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Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 4:13 am
by Grolar
Looking at these images the benefits don't outweigh the download. Maybe if you try Crazybump or NDo you might get better results. Even then you would need an artist eye to get the best quality.
The game already looks amazing as it is with just diffuse and specular maps. Warhammer still stands alone in the ocean of terrible MMO's with its unique style. Normals won't add anything to this game except more files in my opinion.

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 4:59 am
by Primator
PartizanRUS wrote:
Primator wrote: Not sure if I understand you correctly.
Of course this are not renders from the engine, the point was to test if it's possible to get a decent normal map out of the diffuse. The normal map effect in engine should be similar, doesn't matter how the engine is working in detail.
I see. Generating normals out of diffuse will make a very bad quality if not worse. Diffuse also have low resolution.
Good thing you can manually draw sharp normal details in 3D editor - http://i.imgur.com/SaORCBn.jpg . Problem is we don't even know how it will look in game.
Considering the amount of assets you will not want to create each single normal map manually.
Don't know how you tried to draw the normal map, but it doesn't look good at all tbh.
Grolar wrote:Looking at these images the benefits don't outweigh the download. Maybe if you try Crazybump or NDo you might get better results. Even then you would need an artist eye to get the best quality.
The game already looks amazing as it is with just diffuse and specular maps. Warhammer still stands alone in the ocean of terrible MMO's with its unique style. Normals won't add anything to this game except more files in my opinion.
Yes I agree, I think the style is better off as it is, without normal maps.
I actually used NDO and I'm a 3D artist, but I admit I didn't spend a whole lot of time on tweaking the result. Though I doubt you get much more out of it.
If you really want to make it look good with normals you would need to adjust the diffuse as well to remove some of the lighting information.
So all in all not beneficial imho.

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 11:35 am
by PartizanRUS
Primator wrote: Don't know how you tried to draw the normal map, but it doesn't look good at all tbh.
Like any other normal map for game engine in Autodesk Mudbox. http://i.imgur.com/cYt49Mu.jpg
I can draw better one once I know it will be added to game and will work. Also I would prefer to know which details that normal map have can be seen in game. There is difference between little bumps on the surface and "tangent space normal maps" or "object space normal maps".

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 12:23 pm
by Markosiz
to be fair unless you are making mobile games you wont really ever draw a normal map for quality game art, will bake it off of a high polygon model along with AO maps, height maps ect .

unless that what you meant above, however the results that came off the WP mesh on the badge do not look like they baked down from such a work flow. but this isnt a work critique thread.

i agree with the other posters that the amount of work required to carry out all this to get a few normal maps simply isnt worth it for the results, but maybe could be used on some shared materials like tree barks and ground textures that are used widely across the game, but then your left with a real sense of inconsistency across the game =/

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 8:08 pm
by Grolar
@Primator - That was Ndo? did you try crazybump? I am a 3d artist as well and I guarantee I could get more out of the textures. It really has nothing to do with whether or not lighting is painted into the diffuse image, but how you go about generating the normals and settings within the program used. There are a number of ways to do this and technique is everything. If I had access to the texture asset files I would love to show you.
The problem comes after all that. Even once you have the technique and could create an action in photoshop to run on every texture in the game it would be very time consuming. After all that there is still no guarantee it would look good without testing it on a large area.

Warhammer was made as good as it could be at the time. :) As an artist I can live with that.

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 11:45 pm
by Primator
Grolar wrote:@Primator - That was Ndo? did you try crazybump? I am a 3d artist as well and I guarantee I could get more out of the textures. It really has nothing to do with whether or not lighting is painted into the diffuse image, but how you go about generating the normals and settings within the program used. There are a number of ways to do this and technique is everything. If I had access to the texture asset files I would love to show you.
...
Oh you are an 3D artist too, that is awesome!
No I don't have crazybump. It's rare for me too use the function, the few times I did it in the past I used NDO, never on such a low-res texture though.
If you can get a much better result out of textures, I would be happy to see how. You can fairly easily extract the files or I just send them to you.

When I was writing about the light painted into the diffuse I meant that it diminished the actual effect of the normal map when rendered.

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2016 11:52 pm
by shaggyboomboom
I mean its all cool and stuff for RoR having 2k texture and ultra high settings but i cant run RoR on the "balanced" gfx setting without it playing in 5fps. And its not that my pc is shiet (it kinda is by now) but it could run WaR on the 2nd highest setting on live.

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 1:37 pm
by PartizanRUS
shaggyboomboom wrote:I mean its all cool and stuff for RoR having 2k texture and ultra high settings but i cant run RoR on the "balanced" gfx setting without it playing in 5fps. And its not that my pc is shiet (it kinda is by now) but it could run WaR on the 2nd highest setting on live.
Then you need new PC. Better to buy Intel + Nvidia card. There still can be fps drops because of engine, but game is running 60+ fps just fine.

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 3:37 pm
by saupreusse
PartizanRUS wrote:
shaggyboomboom wrote:I mean its all cool and stuff for RoR having 2k texture and ultra high settings but i cant run RoR on the "balanced" gfx setting without it playing in 5fps. And its not that my pc is shiet (it kinda is by now) but it could run WaR on the 2nd highest setting on live.
Then you need new PC. Better to buy Intel + Nvidia card. There still can be fps drops because of engine, but game is running 60+ fps just fine.
Mostly bad server traffic. game runs smooth on dev server, but runs like hell on live.

Re: Texture Normal Mapping

Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 6:01 pm
by PartizanRUS
saupreusse wrote:
PartizanRUS wrote:
shaggyboomboom wrote:I mean its all cool and stuff for RoR having 2k texture and ultra high settings but i cant run RoR on the "balanced" gfx setting without it playing in 5fps. And its not that my pc is shiet (it kinda is by now) but it could run WaR on the 2nd highest setting on live.
Then you need new PC. Better to buy Intel + Nvidia card. There still can be fps drops because of engine, but game is running 60+ fps just fine.
Mostly bad server traffic. game runs smooth on dev server, but runs like hell on live.
Now I know that Ranald was really **** server because they had potato servers Image
Also poke Londo about normal mapping :]