[Vasudan Admiral]

Err, the whole point of normal maps is to get rid of previously boring flat surfaces.

And I still don't buy that ANY current FS ships have their normal maps too strong. In fact, pretty much all the ones I've seen (and I've seen them all - went right through the whole FS fleet in the ship lab) are absolutely perfect.

[Scooby_Doo]

Ok what exactly is height maps? Bump maps for normal mapping? And how are they created?

[Vasudan Admiral]

A height map is a bump map, which is essentially a greyscale version of a texture where the higher a pixel is in relation to its surroundings, the brighter it is. So bricks would look like this:

The recessed parts are dark compared to the raised bricks. Typically, mid-grey is considered to be the middle, with anything darker being recessed, and anything lighter extruded.

Now with the heightmap, you can make use of Blackhole's parallax mapping. Parallax mapping, as the name implies creates visual parllax error in a surface. It does this by shifting the map around according to how high each pixel is (heightmap) and the viewing angle. So using the classic example of an analog clockface, if the heightmap indicated that a clock hand was raised above the surface of the clock and the clock was being viewed from the side, parallax mapping would shift the pixels of the clock hand away from the camera, so that it would appear to be in the same position it would if it were _actually_ raised above the surface. This would change depending on where you were viewing it from, so viewing it from the other side would shift it over in the opposite direction.

Anyway, heightmaps are typically created by hand. Though you can generate a height map from a normal map, normally you would develop the heightmap from your base texture in the same way you'd make the shinemap, and then generate the normal map from the height map. If you have BIG deep or tall features on your normal map, then you should use the heightmap as well to make use of the parallax mapping. In all other cases, you should just use a normal map, or none at all if you can get away with it. (One less texture to store)

[Ransom]

And I still don't buy that ANY current FS ships have their normal maps too strong. In fact, pretty much all the ones I've seen (and I've seen them all - went right through the whole FS fleet in the ship lab) are absolutely perfect.

I'd argue that the Ulysses is the worst of them. It just looks silly.

[Vasudan Admiral]

With:


Without:

[Ransom]

Yes, I have seen them. I'm not going to say it looks bad, or even that it looks worse than it does without for that matter, but I don't think it's as good as it could be and certainly not as good as many of the other ones. The curved-edges style seems ... well, goofy. It's more pronounced here than it is on the others.

I also think the Fenris is a bit overdone. I like the idea, but it makes it look more like stone than metal. The texture only needs a little toning down I think.

Also one of the tiled Vasudan textures that's used on some of the capital ships seem to have been messed up. The edges of the tile are bumpmapped as well, so you can clearly see the borders.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Fair enough then. Though I do think it makes it a bit more vasudanish - which is good considering it was meant to be a joint project. Moreover - I think any HTL job that done on it before normalmapping would probably have resulted in something that's quite similar.

And you're right about the fenris - I must have missed that one somehow (the same map is not applied to the levvy). It's not so much overdone as it is a bit fake. It looks like it's been made using crazybump with a bit of editing. Everything sticks out rather than recesses. I'll probably make a propper heightmap for it at some point.

As for the VCtile1, it's an easy enough fix with on the heightmap. Apart from that tiling I think it looks quite nice.

[jr2]

I think what you're running into here is not a problem of them being too pronounced... now hear me out:

I think that the problem is the transition of the edges between the height and base are rounded.. instead of sharp.  Some of these need to be sharp.  Of course, some should be rounded, but not all of them.  I'd imagine the Vassy vessels would tend to have more rounded than not, but the Terrans would have more flat than rounded.

Do you get what I'm trying to say?  For example the Ulysses.  The height is fine.  It just needs to have the edges sharper, right now they look like it was crafted (somewhat carefully) from Silly Putty.  (No offense; and it still looks better that way than without the normal maps, IMHO.)

[Marcus Vesper]

I think what you're running into here is not a problem of them being too pronounced... now hear me out:

I think that the problem is the transition of the edges between the height and base are rounded.. instead of sharp.  Some of these need to be sharp.  Of course, some should be rounded, but not all of them.  I'd imagine the Vassy vessels would tend to have more rounded than not, but the Terrans would have more flat than rounded.

Do you get what I'm trying to say?  For example the Ulysses.  The height is fine.  It just needs to have the edges sharper, right now they look like it was crafted (somewhat carefully) from Silly Putty.  (No offense; and it still looks better that way than without the normal maps, IMHO.)

That's exactly what it looks like, nicely described.  It's like you took a malleable surface and smushed it down until it was about the right shape.  While all the indentations look correct, it's like it's a blurrier copy an original painting, and it doesn't quite have that manufactured feel.  Doing what jr2 suggested should fix that.

[colecampbell666]

That's sort of what I meant when I was talking about Scooby's ship.

[taylor]

The Uly is supposed to have an exaggerated normal map, it's the entire point. It may not look all that spectacular in the lab or techroom, but it's how it looks in a mission that really matters.  At one point there was a version of the Uly map which looked much better in the lab, but it didn't work very well in-mission.  The current one goes the other way, where you actually get some tangible benefit from it, other than as some basic desktop art.

