap2 is really a cute application, wonderful UI and nice tutorials.

Both apps may face some issues working on complicated UV unwrapped maps. (visible seams etc)

BTW have you checked this free app?

https://sites.google.../site/topmod3d/

It doesn't do many but it produces very clean topology.

You can import your low poly retopo cages too and have some fun. ;)

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Wow!

Never heard of this program.. but it actually looks quite nice!

I think I might try this one for fun.. :)

But yea too bad its PC only, at my work we only use Mac so I cant show this software to my boss.. he might have been interested in this app.

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he might have been interested in this app

He should. Crazybumps is a little expensive for what it does.

What I tried with crazybumps was this:

As PPP mode is more forgiving than MV, I tried to convert normalmaps to displacement. Eh, nobody is watching now... lol

As blender cycles still not support normal maps, you see. Well, it almost worked, except of the major issue near seams areas.

A test, 3dcoat/PPP nor-maps converted to bumps-displacement (Crazybumps). I tried to hide seams but still visible.

post-2454-0-86125000-1341608934_thumb.jp

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I have shadermap Pro 1.3.1 and have enjoyed using the program... Shader map 2 is a big leap forward. I will buy it for sure...

I will be interested to know how it handles seams in a regular uv map, like converting a normal map to a height map with several uv islands...

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He should. Crazybumps is a little expensive for what it does.

What I tried with crazybumps was this:

As PPP mode is more forgiving than MV, I tried to convert normalmaps to displacement. Eh, nobody is watching now... lol

As blender cycles still not support normal maps, you see. Well, it almost worked, except of the major issue near seams areas.

A test, 3dcoat/PPP nor-maps converted to bumps-displacement (Crazybumps). I tried to hide seams but still visible.

I was not aware that Blender Cycles does not support normal maps, normal maps have become quite important these days..

Its kinda hard to see the seams on your picture btw so I would say it worked out quite well.. :)

Looks really cool im gonna check it out today if I find some spare time.. :)

I have shadermap Pro 1.3.1 and have enjoyed using the program... Shader map 2 is a big leap forward. I will buy it for sure...

I will be interested to know how it handles seams in a regular uv map, like converting a normal map to a height map with several uv islands...

Yea I wil also probably buy this application whenever I need it for one of my next projects, I've used the demo I and really like it!

I have been looking for more software that can convert a normal map to a displacement/ height map. I used to use Crazy Bump but I could never get the end result to look right. I will definitely look more into Shadermap. Too bad Xnormal cant make that convert.

Yea whats up with Xnormal not being able to do this?

I would also like to see Xnormal improve their vector displacement baking tool.. :)

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//Off topic, sorry

Biased vs Unbiased = less or more physically accurate

easier/ more intuitive to use compared to Mental Ray ? nope

mental ray, biased, fast / lightrender, unbiased, slow

There's no AO in LuxRender... and there is an experimental "Instant Global Illumination" integrator :(

hope that helps

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Off topic, sorry again.

Cycles is ~one year old application.

Support of normal maps is coming soon among other goodies (hair, SSS, motion blur, beveled hard edges and lot of optimizations)

Your tests on shadermap2 look interesting, please try something with lot of UV islands.

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//Off topic, sorry

Biased vs Unbiased = less or more physically accurate

easier/ more intuitive to use compared to Mental Ray ? nope

mental ray, biased, fast / lightrender, unbiased, slow

There's no AO in LuxRender... and there is an experimental "Instant Global Illumination" integrator :(

hope that helps

Yeah that helps. Never heard of the whole biased vs unbiased though until after I got the link.

Since we are on the subject, Anyone here ever heard of/ played with Bunkspeed Shot (used to be known as Hypershot)? Its a really fast (almost realtime) render engine that will use both your CPU and GPU.

http://www.bunkspeed.com/

Luxion also seems to have a version of Hypershot they call Keyshot but I think it only supports CAD files.

