[Tutorial] Normal/Light Map generation with Blender

[vi-wer]

I've made a short tutorial on normal map generation with blender. Just follow this link to go to the page where it's located.

EDIT:
I've added another blender tutorial: lightmap with radiosty.

>>Lightmap tutorial<<
>>Normalmap tutorial<<


Normalmap:

[Virion]

Nice! And thanks.

[Halifax]

Umm is Blender 2.46 even out yet? I'm pretty sure it is not, as the download link says Blender 2.45, and that definitely doesn't support tangent space normal map generation. Oh well, I guess I will have to resort to the SVN.

EDIT:
Wow, the Blender guys seem to have made it so easy to bake tangent normal maps though. That's great, because I thought they were going to have you manually do it by adding the 6 cameras, etc.

Great tutorial!

[vermeer]

I used the first builds , and tested to work not only normal maps, but also newer displacement maps for also real time. All worked. And as they kept polishing, I guess is even better now. BTW, builds lately are very stable, in my experience, I test em a lot, and often use in production. The tutorial seems clear and to the point.
I am not saying i recomend using builds in production, is not thought for that: I just do.(but better deal with care)
BTW, about UV part, there's said it is simplified, one thing to note is you cannot use overlapping mirrored UV chunks as is usually done in game tetxures to save pixel space. There are some more details to know, but I think is way better to not mess more (good criteria on the tut here) , as most important is show how simple it has become now in blender(and what does make the map itself):Besides if generated normal maps in other tools, you already know those tricky things,if not, will discover. (tips for seams, etc. Also can be easily discovered in first tests)

[Halifax]

By first builds, do you mean builds that the Blender Foundation have provided themselves? If so, do you have any links to where I can download them.

[vermeer]

no , I refered (first builds having those features) to compilations made by users, from trunk, etc...

get them here:

graphicall.org

[Halifax]

no , I refered (first builds having those features) to compilations made by users, from trunk, etc...

get them here:

graphicall.org

Ah, alright. Thanks vermeer.

[vi-wer]

Here'sa good one for windows. It's an experimental build but it (probably) has everything there's available for blender. It's also the following build of the one I used for the tutorial.

[Halifax]

Here'sa good one for windows. It's an experimental build but it (probably) has everything there's available for blender. It's also the following build of the one I used for the tutorial.

Ah, great vi-wer. And at the risk of sounding lazy, do you happen to know where I could find a pre-built Mac Tiger version. (Sorry but that is the only place available, right now, where I can do serious modeling. My Win32 GPU sucks.)

[vi-wer]

This one is an OS X Intel build for Tiger and Leopard. If you need a PPC build use the Daily Automated Built from graphicall.org.

[Halifax]

Wow even greater. Once again, thank you.

[vi-wer]

Good news. I've made another Blender tutorial .
This time it's a lightmap tutorial using Blenders Radiosity. Which lets you use lights of any form and not only point or spot. Of course the quality of the map is not bad too.
The link is in the first post.

[Halifax]

Good news. I've made another Blender tutorial .
This time it's a lightmap tutorial using Blenders Radiosity. Which lets you use lights of any form and not only point or spot. Of course the quality of the map is not bad too.
The link is in the first post.

Vi-wer, you are amazing! You are the type of Blender person that this community needs.