Best Of
Re: [WIP] Vintage Hand Drill
Hey guys,
It’s been a while since my last post, but I wanted to drop a quick sign of life.
I’m still working on the project, even though my time and motivation have been a bit limited lately. Not a massive amount of progress, but I’ve replaced the rough blockout with some smoother shapes and am currently experimenting with different references.
I'm still tweaking some of the proportions... for example, the knob on the crank is definitely still too small.
Here are a few screenshots of the current state. Let me know what you think!
J_East96
3 ·
Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2026
Put a few more bits on this thing, it's basically an R&D exercise anyway so thought may as well go for broke. Ok then looks like our midpoly mesh is ready for all the fun stuff coming up next.
sacboi
3 ·
Re: [WIP] Makeshift Radio
WIP - Updates on the textures from painter, Everything thats bright orange is pending.
Jaisheel
3 ·
NVIDIA's new game-vidcap
NVIDIA has a new version of their GPU vidcap software, with their Geforce Game Ready Driver. Except... the videos are captured at 20GBPS instead of 20mbps!
So here's what a vidcap looks like with a driving game (Watch Dogs 2)
Kind of interesting, in it's own way, if you like that sort of thing lol
So here's what a vidcap looks like with a driving game (Watch Dogs 2)
Kind of interesting, in it's own way, if you like that sort of thing lol
Eric Chadwick
3 ·
Re: Don’t use gamma on normal maps
there's some interesting maths regarding combining normal maps..... you can add the normals together and normalize the result but this does not give the correct result as it generates a kind of blended/average result. To do the math correctly you create a transform matrix from the base normal and then transform the overlaying normal into that space by multiplying it with the inverse of that matrix.... then you can add it to the base normal and normalize. In basic terms combining a [0,0,1] normal map ( 0.5, 0.5, 1.0 rgb) with an existing map leaves it unchanged .
Klunk
3 ·
Re: Don’t use gamma on normal maps
Why do we have to "normalize" our normal maps?
Here's an example that hopefully helps illustrate it!
Notice how the lighting is messed up in the edited normal map. You can't see the windows anymore on the dome and donut, and even the flat background is reflecting the wrong colors.
This came up in my last post; I shared some Substance filters to normalize both normal and anisotropy maps. I showed an example with anisotropy, and how that can go wrong.
What about normal maps? Yeah, they can get pretty bad too!
Usually you shouldn't edit a normal map directly, instead you should use dedicated tools that build a normal map properly. But why does this matter?
Each pixel in a normal map uses the red, green, and blue channels to encode x, y, and z coordinates of a vector. These vectors are used by shaders to change lighting on your surfaces. It's pretty cool. But if the RGB data is altered by painting or compositing, then those vectors can get messed up.
So... it's best to normalize, after you're done editing.
LMK if you have any questions. It can be pretty weird to wrap your head around.
Eric Chadwick
4 ·
Re: Don’t use gamma on normal maps
Ugh, yeah lots of tools don’t display normal maps the right way in their thumbnails/viewers.
Here’s another tip:
Here’s another tip:
Normalize your textures!
I made a couple SBSAR procedural filters for normalizing textures, since I couldn't find reliable tools for this. Maybe these filters can help you!
Normal maps should always be normalized before final delivery, to make sure the vectors are mathematically correct for optimal shading. It's easy to edit textures in tools like Photoshop etc. but it's not easy to normalize them properly.
Sometimes the shader will normalize for you, but it's not always guaranteed to happen. When a map isn't normalized, and the shader doesn't do it, you could see bad lighting and aliasing.
Same with anisotropy textures.
I did a webinar about how to make Iridescence and Anisotropy using glTF, and shared a bit about normalizing textures, you can jump to 21:35 to hear about that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyMgrV8BErY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyMgrV8BErYNormalize a 3D vector:
- Substance_Normalize3D (zip file)
- This is a Substance 3D Asset which can be used with Adobe Substance Player and other applications which support SBSAR.
- This is a Substance 3D Asset which can be used with Adobe Substance Player and other applications which support SBSAR.
- This normalizes a 3D vector stored in the red and green and blue channels of a bitmap.
- Useful for normal mapping, flow maps, etc.
- Read about it here: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Sample-Assets/blob/main/Models/ChronographWatch/README.md#materials
Normalize a 2D vector:
- Substance_NormalizeRG (zip file)
- Normalize a 2D vector stored in the red and green channels of a bitmap.
- Useful for anisotropy textures, maybe other things too?
Eric Chadwick
5 ·
Re: Don’t use gamma on normal maps
In context of what was brought up in other thread it should be noted: Blender in particular makes the texture look pale when the image Color Space is set to "Non-color", but it will read correctly by the Normal Map node. It can get a little confusing because of that.
stray
6 ·
Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | May - June (102)
Many thanks for the pointers @Eric Chadwick Unfortunately, I don't understand what you're asking exactly, so here is the normal map:
By 'run a histogram on the original texture', do you mean like so?
I must admit, I didn't pay too much mind in what color space the texture itself was being previewed in, as long the shading looked good on the model. Color space of the normal maps' texture sampler in Blender is 'Non-Color'.
The map is the result of baking geometry to a plane in Painter and then exporting that to the Unity project, either using the default Unity export preset or one based on that (Normal OpenGL, 8 bit + dithering). The normal mixing mode is set to replace and the baked normal map put in a fill layer (to have the option to modify through filters, but I ended up not doing that, so it's currently just the bake). The exported maps are hooked up in the materials in Blender file as well for previewing and as far I can tell, the shading is consistent between Blender and Unity.
Edit: Uploaded the frame and some simple box to Sketchfab to easily view shading. (some areas are poorly unwrapped
)
model
By 'run a histogram on the original texture', do you mean like so?
I must admit, I didn't pay too much mind in what color space the texture itself was being previewed in, as long the shading looked good on the model. Color space of the normal maps' texture sampler in Blender is 'Non-Color'.
The map is the result of baking geometry to a plane in Painter and then exporting that to the Unity project, either using the default Unity export preset or one based on that (Normal OpenGL, 8 bit + dithering). The normal mixing mode is set to replace and the baked normal map put in a fill layer (to have the option to modify through filters, but I ended up not doing that, so it's currently just the bake). The exported maps are hooked up in the materials in Blender file as well for previewing and as far I can tell, the shading is consistent between Blender and Unity.
Edit: Uploaded the frame and some simple box to Sketchfab to easily view shading. (some areas are poorly unwrapped
)model
Fabi_G
3 ·