You might recall I mentioned in the hangouts that Knald + AMD 13.10beta drivers cause a system crash when using the AO intensity sliderthis still occurs in this new build of knald. It's 100% repeatableI just load a normal map, fiddle with the AO slider for a few seconds and then I have to hard restart. Admittedly I haven't checked if this only happens with some normal maps / file types. There's also some strangeness going on with importing normal maps. Again this is probably because of the beta drivers, for memory everything was fine under 13.9. This is with a 7870. Exporting is definitely fixed though.
Are there any other AMD users using the beta drivers, and if so do you have this issue? How about 13.11beta? I can try that next, otherwise I'll rollback to 13.9.
The new AMD driver should fix the issue where Knald has a very low convergence point (1-10).
Hopefully that should fix the issues you are having
10.11beta8 did indeed fix loading normal maps. However, it did not fix the AO scale slider crash. At first I thought there was some correlation between it crashing and having another program open, but I've tested it 3 times now and I can still cause a crash with only Knald + background stuff running.
The crash does seem slightly different after this driver update though; now I get the windows 8 'thinking' mouse icon for a few second before the complete system lockup. And this might just be governed by chance but it feels like I have to mess with the AO scale slider for longer to cause a crash.
10.11beta8 did indeed fix loading normal maps. However, it did not fix the AO scale slider crash. At first I thought there was some correlation between it crashing and having another program open, but I've tested it 3 times now and I can still cause a crash with only Knald + background stuff running.
The crash does seem slightly different after this driver update though; now I get the windows 8 'thinking' mouse icon for a few second before the complete system lockup. And this might just be governed by chance but it feels like I have to mess with the AO scale slider for longer to cause a crash.
Hey Bek,
Can you PM me the Knald Technologies folder that can be found at the following location please?
We have made quite a few changes to this build and fixed a number of bugs!
New Slope Range slider to the integrator!
As of this release Knald has a new slider in the integrator panel. This slider increases the permitted range for slopes in the Normal & Derivative maps which can substantially increase the accurateness of the Integrator in many cases.
Both the examples below are using exactly the same slider settings and bumpscale aside from one having the new Slope Range.
With and without the Slope Range active
As you can see the result is now very close to the original heightmap that was captured directly from the original geometry in ZBrush.
Zbrush from geometry on the left, Knald from a normal map only on the right
This also makes for vastly improved IMG AO too!:D
Slope Range off (left) & on (right). Both of these were generated from an imported Normal map only.
Transmission Map Improvements
Continuing with our improvements to Transmission in the last Beta, we have made some nice additional changes to the automatic capping of meshes pre render that are much more realistic and visually pleasing.
Last but not least we have included our take on a much requested feature this time around - Post Export Actions!
These actions will allow you to perform many custom actions immediately after exporting your textures such as:
Opening the exported textures in an image editor of your choice (yes, that's correct! You can now open exported texture directly in Photoshop after export! )
processing those textures in an external program
running a custom batch file to perform other automated functionality.
Enjoy!
Release notes: Build Number: 20131113001 - November 14th, 2013.
Knald Technologies is now on Facebook and Twitter! Like us on Facebook Here & Add us on Twitter Here.
New Features, Improvements and Optimizations
Added the ability to execute post export actions.
Added additional quality improvements to Transmission that improves the automatic capping of meshes pre render.
Added a new Slope Range slider to the integrator.
Increased the maximum iterations in the integrator to 1000.
Added Normal & Derivative textures to the 3d preview.
Miscellaneous UI fixes.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug where the wrong tessellation level was selected when hitting 'Reset UVs' with the Sphere primitive in the 3d viewport.
Fixed issue where numpad +/- for reset UVs gave multiple key presses.
Fixed various issues with keyboard & mouse hotkeys.
again, really nice work guys.
the beta is saving me tons of baking hassle this will definitely be a day one buy for me when it is released.
anyways, i have some feedback/wish list..
I use the height map quite a bit as curvature, but i wonder if the if it would be possible to add Curvature as a separate pass.
this way, curvature could be exported independently of Height and the user wont have to adjust height settings every time to get the proper curvature map.
also, the "Max Iterations" should be a setting exclusive to each map so each of these setting could be customized independently and saved in custom profile.
You guys are true heroes. I love how simple and uncluttered this software is, how solid and fast the code is, and that you keep adding new features, and practical ones to boot, not just the kind of stuff that looks fancy but won't get used in production.