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//OT

In the beginning:

http://www.deskeng.com/articles/aaayer.htm

Keyshot Pro vs Bunkspeed Pro

http://forum.bunkspeed.com/archive/index.php?t-83.html

http://boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=22275&p=178753#p178753

--------------------------------

Another free aplication -sorry pc only :(

SSbump Generator

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ssbumpgenerator/

nVidia Melody

http://www.nvidia.com/object/melody_home.html

--------------

Cross Plataform :D

Neotextureedit

http://neotextureedit.sourceforge.net/

NVIDIA Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop

http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop

Link about nvidia plugin how to use use:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-441222.html

The Photoshop plugin can extract a thing like a displacement map from the normalmap using a technique called "sobel filter", which is an image filter algorithm to generate a heightmap from a tangent-space normalmap... But that's not a real displacement map, is a heightmap.

To get a real displacement map you will need to subdivide the lowpoly mesh and then calculate the distance difference with the sculpted highpoly mesh.

So, you can extract the heightmap with thew NVIDIA photoshop plugin, but that won't allow you to use it to reconstruct the final highpoly sculpted model 8(

You can get an approximated result subdividing (Catmull-Clark, loop, butterfly, Doo-sabin, etc ) the lowpoly model that you have... then using the heightmap calculated with the normalmap+PS plugin as displacement map.

--------------------

Softimage Rendermap or Ultimapper can do it too (i dont remember which one):

Free software - Softimage Mod tool:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?id=13571257&siteID=123112

Ultimapper wiki

http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/property8540.htm

Autodesk Softimage XSI Render Map

About Rendermap and Ultimapper

What is a Normal Map ? (good tuto)

http://planetpixelemporium.com/tutorialpages/normal.html

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Here ya go Michalis...

Voxel base was a quick low,low 26,000 voxel model. I wanted to see how well ShaderMap 2 could do on rock details...

autopo mesh and auto uv map. 1928 polygons. I wanted to test the uv island seams so I have lots of them...

Merged for normal map. I needed a clean base, might have been projection errors if I MV the mesh because I used auto mesh and auto uv.

Painted a rock texture on the model in the paint room.

Exported that out as diffuse map at1024 texture size. Only map I exported was the diffuse.

Use the painted diffuse map as a base to create displacement, normal, AO and spec maps. in Shader map 2

Since I was on my windows computer rendered the rock in Carrara.

The rock has a bump map, no real displacement and a color map mixed with the AO.

I push the bump alittle.

Quick render to test the seams...

The reason for not using the Normal map is I wanted to see how the bump would look only, as now I will render the rock in Blender Cycles...

I think Shader map 2 handled what I wanted pretty good. Back later with my impressions of Shader map 2 and so far it works well as a companion of 3DCoat...

I also found out that you can embed up to 4 maps into each map. You also just blend maps with other maps as well, displacement, ao, spec, normal etc...

Edit:

Last picture is real displacement and bump mixed...

A heads up. When you use a diffuse texture to create all your maps, be sure to set your alpha to the max for your diffuse map to blend the uv seams...

This works the same when only using a displacement map to create normal, ao and spec...

post-518-0-05275100-1341803368_thumb.jpg

post-518-0-85268400-1341803393_thumb.jpg

post-518-0-95363300-1341804645_thumb.jpg

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Very nice David!

But, what I'm asking from crazybumps or ShaderMap2 is a displacement/bump map from a normal map.

It's that simple, 3dcoat PPP mode can't bake displacement maps, normal maps only. It can bake displ maps from painting only, not from the vox mesh.

PPP is a forgiving tool, MV is too tricky sometimes. Just saying.

In your experiment you just painted the bumps. So, why not export displacement maps from 3dc? You don't need ShaderMap2 at all.

What you may try is to use some photos and have a displacement map for 3dcoat brushes. Question: ShaderMap2 displacements are 8,16,32 bit images?

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I added a feature request at the ShaderMap 2 forums for normal mapping to also have alpha blending for seams. The developer responded that he has added that to the list of features for version 2.6.

Once that happens then we can convert our 3DCoat normal maps into a displacement map or use as a bump map. :good:

To me, it's not a one or another way but about workflows and increasing your range of options when creating your objects.

I could have done most of the same work in 3DCoat but sometimes you want different workflows and I was able to quickly create the normal, AO and spec map as well. You have more embedding options in ShaderMap 2, blending of maps and adjustments. I really like the way ShaderMap displaced the painted texture as well.

It's a good software companion for 3DCoat and so far works very well with it. I will check on image bit size exporting....

@Johnnycore

I got the alpha blending trick from a post by the developer... :D

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