The beauty of Materials.

[MIstahMoose]

I just thought I'd show off a project I recently completed and finally got onto the grid.
Materials are such a powerful tool that aren't appreciated in secondlife! They bring LIFE to your creations, and you IGNORE THEM! How could you!?

I think materials have been neglected far too much in this community!

ETA: This is it without a texture, Materials are impressive ways of getting a lot more detail for a lot less cost than having a 1024x1024 diffuse trying to capture everything.

I should grab a view of how it looks when materials are turned off... Anyhow, Such beauty with only 

512x Diffuse

512x Spec

512x NRM

I might reduce spec to a 256x, but spec/nrm work so closely together I lose a good bit of detail when I do. Debating.

 

Have any work you've done with materials and wish to show off?

[LisaMarie McWinnie]

Great results, I love it!

I also love to use materials, I've been using for my creations ever since they were avaiable, and it brings such a realistic effect to your object. So far I've used it for some dresses, and for an wall and floor I made before.

I would take some screenshots if SL was not acting out and not loading my textures

[MIstahMoose]

I'd love to see some of your work
Whenever it does work! ^.^

[IvanBenjammin]

Welcome to the materials party

You've got a good UV unwrap on that, looks great! I'm not sure what tool you're using to make your normal but I recommend you look at cavity maps. I don't want to bombard this forum with info that's not relevant (done that before...) but cavity maps are a bit like ambient occlusion. Combining them with your diffuse really helps to make normal maps pop, especially when used in a spec map. Feel free to IM me if you want more info.

 

[MIstahMoose]

I work in blender mostly, a bit of Zbrush. I don't believe blender does cavity maps? It does bake AO and I do have that in there, but not super apparent for this particular object.

[Pamela Galli]

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MIstahMoose wrote:

I just thought I'd show off a project I recently completed and finally got onto the grid.

Materials are such a powerful tool that aren't appreciated in secondlife! They bring LIFE to your creations, and you IGNORE THEM! How could you!?

 

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Excuse me? I dont ignore them.  I use them all the time.  You seem to have a very poor opinion of the people in this group, for some reason. 

 

And once a month or so I preach materials to my group of 10,000, showing them with and without materials pictures so they can see the difference. Still, many have not checked Advanced Lighting.  I had to do the same kind of evangelizing with mesh, too. 

 

 

[IvanBenjammin]

So, cavity maps. I'll reply to your IM here, MistahMoose, so I can post pics.

Basically they're similar to ambient occlusion, but they pick out detail that AO typically misses.

I don't know if blender does cavity maps, but the best results I get is by creating them from your normal map.

For this, I use Xnormal. Its my high-low poly baking tool, but it has a bunch of other features as well. I can't recommend it highly enough, and its also free.

For just the purpose of cavity maps, you need your normal map to start with. This can be created in Xnormal (along with every other kind of baked map) but since you've already got that I won't go into it.

So, Xnormal: On the right hand side of the window is a button that says 'Tools'. In here, you want 'Tangent Space Normal Map to Cavity Map'

Load or paste your normal map into the left pane by right clicking in it.

There are several values to set but the only one to really watch is 'radius.' Cannot remember what the default values are but I have Brightness: 0, Contrast: 1.0, and Radius between 10 and 50. Best to experiment with this one.

Method: This is the type of cavity map as there are several types, useful for different purposes.

Your 'swizzle coordinates' should be X+, Y-, Z+

Here is the normal map I'm using:

With me so far? This is the fun part.

I use 2-3 different cavity maps and layer them in Photoshop to get the final effect. These are usually 'EMB', 'SPD', and sometimes 'EDT' - don't ask me what these stand for as I have no idea Once selecting your 'method', right click in the right image pane and 'Generate' After each one, right click and save or simply copy and paste into PS.

EMB generation:

This is my favourite kind of cavity map - it gives you really deep shadows but also highlights around normal map edges. By tweaking the brightness/levels of this you can use it as part of your spec map and also your diffuse (at a very low opacity) to make it pop.

SPD generation:

This one isn't much good on its own, but really helps compliment your ambient occlusion and the EMB cavity map above. You can see how it shades the edges of the brick pattern, but doesn't put shadows between the bricks themselves.

