Normal map creation
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One of the new features that can be used on our 3D models in FSX is the normal map, or sometimes also called bump map. This article will describe how to create the normal map texture that you can use on your model.
Bump mapping is a technique that makes a surface look uneven. For example a brick wall consisting of only one polygon, could look like it has been made of individual stones. If you would model that all in 3D it would require a lot more polygons. What the normal map does is adjust the local normal based on the value stored in the normal map, so instead of having the same normal for the entire polygon, now each pixel can have a different normal. That results in the uneven look.
Requirements
To follow the rest of this tutorial you need to make sure you have the following tools at hand:
- GMax or 3DSMax with the FSX gamepack installed
- A photo editing tool like Photoshop, Paintshop Pro or GIMP
- A normal map plugin (see the links section for links to get them)
Creating a grayscale height map
The normal map plugin that we will be using to create the normal map, needs a grayscale height map as input. You can see this as a texture where the different shades of gray give information about the height of that pixel. It sort of gives a relief of your diffuse texture.
Simply turning your diffuse texture into grayscale does not give the best result. On the other hand creating the height map by hand is also a lot of work and requires quite some artistic skills. But fortunately there are some tricks to get your started.
One of the best ways to create a grayscale height map I found is to make use of the filters in your painting program that allow to make a photocopy or charcoal version of your texture. If you play around a bit with the settings of such a plugin, you will see that you can generate a quite convincing height map. For the final details you will probably have to edit the texture, but it should give you a good starting point.
Creating a normal map
Saving in FSX format
Assigning to your model
Links
- Nvidia normal map plugin
- GIMP normal map plugin
- Creating and using normal maps - a tutorial
- Normal map photograpgy - a cool idea on how to create a normal map