Scooby's texture looks fine, but it's almost entirely wasted.  The details are simply too subtle to really work that well.  It doesn't really matter if it looks better close up since you aren't even going to be able to see any of that detail at a normal game-play distance.  A better test would be to show it in the lab, zoomed out at least by half.  Then and only then do you get a good sense of how it really looks.  If it only looks good at a closer zoom level then the normal map is just wasting everyone's time (and system memory, and CPU resources, and GPU resources).

[ION3]

I think the problem is how mipmapping combines with normal mapping. But unless we change the normal mapping shader (at cost of performance) we can`t change it.

The problem is:
if you have two normals \ and / and you make a mipmap the resulting normal is |. And not \/ as it would be in reality. That means ,that from a distance the seams between the armor plates on the ulysses are basically faded out at the distance, so they have to be exaggerated to look right.

Maybe the problem could be solved with a shader with "anisotropic lighting" (i`m not sure whether that word is right).
Or a shader which takes two independant normals as input which represent the two most common average normals of the lower mip levels.

[Ransom]

The Uly is supposed to have an exaggerated normal map, it's the entire point. It may not look all that spectacular in the lab or techroom, but it's how it looks in a mission that really matters.  At one point there was a version of the Uly map which looked much better in the lab, but it didn't work very well in-mission.  The current one goes the other way, where you actually get some tangible benefit from it, other than as some basic desktop art.

I don't have a problem with how exaggerated it is. It's the rounded edges I'm taking issue with. I think it's fair enough to do that to make it look a little more Vasudan, but I agree with jr2 - it's a bit too much and it creates the same sort of effect everyone complained about with Doom 3's plastic-like metal.

[Scooby_Doo]

The Uly is supposed to have an exaggerated normal map, it's the entire point. It may not look all that spectacular in the lab or techroom, but it's how it looks in a mission that really matters.  At one point there was a version of the Uly map which looked much better in the lab, but it didn't work very well in-mission.  The current one goes the other way, where you actually get some tangible benefit from it, other than as some basic desktop art.

Scooby's texture looks fine, but it's almost entirely wasted.  The details are simply too subtle to really work that well.  It doesn't really matter if it looks better close up since you aren't even going to be able to see any of that detail at a normal game-play distance.  A better test would be to show it in the lab, zoomed out at least by half.  Then and only then do you get a good sense of how it really looks.  If it only looks good at a closer zoom level then the normal map is just wasting everyone's time (and system memory, and CPU resources, and GPU resources).

I dunno how to make them stronger.

[DaBrain]

I dunno how to make them stronger.

Just import the (uncompressed!) normal map in CrazyBump and increase the intensity.

The Uly is supposed to have an exaggerated normal map, it's the entire point. It may not look all that spectacular in the lab or techroom, but it's how it looks in a mission that really matters.  At one point there was a version of the Uly map which looked much better in the lab, but it didn't work very well in-mission.  The current one goes the other way, where you actually get some tangible benefit from it, other than as some basic desktop art.

Scooby's texture looks fine, but it's almost entirely wasted.  The details are simply too subtle to really work that well.  It doesn't really matter if it looks better close up since you aren't even going to be able to see any of that detail at a normal game-play distance.  A better test would be to show it in the lab, zoomed out at least by half.  Then and only then do you get a good sense of how it really looks.  If it only looks good at a closer zoom level then the normal map is just wasting everyone's time (and system memory, and CPU resources, and GPU resources).

Well, I think it's because we only got only per-pixel light. All the other lights simply blend over it. I don't know how much of a performance difference it would make to turn all lights into per pixel lights. I guess it might look pretty impressive for the laser effects.

But in general, I think it's better to make the normal maps a bit too strong. At least in a game like FS2 where you never really see other fighters very close to you.

[wolf]

Well, I think it's because we only got only per-pixel light. All the other lights simply blend over it. I don't know how much of a performance difference it would make to turn all lights into per pixel lights. I guess it might look pretty impressive for the laser effects.

With SM 3.0 capable card requirement I guess it would be bearable at least. While at it -- environment mappind should also be done per pixel.

[bkd86]

The other thing not being mentioned when people complain (I think they shouldn't use the normal maps if they have a problem with them or do their own) is the size of the normal map 512 etc. Smaller normal maps are not going to have good detail especially fine detail (and will make seams look quite large). When I looked at some of the textures on the HTL models where was some really bad UV usage, and smaller textures. One of the problems converting the textures (existing) to normal maps is they have all the painted on weathering or highlights from before when normal mapping wasn't an option (or spec maps) so basically some normal maps would need to be repaints. Thats why a lot of the bigger ships have lots of grainy effects on the metal. I really like whats being done and hope to contribute at some point my schedule permitting.

[Scooby_Doo]

I dunno how to make them stronger.

Just import the (uncompressed!) normal map in CrazyBump and increase the intensity.

Or asI just discovered, increase the Max value in the nvidia's photoshop normal filter (default: 2.2)
at 4.4:



edit: honestly for my stuff, with small rivets and panelling, between 4.4 and 8.8 is the best. 8.8 looks too "bloated"

[Scooby_Doo]

What format does height map need to be in? Can't seem to see them...

Also the Uyl. is way over normalized.  Theres a huge gap between the panels.  Honestly I don't think we'll ever see normal mapping in it's true glory because of games nature.  You're not going to see walls, details  and bad guys up close constantly.

[Bobboau]

it'll be most visible on capships.