Generating Maps

[Anonymous No.456448]

Any good recommendations for programs which generate maps from photographs?

Can't seem to find any up to date versions of pixplant for mac

[Anonymous No.456451]

>>456448
Stop using Mac if you want to do 3D. Mac users make up such a tiny percentage that most software won't be made for Macs.

[Anonymous No.456452]

>>456451
Translation:
>cant afford a good os x workstation.

[Anonymous No.456453]

>>456448
Quixel is great. Wait, that's not compatible with Mac computers.

Give Knald a shot. Hmm... that's not compatible either.

Shadermap might be worth trying. Wait...

You're fucked.

[Anonymous No.456454]

>>456452
Translation: 4gb transfer limit for FAT32 format between more efficient workstations. Running software natively in windows with less bugs.
Less range of hardware. Less configurable hardware.

"you can't afford it" it the typical draw-card for macfags. But it's meaningless.

[Anonymous No.456456]

>>456452
Bro, what the fuck does the price have to do with SOFTWARE INCOMPATIBILITY. 3D software is rarely programmed for iCrap, suck it up, tool.

[Anonymous No.456458]

>>456456
gr8 b8

3D software is zeroes and ones. You have blender, maya, unity, unreal, photoshit, logic.

[Anonymous No.456460]

>>456458
poor b8 m8, try harder

[Anonymous No.456461]

>>456460

[Anonymous No.456619]

>>456448
Bitmap2material 2 for diff/normal/spec workflow.
Bitmap to material 3 for pbr workflow.

http://www.allegorithmic.com/products/bitmap2material

[Anonymous No.457770]

Crazybump.

[Anonymous No.457772]

>>456448
ssbumpgenerator
a nightmare to figure out

[Anonymous No.457776]

>>457770
Crazybump is hella outdated now, fuck that shit.

[Anonymous No.457796]

>>456453

Knald or xNormals?

[Anonymous No.457802]

>>457796
Knald does things xNormal doesn't do and vice-versa. Use Knald to replace crazybump, and use xNormal for your high to low normal map baking (though if you have Maya, Transfer Maps in it is a bit better than xNormal, but both are good)

[Anonymous No.458082]

>>456453
I was gonna make a thread asking about Quixel but fuck that.

Is it that good? Should I pick it up if I just started self learning modeling and texturing?

>tfw can't find a pirated version to try it out

[Anonymous No.458083]

>>456458
>gr8 b8

grand band?

[Anonymous No.458084]

>>458083
That's an 8, not an &.

>>458082
It's pretty good, especially once the megascans come out. You can find downloads for it on CGPeers/CGPersia.

But Substance Painter/Designer is pretty great and a little easier to use since it's not dependent on Photoshop.

[Anonymous No.458085]

>>458084
Thank you based anon, this really helped me.

Isn't substance painter useless if I already have zbrush though?

[Anonymous No.458086]

>>458085
No, because it does direct texture painting, unlike ZBrush which only does per-vertex gradient color painting. Also, it has a lot of neat procedural texture generation shit just like Quixel dDo, can even paint in normal maps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okog1BQ65KM

The artist in this video is kind of trash, but you can see the power of the particle brushes here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3FpG3CFlfQ

[Anonymous No.458088]

>>458086
Alright thanks. I think I'll try substance designer for now.

[Anonymous No.458090]

Try out nDo2, till now I've yet to find any other program or plugin that can top it.

Stay far away form Crazybump as it creates inaccurate normal maps ad specular maps with bad level artifacts, together with it being quite outdated and just not useable to create proper normals.

Together with xnormal as mentioned in this thread, stay away from that program as well as it can't handle dither in the normal properly, while it's faster than 3DsMax/Maya's bake to texture it's far from being actually good.

As you're asking about photo's to normals, I still suggest you to go over to nDo2 as that's pretty much the best thing out there to create normals from photo's.

Regarding the usage of a Mac and wanting to get into modding, I do suggest to actually get a proper PC with windows to be not limited to the "mostly outdated" software that is compatible with OSX.

If you want to get into game modding/the industry then at least get a proper rig that can handle everything.

[Anonymous No.458092]

>>458082

Try CGpersia.

[Anonymous No.458093]

>>458090
How does bitmap2material compare to ndo2 with baking normal maps?

[Anonymous No.458108]

>>458093

It's a better alternative for CrazyBump, it's easy to use and if you don't know how to create other shader maps like specular/gloss/displacement and so on it can be quite useful and fast.

Personally I'm still more a fan to do everything by hand with the Quixel Suite than hopping into various programs to adjust the shaders but if you need to get something done quick and fast it's a good tool.

I'm not sure if it works with Mac or not but if it does I think that would be your best choice.

[Anonymous No.458109]

>>458093
A side note: The program doesn't bake the normal nor does nDo2 it generates it from a photograph/image. Baking a normal is by taking the normal information of a high poly model and rendering that upon a low poly model to achieve the effect that the low poly model has more poly's (looks smoother). What both mentioned programs do is generate normals and other shaders based upon the information from the diffuse/image.

[Anonymous No.458113]

>>458108
>>458109
I'm not the Mac guy but thanks anyways. I'm looking to create a low poly model for now without using maps from a high poly. I guess I'll draw the texture in photoshop and generate a normal map from that.

[Anonymous No.458117]

>>458113

Great! Then the thing I would suggest is nDo for that as it works together with Photoshop after all, while B2M is a standalone program that's more directed to the creation of environmental textures and not really weapons/props (as far as I've used/seen it).

The thing I still do notice very often is that a lot of people manages to create incorrect normal by having their diffuse/albedo just put through a normal map filter, this of course totally incorrect as this will create incorrect normal maps, so if you're new to the whole normal map creation I suggest you to give a couple looks on how to create normals from scratch in photoshop.

These pretty much sums it up: http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textures/how-not-to-make-normal-maps-from-photos-or-images.php
http://gamebanana.com/tuts/9966

Do note that you do not require a normal map for a game asset, it's only good for additional details that aren't modeled, a baked normal is the same it's to give the effect that it's modeled with more polygons than it actually is.

But yea best of luck with your project!

[Anonymous No.458118]

>>458117
Thanks, helped me a lot. I did a few models by myself watching random tutorials but my normal maps always turned out bad for some reason and I got shitty looking models.

Then I found this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_dwTB5MwzM

The guy mentions ndo2 just like you said so I came here to get some feedback on the quixel thing.

[Anonymous No.458119]

>>458118

While he does use nDo2 he doesn't use it correctly, like the incorrect way I mentioned is demonstrated here. Converting your whole diffuse is a big nono for normal maps as this creates incorrect results. While nDo2 probable will provide you better results than programs you tried before it is still not the proper way you should create your normals.

For a model like that, only the base material would had to be normalled (being the wood and the rope) the metal and the text should definitely not have been normalled!

As you do know yourself paint is added on top of the wood not carved into it (or at least not for such a sign).

The diffuse itself isn't the best example either as for such an art style it's better to not use any normal at all to be honest.

So like said, only the things that aren't modeled should actually be normalled together with some of the base materials.

If you have a model that contains like a polymer grip this polymer might be nice to have a slight normal map effect, but for the rest of the gun being metal here it should not have a normal map as metal is most of the time very smooth.

Only big damage like very big dents those can be normalled but most of the damage on the material would be placed onto the spec/gloss map.

So yea don't follow that tutorial on the letter, while he does give you a global insight how to create an asset some parts are not the correct way to do it so you'll have to find that out by yourself.

[Anonymous No.458125]

>>458119
Literally screencapping this for future use. Thanks.