6 Replies Latest reply on Sep 7, 2017 9:44 AM by Alexander Smith

    Customized Bump Maps

    Rich Fagioli
    Rich Fagioli Jul 14, 2017 12:46 PM

      In building custom bump displacement maps, I noticed that the maps in the Visualize library are colored. For example:

       

      carbon normal.jpgCircle Mesh_Bump.jpg

      However, the color scheme looks to be based on incident light angle. I would have thought that Visualize reads a height displacement as a "temperature" in a "heat map"; high parts the reddest, low parts the bluest. But that doesn't seem to be the case. So,

       

      1) What do the colors represent? and,

      2) How would I incorporate the color schema into a custom made texture using, say, Photoshop?

      3) Do gray-scale bump maps work as well as the colored schema bump maps?

        • Re: Customized Bump Maps
          Chris Dordoni
          Chris Dordoni Jul 14, 2017 2:17 PM (in response to Rich Fagioli)

          This is a normal map. A normal is the direction perpendicular to the center of a face, or can be averaged to a single vertex from the adjacent vertices.

           

          Basically it fakes geometry by adding normals that don't exist on the original object.The colors are related to the change in angle. Don't ask me to explain the math

           

          Its possible to convert grey scale image to normal maps, how useful it is depends on how the grey scale image was created. If the greys represent elevations from a surface then the results should be fairly good.

          • Re: Customized Bump Maps
            Rich Fagioli
            Rich Fagioli Jul 17, 2017 11:52 AM (in response to Rich Fagioli)

            As near as I could tell, after a weekend geek-fest, a "normal map" is a pixel field in which grayscale values are raised perpendicular to the image plane, by some (tunable) value. The reasons behind the garish color scheme, though, still elude me. In any case, the game development community has wrestled with these conversions for some time; an online search can take one into codes and various freeware that can do this conversion. However, nVIDIA provides a Normal Map Creation Filter Plug-in for Adobe Photoshop that can turn grayscale images into normal maps, using all manner of controls, including the Alpha Channel:

             

            A useful tool, to be sure!                                                                                        ........more, later.

            • Re: Customized Bump Maps
              Ron Bates
              Ron Bates Jul 24, 2017 4:27 PM (in response to Rich Fagioli)

              One of my most favorite tools for creating maps...  Crazybump...

               

              CrazyBump

              • Re: Customized Bump Maps
                Alexander Smith
                Alexander Smith Sep 7, 2017 9:44 AM (in response to Rich Fagioli)

                I have been having troubles achieving good displacement results too.

                 

                There is an existing tool in Photoshop CC 2017 in Filter/3d/generate bump map or generate normal map.

                 

                Of this , the Nvidia plug in (which is windows only I think), CrazyBump and NormalMap online would any of you have a recommended tools?

                 

                Secondly is there anywhere online that can offer the best practice tutorial for creating these maps and how to implement within Visualize? I'm struggling with too many variables to teach myself and achieve the best results and after a pretty comprehensive trawl on the web I can't find much.

                 

                I'm also finding that the displacement map doesn't really do what I am expecting it to do, in some cases I get no surface deviation to speak of, sometimes it even 'explodes' a crazy spikey image passing through my model, sometimes it offsets. I have no idea why.

                 

                Any tips or pointers?