Game Development Community

Elusive Max/Maya shader for normals...

by Russell Fincher · in Artist Corner · 03/29/2007 (2:41 pm) · 2 replies

I seem to remember, at IGC a couple of years ago, talk about a shader or script for Maya/Max that would render out a shape as a normal map... I'm not talking about the well-known process indicated in TDN here, it was just a simple standard render, but the script/shader set up colored lights or something to generate the colors for the map.

I also think that it was placed on TDN somewhere, but I can't find it now.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Russell Fincher's profile picture
Associate Russell Fincher
Sickhead Games

About the author

Art Lead at Sickhead Games, focused on dev tools and prototyping, instructor/advisor at several Dallas colleges and universities, Associate Developer with GarageGames, champion of avant-garde game art at uncommonassembly.com.

Recent Threads

  • Chip in for OpenCollada development
  • Flight sim-style texture resources?
  • Help understanding foot trigger doc...
  • Forest Editor Wind Effects for Artists
  • Making sense of Autobillboards
    • NextNext Thread
    PrevPrevious Thread
    More from Artist Corner


    Torque Owner Magnus Blikstad
    #1
    03/29/2007 (3:01 pm)
    You could probably do this with a maxscript, but the question is; why?? It was most likely done once or twice that way before the render to texture option started to work properly.

    Actually, I did read some article somewhere a while ago that involved shining a light from the top/bottom/left/right/etc on an object (a REAL object that is) and taking a series photographs. Then you'd stitch those together into a normal map. Pretty interesting idea for the application of extracting a normal/bump map from a real object. =)

    Associate Russell Fincher
    Sickhead Games
    #2
    03/29/2007 (3:18 pm)
    I've seen that article somewhere... thought it was cool, too. I saw a lecture at GDC this year where the developers were taking high-resolution height scans with this portable 3D scanner of a rocky texture, yielding high-resolution geometry in a modeling program, and converting it to normal maps from there. I was thinking "has it really gotten to the point where it takes three guys 2 days with $20,000 worth of gear to make one texture?!!"

    Looked sweet though. ;)

    Thanks for getting my head out of the clouds, Magnus, heh.