Crazy bump always blurs pixel edges from source image?

malcolm · Sep 2010

Hey I'm new to crazy bump just doing some tests right now and what I'm trying to do is make a heightmap pattern in photoshop, just a simple checker pattern and composite it on another normal map. That part works great, the issue I'm having is my checker pattern when bright into crazy bump appears to get bilinear filtered and then the edges of the squares get blurred and appear to be a beveled edge of more than one pixel when viewed as a normal map. Just wondering if crazy bump always bilinear filters your textures at least 2 pixels and is this acceptable or is everyone still doing pattern overlays in the nvidia filter first and then compositing them in crazy bump.

Dastan · Sep 2010

I am new to normal maps and since I am a Mac user, I just downloaded Crazy Bump and I am working on a brick wall, but it happens the same as you, the borders looks beveled and the bricks gets rounded in a weird way. I was wondering how do I deal with this "final, medium and large details bars in a technical way =o

Simmo · Sep 2010

What does the checker pattern look like before you filter it? If it didn't bevel the edges at all the normal map would be completely flat.

NormalMap?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=normal_slopes_hatred.jpg

NormalMap?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=normal_slopes_hatred.jpg

This is a good place to start to understand normal maps and how they work: http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap?action=show&redirect=Normal+Map

Hope this helps

malcolm · Sep 2010

Simmo thanks I've read most of the wiki before but I was assuming crazy bump would not filter the image if you give it a solid colour pattern ie dark grey and light grey checkers. I'd assume the edges of the checkers would be crisp with no beveling unless you blurred the edge in photoshop by one pixel first. This is not what I'm getting out of crazy bump though, I'm getting a 2 pixel blurred edge in the resulting normal map as if it's been bilinear filtered.

Snowfly · Sep 2010

Malcolm, try your luck with this app: http://www.smart-page.net/smartnormal/fl10.htm

Strangely, I get a flat blue image when I try to convert a pure black and white checker, but for a dark gray/light gray one, it works just fine.

malcolm · Sep 2010

Snowfly, that tool does what I expected from crazy bump, it does not blur the edges of the normal map they are crisp with no bilinear filtering. It wants to save the resulting image as .jpg though so it has compression artifacts all over it which is no good. I'll throw up a comparison on the crazy bump forum I just figured someone would have noticed this while compositing a pattern on top of another normal map.

Shogun3d · Sep 2010

Can you post up your heightmap?

Snowfly · Sep 2010

edited out

Michael Knubben · Sep 2010

Isn't that what you control with the sliders, though? If you turn off everything but high frequency details, I imagine you'll have little to no bevel. Is that what you want?

malcolm · Sep 2010

MightyPea if you look at my original screenshot with my crazy bump settings you'll see I turned everything off except fine detail. Any ways I did a comparison yesterday with crazy bump, xnormal photoshop filter, and nvidia filter they all produce slightly different results but the results vary by only one pixel so I'm going to stick with crazy bump since the nvidia filter doesn't work in 64bit and the xnormal filter doesn't have depth settings.

Michael Knubben · Sep 2010

Ah, apologies, I didn't pay attention to that.

Ryan Clark · Sep 2010

Hi Malcom!

Try grabbing CrazyBump 1.2, and use the "Very Fine Detail" slider.

I believe it does what you want!

http://crazybump.com/release/CrazyBumpSetup12.exe

cheers,

-Ryan

malcolm · Sep 2010

Ryan, that fixed it thanks!

Crazy bump always blurs pixel edges from source image?

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