I am on a mod team, and at the moment we are in a crunch trying to get a presentation done that we can show of at GDC.

Our process and experience (and lack of time) does not allow us the luxury of creating Hi-Poly models and comparing them to Low-Poly cages. I have done this in a few test renders, and understand how this process works...

Our issue is, how (without doing the comparison, can we force Max to render out a UVW sheet with -JUST- the normals of the Low-Poly? We intend to then -paint- in our details like doing an old-school "bump" map (using the NVidia Plugin for PS-CS2).

Any help would be appreciated.

-Andrew B. Chason

I'm confused. why not just make an old school bump map and use the nvidia filter. max really shouldnt be involved unless you are wanting to bake in lighting? in which case hit "0" which will bring up the render-to-texture dialogue box. check out poopinmymouth's site for more info on that stuff:
www.poopinmymouth.com

but really, just make an old school bump map, run it through the nvidia filter

I plan to do that, but I need to generate the RGB-normal map "before" I do an overlay of the Greyscale.

However I don't know how to generate a normal map without doing the common comparison from high to low. I even tried comparing a low cage to a low-poly (using the same mesh twice), and I got errors.

I need Max to spit out the normal map for my low-poly, with my UWVs preserved, before I can paint on it in Photoshop.

Just running it through the filter does not take into accound which way my normals are facing on my model.

i guess I just dont understand why you need to do that initial RGB map. so are you just wanting a UVW map then?
if so, you could just print screen of your unwrap UVW window.

Can't you just hit 0, and tell rtt to output a normals map, just like you would if you were using a Projection modifier?

:P

You know... that just might work...

>_<

-Andrew

Well If you plan to use tangent space normalmaps you wont even need that - your "lowpoly" normalmap will simply be all blue.

Something I did using the very techninque you described, ie painting the normals : (lowpoly model by bobotheseal)
http://pioroberson.com/images/3d_pior_bobodemon.jpg

Good luck! It's actually fun to do!

Wow, thank you Pior. I am gonna have to try that. BTW your work kicks ass, I have been trolling your Portfolio for some time now...

-Andrew