Claymod public beta now available

TheGameMaker · Post by **TheGameMaker** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 8:28 am

I still wasn´t able to figure out, how to generate Normal Maps....

imagination304 · Post by **imagination304** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:32 am

Hi Whitenoise,

Is this link correct?
http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/clay/claymod_beta.zip
I ran the prg. and there is no file and help menu?
So, I could not test import/export function.

Also, to select buttons on menu, I must move the mouse pointer a little
distance below the original position? Why?

Thanks in advance

WhiteNoise · Post by **WhiteNoise** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:13 pm

hybrid wrote:
etcaptor wrote:I just made some tests with normal mapping and not animated .x models and found that when normal/paralax/ map is used engine stops supporting of smoth and character looks badly then with using of diffuse mapping. In this case will avoid using of normal map for charecters.
This is a known issue. The normals are recalculated along with the tangents such that smoothed normals are lost. Unfortunately no one found a final working solution, yet. Or better, no one implemented one, yet.

Check the code section on this forum, I posted a possible fix there. I also made some more fixes which should help if your mesh has duplicate vertices. I will post them soon.

WhiteNoise · Post by **WhiteNoise** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:14 pm

imagination304 wrote:Hi Whitenoise,

Is this link correct?
http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/clay/claymod_beta.zip
I ran the prg. and there is no file and help menu?
So, I could not test import/export function.

Also, to select buttons on menu, I must move the mouse pointer a little
distance below the original position? Why?

Thanks in advance

Not sure why that happens - I will need to check. It doesn't happen on all systems.

WhiteNoise · Post by **WhiteNoise** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:17 pm

TheGameMaker wrote:I still wasn´t able to figure out, how to generate Normal Maps....

I will post some better instructions soon hopefully, but the basic idea is that you need to have a low polygon model (either import one or create it in the second mode). Use TAB to switch modes btw. On the third mode there is a button called 'generate mesh'. This will create the final mesh and try to create your UV coordinates for you if none exist. Then you can hit the 'render texture' button. This will generate your maps. You can export your maps by picking 'export LP model' on the file menu.

One other thing I wanted to post - there is one keyboard key I forgot to put on the help menu. 'E' for eyedropper.. It picks up the model color under the cursor.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:42 pm

WhiteNoise wrote:
hybrid wrote:This is a known issue. The normals are recalculated along with the tangents such that smoothed normals are lost. Unfortunately no one found a final working solution, yet. Or better, no one implemented one, yet.
Check the code section on this forum, I posted a possible fix there. I also made some more fixes which should help if your mesh has duplicate vertices. I will post them soon.

But smoothed normals (as in .x or .3ds where several faces' normals are averaged) are still lost. That's what I meant. But indeed I did not check your code, yet, but I'm aware of it as I also replied to your post

WhiteNoise · Post by **WhiteNoise** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 8:55 pm

My code smooths the normals and tangents. I made some more fixes to smooth them even if the vertices of each face are unique (ie, no vertices are shared, which happens when you import an OBJ from blender). As niko said, there probably should be a flag to say whether you want the normals smoothed or not.

TheGameMaker · Post by **TheGameMaker** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:11 am

oh.. by generating maps there will be a normalmap, too... i thought, it only generates a bmp out of the vertexcolors... thx

etcaptor · Post by **etcaptor** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 3:34 pm

WhiteNoise, I still not tried your smoth code. Since Irrlicht does not support tangents for animated meshes, will delay this test.
Because I have not any experience with normal mapping, just thought what will be easy way:
- One test is to apply bumpapping filter to texture in GIMP. For this goal was used one model from Agar's World of Ideas game:

Left model is with modified by GIMP texture and applied in irrlicht like diffuse map.

- Another way is using of NVidia Melody for generating of normal map based on High poly and low poly meshes.