Also, Accurateness is apparently a proper word. Who'd have thunk.
Cheers, mate! It really makes me happy to hear that
If you have any ideas of anything that you would like included in a future release let me know.
again, really nice work guys.
the beta is saving me tons of baking hassle this will definitely be a day one buy for me when it is released.
anyways, i have some feedback/wish list..
I use the height map quite a bit as curvature, but i wonder if the if it would be possible to add Curvature as a separate pass.
this way, curvature could be exported independently of Height and the user wont have to adjust height settings every time to get the proper curvature map.
also, the "Max Iterations" should be a setting exclusive to each map so each of these setting could be customized independently and saved in custom profile.
Quick question (Might have missed this in the other pages).
My textures seem to be coming into Knald upside down, quite literally.
Hi Baj,
Are you using the latest drivers for your GPU?
Could you send over a dxdiag for me please? PM is fine if you don't want to post it publicly, of course.
Great additions! I especially love the slope range discontinuity slider - very useful for my type of work.
Quick question. What's the maximum normal map size one could integrate into a displacement with 6GB of VRAM. I'm considering the nvidia titan card for some maps that weigh in around 12288 x 8192, and it would be good to know whether it's likely 6GB of VRAM would be able to cover this.
is there a way to reset the 3d preview window position? I think i have it on a second monitor but cant seem to retrieve it (also dont have a second monitor to plug in atm)
We would like to truly thank everyone for all their hard work & dedication in helping us make Knald the best that it can be.
Going forward our journey will continue to update and improve Knald, so please feel free to keep offering us your suggestions & giving us your valuable feedback. We couldn't have done this without you!
We also have a 30 day trial version that is available for people to test system compatibility and other such workflow considerations.
For the first non beta release of Knald we have made a few additional changes which you can see below.
1bit Alpha Transparency(soft Alpha coming soon)!
As of this release Knald has a the ability to display alpha transparency in the 3d preview window. The alpha channel in the Diffuse texture is used to store the transparency mask. This can be used in-conjunction with the new option for toggling backface culling.
Asymmetric UV tiling
Knald now has the ability to tile the UV in both the U & V directions independently of the main UV Tile functionality. Changing the value will increase or decrease the number of times that the texture is tilled along the surface of the object. Holding CTRL or Alt in addition to +/- on the numpad will offset the UVs in the U & V direction respectively.
Online Documentation
Knald now has online documentation via the Help Menu> Online Documentation. This is where you can look for help regarding existing functionality within Knald and will be continually updated as new functionality is added.
Now that Knald is no longer in Beta please use THIS thread for all future posts regarding Knald goodies.
Thanks again for all the support everyone!
Enjoy!
Release notes for Knald 1.0.0: Build Number: 20131113001 - November 14th, 2013.
I went out to bake my maps today and found that Knald got released. Congratulations on that! It's fast and I love working with the program, instead of waiting 10 minutes for my AO maps to bake ^^ (I need a new PC!)
HOWEVER, I find the pricing a bit steep. I have just finished "school" and I'm still trying to get into the 3D business, making a lot of models pro bono or for portfolio reasons. So I am not making money, but rather spending money on licensing (luckily Maya released LT, just in time for me ^^)
I want Knald, but can't you make a 35$ option for non-commercial use and sell the 100$ option for freelancers? Ok I see how this is hard to do, so maybe you can bundle up with Ndo2 or the likes? I'd gladly pay 100$ for something that has become so useful to my workflow, but I cannot afford to pay 100$ for each of these softwares. It is important for me to be legal, because I want my work to be professional and valid, and I see how this kind of money is peanuts for someone who already made his way, but for me this is money missing elsewhere.
I'd appreciate another licensing option and will use XNormal again in the meantime, but I really, really like Knald and your work there, and I would like to get a valid license for the future!
>>EDIT<< I just tried the demo and it actually has "Knald Demo" written all over the output images. I guess I'll have to find the money to buy it.
I bought knald and never used it so sorry for the noobyness. I have NO idea how to load meshs. the 'load mesh' is greyed out. and no idea how to import a HP model to bake. your help would be greatly appreciated
I went out to bake my maps today and found that Knald got released. Congratulations on that! It's fast and I love working with the program, instead of waiting 10 minutes for my AO maps to bake ^^ (I need a new PC!)
