Generating 2D Normal Map out of Blender Model

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#1

Hello there Fellows!

I have a question/problem with generating a 2D normal map out of a 3D model. I used Blender for about some months now and everything worked fine up to now. Until now i always used my models in an selfwritten 3D OpenGL engine but this week i wanted to start with a little 2D project. Still, i modeled my artwork with blender so i could generate normal maps and use them for a little lighting computation in my 2D game. But i’m not able to generate it from a rendered screenshot, only off a UV-wrapping texture, which is quite unpleasent because i also want to use the same picture as sprite.
I tried to follow this tutorial for example (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trainz/Creating_Normal_Maps_with_Blender) but it didn’t let me get the normal map as stand-alone image.

TLDR: Make Orthographic top-down picture of 3D Model to use for 2D game. How to get same picture as normal map?

BR Hyped

#2

i would start with a google for videro ( youtube )search
for uv mapping and normal mapping

something like


and what you need is also BAKING them


or
#3

Another thought is this: Render the model top down with light coming from the north, then the west, then the south, then the east. In PhotoShop or Gimp, load all the images and convert them to grayscale. After that you have to do some complicated series O overlays to make a normal map but it works I’ve done it be for. If I can find the tutorial I used I’ll put it up later. Also, you could try PS’s normalmap plugin.