How to smooth normalmaps

Support Materials and Textures
1

Hi everybody,

I was experimenting with MindTex and the demo of CrazyBump, and I’ve generated two normal maps:
This one was the Crazybump one:

http://i58.tinypic.com/2cf4kkx.jpg
2cf4kkx.jpg700×700

And this was the render:

1iee76.png960×540 691 KB

Then I switched to the MindTex program and I’ve generated this map:

http://i62.tinypic.com/29dwlkn.jpg
29dwlkn.jpg700×700

which is really bad compared to the CrazyBump one: this is sharper and less good-looking
So I’ve played with the sliders and got this:

http://i59.tinypic.com/30kys08.jpg
30kys08.jpg700×700

and I’ve applied to the same plane, but the result is still bad if we compare it to the CrazyBump one:

http://i57.tinypic.com/2m4407p.png
2m4407p.png960×540

My question is: how can I get the same result? Have I misunderstood something with MindTex or it just has some settings which are messed up?

If I compare the two images, I can see that the CrazyBump image bricks point in a different way and these seem to point in the opposite one (it is really visible if you switch from one render to the other one with a program such as GIMP: layering them and then make the upper one invisible and visible again)…

http://i59.tinypic.com/2vd5heg.png
2vd5heg.png960×540

Thanks a lot!!

Jymmy097

2

Hmmm. Just checked on the MindTex website: The “latest news” on that site are two years old… Is this developed any more? However, this is no issue of the textures being rough - they just seem to be incredibly low res. Can you export in higher resolutions?

3

Well, I’ve checked: the diffuse input texture is 700x700 pixels and the output is 700x700 pixels and the same for the CrazyBump map…

There is an option in MindTex which says: “Force the maps to the next power of 2” which generates a 1024x1024 texture…

Oh. I forgot to mention that for the MindTex render I’ve used, as the Diffuse image, the one created by it, but for CrazyBump I’ve used the original texture…

Thanks

Jymmy097

4

try with higher res and see what you get
may be 2 K

you have a lot of bricks and I think you need more pixels to get better results!

happy bl

5

Ya, “old”!!! go with someone developing. Even Crazybump stands where it was at years ago. Try Shadermap 2 for 40 bucks. Or a fast growing company like allegorithmic software!!!..has sale prices here and there!!

6

nDo2 is still the number one normal editor/generator in my book. Especially with the awesome normal sculpting tools in the new beta.

7

Actually you’ll get the best normals by baking actual geo!

8

Thanks for all your replies.
I’ve found another generator which is InsaneBump for GIMP: it generates a good-looking effect. See those renders:
This is with CrazyBump and the texture

TextCrazyBump.png960×540 485 KB

This is with InsaneBump and the Diffuse texture created by it:

d_n.png960×540 594 KB

And this is with the original texture and the InsaneBump normal:

Text_n.png960×540 533 KB

I think that the InsaneBump renderings are actually a little better than the CrazyBump ones… What do you think?

Another doubt: InsaneBump creates a bunch of normalmaps (highnormal, mediumnormal, lownormal, normal, ect.), what does they mean? Have I to merge them? If so, how can I do it?

Thanks a lot! You’ve been really helpful!!!

Jymmy097

9

you also need a good pic with nice light dark contrast
otherwise does not matter which soft u use !
seen a problem like that last week!

salut