HOWEVER, I find the pricing a bit steep. I have just finished "school" and I'm still trying to get into the 3D business, making a lot of models pro bono or for portfolio reasons. So I am not making money, but rather spending money on licensing (luckily Maya released LT, just in time for me ^^)
I want Knald, but can't you make a 35$ option for non-commercial use and sell the 100$ option for freelancers? Ok I see how this is hard to do, so maybe you can bundle up with Ndo2 or the likes? I'd gladly pay 100$ for something that has become so useful to my workflow, but I cannot afford to pay 100$ for each of these softwares. It is important for me to be legal, because I want my work to be professional and valid, and I see how this kind of money is peanuts for someone who already made his way, but for me this is money missing elsewhere.
I'd appreciate another licensing option and will use XNormal again in the meantime, but I really, really like Knald and your work there, and I would like to get a valid license for the future!
>>EDIT<< I just tried the demo and it actually has "Knald Demo" written all over the output images. I guess I'll have to find the money to buy it.
Thanks for the comments! Your opinion has been noted
I bought knald and never used it so sorry for the noobyness. I have NO idea how to load meshs. the 'load mesh' is greyed out. and no idea how to import a HP model to bake. your help would be greatly appreciated
You need to import a normal/height/colour map before you can load a mesh. Once you do that the Load Mesh button will be usable
Replies
The new AMD driver should fix the issue where Knald has a very low convergence point (1-10).
Hopefully that should fix the issues you are having
No problem. I'm glad you are enjoying Knald!
TL;DR If you are AMD Radeon HD 7xxx user and are having problems please update to the 13.11 Beta drivers as these should fix everything.
http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+7+-+64
10.11beta8 did indeed fix loading normal maps. However, it did not fix the AO scale slider crash. At first I thought there was some correlation between it crashing and having another program open, but I've tested it 3 times now and I can still cause a crash with only Knald + background stuff running.
The crash does seem slightly different after this driver update though; now I get the windows 8 'thinking' mouse icon for a few second before the complete system lockup. And this might just be governed by chance but it feels like I have to mess with the AO scale slider for longer to cause a crash.
Regarding the AO slider crash I have a few questions
Could you also try a clean reinstall of the beta drivers please?
Cheers!
Hey Bek,
Can you PM me the Knald Technologies folder that can be found at the following location please?
C:/Users/%username%/AppData/Local/Knald Technologies
This will help us diagnose the issue quickly.
Cheers,
-Andy
It's that time again! New build ahoy!
You can get it via the updater when you start Knald, or go to https://www.knaldtech.com/get-knald/
We have made quite a few changes to this build and fixed a number of bugs!
New Slope Range slider to the integrator!
As of this release Knald has a new slider in the integrator panel. This slider increases the permitted range for slopes in the Normal & Derivative maps which can substantially increase the accurateness of the Integrator in many cases.
Both the examples below are using exactly the same slider settings and bumpscale aside from one having the new Slope Range.
With and without the Slope Range active
As you can see the result is now very close to the original heightmap that was captured directly from the original geometry in ZBrush.
Zbrush from geometry on the left, Knald from a normal map only on the right
This also makes for vastly improved IMG AO too!:D
Slope Range off (left) & on (right). Both of these were generated from an imported Normal map only.
Transmission Map Improvements
Continuing with our improvements to Transmission in the last Beta, we have made some nice additional changes to the automatic capping of meshes pre render that are much more realistic and visually pleasing.
Art courtesy of Dan Roarty
and finally...
Post Export Actions!
Last but not least we have included our take on a much requested feature this time around - Post Export Actions!
These actions will allow you to perform many custom actions immediately after exporting your textures such as:
Enjoy!
Release notes:
Build Number: 20131113001 - November 14th, 2013.
Knald Technologies is now on Facebook and Twitter! Like us on Facebook Here & Add us on Twitter Here.
New Features, Improvements and Optimizations
Bug fixes
Xnormal does have a Optix/CUDA option for AO if you have a NVIDIA card, it's at least 9x faster than a i7.
the beta is saving me tons of baking hassle this will definitely be a day one buy for me when it is released.
anyways, i have some feedback/wish list..