Photoshop layers:

To keep things simple I haven't adjusted any levels or brightness for this. The SPD layer is set to multiply on top of the EMB layer. There is no ambient occlusion in here, and in this case its hardly necessary.

The EMB layer comes out with 50% grey background, so by setting it to 'overlay' you will only see the highlights and shadows. Its beyond the scope of this tutorial, but my typical process is to combine all my cavity and AO maps into  a single smart layer, which when then gets overlaid over the rest of the diffuse.

I really hope all that makes sense. I've never tried to explain it before

[MIstahMoose]

Awesome. Thanks a lot I've been hearing a lot about Xnormal but I was stubborn and kept using just blender to bake my high to low poly maps. I will definitely take a look into Xnormal, I should really be expanding past my current scope. Cavity maps seem simple enough, and are true to their name ^.^ Just show you the cavities, which can really help more than AO i some cases. Thanks again~ I won't be working on this object anymore, but in future objects I will definitely be using Xnormal

[IvanBenjammin]

Cool, glad I could make a convert

 

[Drongle McMahon]

After a bit of reading, I think I can suggest the following definition: Ambient occlusion is the variation in diffusely reflected light resulting from the restriction of diffuse environmental light by nearby geometry. The typical AO bake approximates this effect of the geometry physically present in the mesh it is baked from. However the tangent-space normal map represents the presence of finer geometry that is not present in the physical mesh and is therefore ignored by an AO bake.

The normal map affects shading due to the variation of the surface angle resulting from these finer geometric details, but it doesn't produce their AO effects, The purpose of the cavity map is to approximate the AO resulting from these finer details, which are represented in the normal map but are missing from the actual geometry. That's why it is derived from the normal map.

I assume that the inworld AO does only uses real geometry, ignoring the normal map. This may be part of the reasons why so many people complaing about the minimal effects of normal maps on mesh lit only by sunlight. Adding this effect using the cavity maps as described may be effective in alleviating this lack of effect. Thanks for bringing them to our attention.

[IvanBenjammin]

That's a good definition. I've always treated cavity and AO maps as complimentary and use them together in most textures. SL's in-world AO (and any in-engine AO in games) is seldom to be relied on. It helps with intersecting geometry and where you can't bake it into your textures because of tiling etc, but that's it IMO.

People complaining about the minimal effects of normal maps is partly because you have to consider all 3 maps as related to each other, so cavity maps are a part of that. The other part of it is that normal maps are at their best when they have been baked from a high poly object, so your geometry and normal map are working together.  They can definitely work well on flat surfaces, but at the end of the day they're an illusion, and one that it doesn't take much to break. 

[Pamela Galli]

Thanks Ivan, really wish I could use something like this, as AO is so annoyingly undetailed.  Since I have 1) a Mac and 2) an ATI card (and using Blender), my options evidently are limited to Crazybump, which does not have the capabilities of Xnormal. If anyone knows any other alternatives, let me know, would really like to have this capability.

[IvanBenjammin]

Yes, the Mac thing is a complication. I was all set to post about another tool (nDo), then realised it wasn't Mac either. Sorry about that, if I do find/recall anything I'll let you know.

[arton Rotaru]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

Thanks Ivan, really wish I could use something like this, as AO is so annoyingly undetailed.  Since I have 1) a Mac and 2) an ATI card (and using Blender), my options evidently are limited to Crazybump, which does not have the capabilities of Xnormal. If anyone knows any other alternatives, let me know, would really like to have this capability.

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You can create a cavity map just with photoshop as well.

Cavity map with Photoshop

Just set the Angle on the green channel layer to +90 instead of -90, and a Height setting of 1 or 2 is enough IMO.

[IvanBenjammin]

Nice! I just gave it a try and it works well. Not quite as clean as Xnormal, but it does the job

[Drongle McMahon]

I think I have worked out a way to get a virtually identical result in GIMP...

If normal map has alpha channel, remove it ...

1. Colors/decompose/to layers/{RGBA|RGBA}*

With resulting new image...

2. Delete blue layer (and alpha layer)
3. Select Green layer
4. Filters/Edge-detect/Sobel/{keep sign, horizontal only}
5. Select Red layer
6. Filters/Edge-detect/Sobel/{keep sign. vertical only}
7. Make read and green layers visible
8. Set Red layer mode to Grain Extract
9. Merge Red down
10. Export ,png.

