How does one find the normal mapped assets on the DLS?

[johnwhelan]

The title says it all.

They are supposed to be kinder on the machine and make the video card work harder but how do you pick them out?

Thanks John

 

[VinnyBarb]

The title says it all.

They are supposed to be kinder on the machine and make the video card work harder but how do you pick them out?

Thanks John

I guess by d/loading and looking at them in the game or by editing them to see if normal maps have been included :hehe:

Seriously, not too many Kuids have been done with normal mapping before version 2.9, so I guess as this was stipulated by AURAN for creating native (V2.9) stuff, normal maps should/must be used from V2.9 onwards.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

 

[johnwhelan]

I guess by d/loading and looking at them in the game or by editing them to see if normal maps have been included :hehe:

Seriously, not too many Kuids have been done with normal mapping before version 2.9, so I guess as this was stipulated by AURAN for creating native (V2.9) stuff, normal maps should/must be used from V2.9 onwards.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

Seriously I think that is the only way at the moment. I have normal mapped items running nicely in TC3 so perhaps you don't need 2.9 on your scenery items.

Cheerio John

 

[rweber95]

Not being a content creator, can someone provide some info on normal mapping vs whatever was used before? Is this related to the diffuse, reflect and refract texture types? How can I know if a downloaded asset's textures are normal mapped?

Bob

 

[johnwhelan]

Not being a content creator, can someone provide some info on normal mapping vs whatever was used before? Is this related to the diffuse, reflect and refract texture types? How can I know if a downloaded asset's textures are normal mapped?

Bob

Basically there are three ways to simulate a bump, one is straight adding polys, this puts a load on the cpu as well as the video card, second is bump mapping modern video cards can cope with this without bugging the cpu. This is texture not mesh and typically you might expect recent Paul Hobbs items to use this, basically you need some one who is fairly knowledgable in content creation. Currently none of my items use this. The third is normal mapping where the video card does the work. The most common variant takes two .tga files one with the image and sort of blue / purple one with whether to out or indent.

You need Blender or 3DS to do this. Look under Vinnybarb trs2009 buildings such as KUID2: 184151:9416:3 then search again for his none normal mapped versions to see the difference. KUID2: 86627:2362:1 is also normal mapped and there is a none normal mapped version around. Whitepass has one normal mapped wagon on Trainzpro routes.

Basically your video card can do the normal mapping without blinking so more detail with less effort. Its sort of revolutionary but technically it has been possible for some time.

I think you can do bump mapping and normal mapping at the same time. Currently I'm playing, an American called Rick worked out how to get them out of Blender, John in the UK is playing with photoshop addins to get them into Blender.

So far I created a normal mapped wagon that works in TC3 as well as TRS2009 but we are at the experimental stage at the moment. Which isn't being helped timewise by my copy of TRS2009 deciding it wants to rebuild its database. If we get it right then we should be able to get 100 or so normal mapped wagons on the DRS fairly quickly.

However it begs the question how does some one know if an item is normal mapped or not and vinnybarb's answer
"I guess by d/loading and looking at them in the game or by editing them to see if normal maps have been included :hehe: " currently is probably the only way to find out. Even then you have to inspect the .tga files to be certain.

If you are thinking of purchasing payware it's probably worth asking if it uses normal mapping before hand.

Cheerio John

 

[VinnyBarb]

Another way would be if a content creator includes in the description of his/her creation with normal/bump maps the line: " created with normal maps" or similar. Anyone wanting to d/load an item can see in the "detailed" window whether this is done with normal maps.

Or/and use a 9 prefix on the kuid number like kuid2:xxxxxxx:9xxxx:1 like I do for my TS09 creations.

Just a suggestion

VinnyBarb

 

[rweber95]

Is it true that any mesh that uses bump mapped textures will have texture names like this example in its kuid folder?:

face.tga
facebump.tga

where facebump.tga will be the same picture as face but colored blue/purple?

Bob

 

[johnwhelan]

Is it true that any mesh that uses bump mapped textures will have texture names like this example in its kuid folder?:

face.tga
facebump.tga

where facebump.tga will be the same picture as face but colored blue/purple?

Bob

No.

It does seem difficult to pick them out doesn't it and yet they are probably the ones that have the most detail for the least amount of machine resources.

Cheerio John

 

[VinnyBarb]

Is it true that any mesh that uses bump mapped textures will have texture names like this example in its kuid folder?:

face.tga
facebump.tga

where facebump.tga will be the same picture as face but colored blue/purple?

Bob

Generally yes, true for the texture name. Depending of a specular alphalayer used with the bump/normal map, this layer could colour a bump/normal map anything other than just blue/purple. If you edit and examine the new UP SD40-2 in TRS09, you will know what I mean.

Bump and normal maps means generally the same.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

 

[VinnyBarb]

Sorry. I forgot, this applies to content created in GMax/3DS Max, I do not know how Blender or any of the other 3D programs deal with the nomenclature of textures for bumpmapping.

Cheers

VinnyBarb

 

[S301]

Actually, the name of the texture itself doesn't appear to matter. I generally use the convention of 'name.tga' and 'name-normals.tga', although I generally forget what my naming conventions are, so this does vary.

However, I myself put into the description that the item has normals maps normally.
Zec

 

[johnwhelan]

Actually, the name of the texture itself doesn't appear to matter. I generally use the convention of 'name.tga' and 'name-normals.tga', although I generally forget what my naming conventions are, so this does vary.

However, I myself put into the description that the item has normals maps normally.
Zec

So search the description and hope the content creator put the word normal in it?

Cheerio John