I use the height map quite a bit as curvature, but i wonder if the if it would be possible to add Curvature as a separate pass.
this way, curvature could be exported independently of Height and the user wont have to adjust height settings every time to get the proper curvature map.
also, the "Max Iterations" should be a setting exclusive to each map so each of these setting could be customized independently and saved in custom profile.
just thinking out loud.
thanks Zac, I will give it a try
Curious- how do you enable this?
sorry for the slight derail Andy
Thanks for the kind words
Cheers, mate! It really makes me happy to hear that
If you have any ideas of anything that you would like included in a future release let me know.
Don't worry about the derail. It gives me an excuse to repost the picture below
Thanks, man! I will add your requests to my list.
Thanks for the input! I will see what I can do
My textures seem to be coming into Knald upside down, quite literally.
Hi Baj,
Are you using the latest drivers for your GPU?
Could you send over a dxdiag for me please? PM is fine if you don't want to post it publicly, of course.
Quick question. What's the maximum normal map size one could integrate into a displacement with 6GB of VRAM. I'm considering the nvidia titan card for some maps that weigh in around 12288 x 8192, and it would be good to know whether it's likely 6GB of VRAM would be able to cover this.
Keep up the good work!
I'll have to check this but as a guide it takes about 3.5gb to run 8k*8k
I will get back to you ASAP with the results.
After a long public beta we have finally arrived and the wait is over! Knald 1.0 has been released!
We would like to truly thank everyone for all their hard work & dedication in helping us make Knald the best that it can be.
Going forward our journey will continue to update and improve Knald, so please feel free to keep offering us your suggestions & giving us your valuable feedback. We couldn't have done this without you!
You can now view pricing & purchase Knald HERE
We also have a 30 day trial version that is available for people to test system compatibility and other such workflow considerations.
For the first non beta release of Knald we have made a few additional changes which you can see below.
1bit Alpha Transparency(soft Alpha coming soon)!
As of this release Knald has a the ability to display alpha transparency in the 3d preview window. The alpha channel in the Diffuse texture is used to store the transparency mask. This can be used in-conjunction with the new option for toggling backface culling.
Asymmetric UV tiling
Knald now has the ability to tile the UV in both the U & V directions independently of the main UV Tile functionality. Changing the value will increase or decrease the number of times that the texture is tilled along the surface of the object. Holding CTRL or Alt in addition to +/- on the numpad will offset the UVs in the U & V direction respectively.
Online Documentation
Knald now has online documentation via the Help Menu> Online Documentation. This is where you can look for help regarding existing functionality within Knald and will be continually updated as new functionality is added.
Now that Knald is no longer in Beta please use THIS thread for all future posts regarding Knald goodies.
Thanks again for all the support everyone!
Enjoy!
Release notes for Knald 1.0.0:
Build Number: 20131113001 - November 14th, 2013.
Knald Technologies is now on Facebook, Twitter & Google+! Like us on Facebook Here, add us on Twitter Here & +1 us on Google+ Here.
New Features, Improvements and Optimizations
Bug fixes
HOWEVER, I find the pricing a bit steep. I have just finished "school" and I'm still trying to get into the 3D business, making a lot of models pro bono or for portfolio reasons. So I am not making money, but rather spending money on licensing (luckily Maya released LT, just in time for me ^^)
I want Knald, but can't you make a 35$ option for non-commercial use and sell the 100$ option for freelancers? Ok I see how this is hard to do, so maybe you can bundle up with Ndo2 or the likes? I'd gladly pay 100$ for something that has become so useful to my workflow, but I cannot afford to pay 100$ for each of these softwares. It is important for me to be legal, because I want my work to be professional and valid, and I see how this kind of money is peanuts for someone who already made his way, but for me this is money missing elsewhere.
I'd appreciate another licensing option and will use XNormal again in the meantime, but I really, really like Knald and your work there, and I would like to get a valid license for the future!
>>EDIT<< I just tried the demo and it actually has "Knald Demo" written all over the output images. I guess I'll have to find the money to buy it.
Thanks for the comments! Your opinion has been noted
You need to import a normal/height/colour map before you can load a mesh. Once you do that the Load Mesh button will be usable
Cheers!
Thanks!
It would be great if you wouldn't mind using the current Knald thread for any questions as his thread is now closed/unused since Knald has been released.
http://polycount.com/discussion/128895/knald-1-0-released/p1 is the current thread
It would be great if you wouldn't mind using the current Knald thread for any questions as his thread is now closed/unused since Knald has been released.
http://polycount.com/discussion/128895/knald-1-0-released/p1 is the current thread