* RGBA if normal map has alpha channel, otherwise RGB
Here's an example (done at 512x512, this image reduced).

 Didn't put the map in your link here because of copyright, but the result was just about identical to that shown in the link.

[Pamela Galli]

Thanks very much Arton and Drongle :-)  I own PS but use Gimp most of the time, so will try this out.

[Drongle McMahon]

Here's an illustration of the value of the cavity map, using a simple normal map so that it's clear (I hope). Small picture shows the original pattern (height map, traced from the real Chipendale catalogue!), the normal map made from it with GIMP Norma;map plugin, and the cavity map made from that the way I described.

The big picture compares two simple prim boxes. Both have the same normal map and use the cavity map as the specular map (no alpha channels used). Shininess is 100 and environment is 0. The nearer one (in 3/4 views) has the cavity map as the diffuse texture. The one at the back has the blank texture. The blue is from the diffuse coulour, which is darker and less saturated for the blank texture to compensate for the greyness of the cavity map.

Top left is with ALM and AO on. Top right is AO turned off. I was wrong - the inworld AO is apparently affected by the normal map detail, although it's too coarse to be really appropriate for this size of detail. Lower left is with ALM turned off. Lower right is looking from the opposite direction where reflection from the sun is maximum (3pm). In this case, the difference is minimal.

So, as expected, the cavity map does greatly improve the appearance of the details when the sun is not at the optimal angle. It also allows some detail to remain apparent when ALM is off. Of course in normal use, the map would be combined with a more complex diffuse texture, and the differences would be less priminent, but still worth having. Importantly, this can be used for tiled textures as well as custom textures with baked AO.

[Drongle McMahon]

Here's a better example. Top with ALM, bottom without. Middle has cavity map. others don't. The cavity ,ap doesn't improve the appearance with a detailed diffuse texture as at the right, even after shifting it 1 pixel to get proper registration. Sunlight only, 3pm.

[Pamela Galli]

Thank you SO much Drongle -- your experiments and mini-tutorials are hugely helpful, really appreciate the time you put into them :-)

[Aquila Kytori]

Hi

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MIstahMoose wrote:

I work in blender mostly, a bit of Zbrush. I don't believe blender does cavity maps? It does bake AO and I do have that in there, but not super apparent for this particular object.

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This reminded me of an Andrew Price video using Dirty Vertex Paint , ( yes that is what its called , Vertex paint mode > Paint > Dirty Vetex paint) .

http://www.blenderguru.com/videos/how-to-quickly-add-dirt-to-crevices/

 

And when  I did a search for  Blender dirty vertex baking  I didn't find a lot but over at Blenderartists.org in a couple of threads they call this baking cavity maps .

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?241389-Dirt-procedure&p=2035422&highlight=dirty+vertex#post2035422

Message 9 explains the workflow and the top part of message 13 shows some screen shots of settings.

[Pamela Galli]

Thanks Aquila that looks interesting, too, appreciate your research :-)

[Pamela Galli]

Aquila, when I get to step 6 in the text summary, it says this:

 

6. To use the Vertex color data in your material, go to the node editor and add an Attribute node (Add>Input>Attribute).

 

But I don't see Attribute as a choice in Input.  I also don't see those other node windows.

 

ETA -- I turned Cycles on so now I see the Attributes option but it is grayed out.

 

ETA: In my usual monkey at the keyboard method of clicking a bunch of things, I found most of those windows.

 

ETA:  I completed the tutorial, checked Vertex Paint and Shadless as mentioned in comments, but the texture just baked black.

[arton Rotaru]

Cycles can't bake out texture maps in current Blender versions. Perhaps that's why it's not working?

There are some cycles dev builds on http://graphicall.org/?keywords=cycles, though, which are able to bake out texture maps with the cycles renderer.

[Pamela Galli]

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arton Rotaru wrote:

Cycles can't bake out texture maps in current Blender versions. Perhaps that's why it's not working?

There are some cycles dev builds on

http://graphicall.org/?keywords=cycles,

though, which are able to bake out texture maps with the cycles renderer.

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Yes -- but I thought in the comments, they were asking how to bake textures with the "dirt". I guess not.