I’d like to convert the output of the “Normal map” node back to colors.
As you can see if I simply plug the Normal output to the color, the colors are very different from the original image :
The idea of reversing the conversion back to color data is to have the ability to tweak the intensity of the normal map and bake it to the Diffuse Color (since Cycles can’t bake normal maps).
I’d like to convert the output of the “Normal map” node back to colors.
What type of colours ?
The idea is to have the ability to tweak the intensity of the normal map and bake it to the Diffuse Color (since Cycles can’t bake normal maps)
Cycles can bake normal maps. You can take a normal map texture, adjust its colours and just use that as the diffuse colour. Are the different colours of the normal map supposed to represent something particular? Show us exactly what you have in your mind, examples etc
I was editing the previous post while you were replying. Maybe it’s clearer now.
But basically I’d like to find a node setup that does the exact opposite of the “Normal Map node”, which means it would have a Normal input and a Color output.
What do you mean by ‘Convert the Normal map back to colors’?
Is it from worldspace to depth? or tangentspace to worldspace??..
Edit: nevermind the above! Check bellow.
Anyway, to bake normal maps, you can use this setup.
Thanks a lot for that Secrop.
Also, I just found the simplest and cleanest way to increase the intensity of a normal map and bake it, thanks to Yvain’s comment in thisstack exchange question.
See, Blender Internal doesn’t allow you to strengthen a normal map directly with the “Normal” slider (you can input high values but it won’t do anything above 1, which I find misleading)
However, you can add multiple textures on which you check the Normal Influence and they will add up. This way, you can add the same normal map multiple times and decrease its value below 1 to get the amount you want. You can also combine different normal maps this way (and bump maps too). The baked result has perfectly conventional colors for normal maps, unlike the node setup you provided (which still works great and is very useful with Cycles procedural nodes).
If you’re interested, and from the first comment of that thread, I’ve also another node setup for mixing normal maps…
Thanks again, you’re quite an expert with normals. Also, have you seen this stuff for tweaking the intensity ? I haven’t tested it but it looks pretty solid.
Seems ok… I would only scale down the Z axis and normalize the vector… it would be simpler to calculate, without 6 calls to trignometric functions, and since scaling normal maps are just a result of bad normal texture to begin with, scaling them doesn’t need to be rocket science.
Edit: Also, in cycles you can have factors bigger than 1 in both the bump node as in the normal map node.
Yes but here it seems you get a color output.
