[Plugin] Normal Map Maker

Chris Fullmer · 7 Dec 2010, 08:23

UPDATED: Now there is an actual plugin file to download and install thanks to Didier Bur.

Ok, here's a quick and dirty normal map maker. It will re-paint all selected faces with the color of their normal, then it changes the camera to top mode and exports an image. Unfortunately you will have to crop the image yourself. Please watch the video for a brief demonstration of how to use it.

This video shows an old version of the plugin that required pasting code into the Ruby console. That is no longer necessary. Now the plugin has a proper item in the plugins menu.
[flash=790,600:s5l6x2be]http://www.youtube.com/v/1z0LAb2MTjA&hd=1&fs=1[/flash:s5l6x2be]

Here is a picture of the base geometry:

Here is the actual exported normal map that you need to crop down:

normal_map_maker.zip

Rich O Brien · 7 Dec 2010, 09:58

Chris that's excellent

Nice pink background in SU too

Pixero · 7 Dec 2010, 10:15

Dang. Though this is good, I for a moment thought you had found a way of SETTING the normal in SU.
Oh well, maybe in SU 12...

Chris Fullmer · 7 Dec 2010, 10:37

@unknownuser said:

Nice pink background in SU too

I normally just have a white background, but with edges off and having just a pure white geometry, I could not see my geometry, so I needed a background color. Pink seemed to fit the groovy "normal" colors well

Gaieus · 7 Dec 2010, 10:48

Excellent, Chris! Thanks!

Chris Fullmer · 7 Dec 2010, 10:50

Also, if people don't like copy and pasting code into the ruby console, I could further develop it to be a regular install plugin that goes into the menu system. Maybe if I get some free time. I prefer menu items personally.

Gaieus · 7 Dec 2010, 10:53

You described an easy and excellent way to make b&W displacement/bump map in another topic (using a gradient black-to-white image projected sideways...).

If you ever develop this plugin into a menu item one, could you also include that option? (although true that it can easily be done simply manually, too).

Rich O Brien · 7 Dec 2010, 10:56

+1 for menu

+1 for Gaieus suggestion

+1 for +1

Panga · 7 Dec 2010, 11:26

Thanks a lot Chris for this one. Hope you'll find some time to make a menu for this one...and +1 for the Gaieus suggestion.

Cheers.

Chris Fullmer · 7 Dec 2010, 21:21

Great, thanks Didier! You added pretty much everything else I was hoping to get to later, just didn't have time at the moment. I can redo my video tutorial and stuff later when I get a chance. Hopefully tonight.

Chris

honoluludesktop · 7 Dec 2010, 21:26

Chris and Didier, Good work. This is a very neat function added to Sketchup's "bag of tricks".

notareal · 8 Dec 2010, 14:32

Neat!

Gaieus · 8 Dec 2010, 14:35

Thanks Didier, too!

Didier Bur · 8 Dec 2010, 17:24

Hi,
Here is my contribution to this nice idea.
I hate commands in the console, etc, so I've made it a plugin.

It sets temporarily the display style without edges and edges profiles, resets it after the tool has ended.
It restore all the original materials of the faces and also purge unused materials.
You'll find the command under the File menu -> Export normal map

@Chris: I hope you don't mind me tweaking your script...

EDIT: modified on Dec. 8th 2010(menu option not working)

Unzip in Plugins Folder

Didier Bur · 8 Dec 2010, 17:28

Hi,
Just edited the script and re-uploaded it, because the menu option was not working.
Sorry for the inconvenience,

tomasz · 25 Jan 2011, 09:17

It is a nice step forward!

I was thinking about using TIG's Java solution and produce a PNG with proper aspect ratio and without modifying the original materials. I don't know how to calculate smooth normals over a whole face when an edge is smoothed in SU, but I bet it can be done.

TIG · 25 Jan 2011, 11:40

I've been thinking about using a jar to mimic 'make_unique' for skewed textured materials etc as exporting these with correct UV mapping to tri-faces is not possible [or at least I don't know how to do it] - the way the built-in OBJ exporter copes is to make special versions of the texture image files that have non-exportable distorted UV-maps [from skewing etc] and then use those as a non-distorted image in the OBJ code... It's relatively easy to distort the width/height of an image in java BUT skewing is more tricky - but possible... e.g. http://www.jhlabs.com/ip/distorting.html and http://www.jhlabs.com/ip/filters/index.html or http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jai/forDevelopers/jai1_0_1guide-unc/Geom-image-manip.doc.html

thomthom · 25 Jan 2011, 12:35

@tig said:

I've been thinking about using a jar to mimic 'make_unique' for skewed textured materials etc as exporting these with correct UV mapping to tri-faces is not possible [or at least I don't know how to do it] - the way the built-in OBJ exporter copes is to make special versions of the texture image files that have non-exportable distorted UV-maps [from skewing etc] and then use those as a non-distorted image in the OBJ code... It's relatively easy to distort the width/height of an image in java BUT skewing is more tricky - but possible... e.g. http://www.jhlabs.com/ip/distorting.html and http://www.jhlabs.com/ip/filters/index.html or http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jai/forDevelopers/jai1_0_1guide-unc/Geom-image-manip.doc.html

Sketchup::TextureWriter allows you to write out distorted images. If you load a face with distorted texture to the TW and write it out it'll save a modified version of it. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to work the same way for skewed, scaled etc - then the texture is the original texture.

TIG · 25 Jan 2011, 14:29

And it's the skewed one we want!

thomthom · 25 Jan 2011, 14:33

ah...

But a skewed texture only needs three co-ordinates - why are these troublesome for triangles?