[Plugin] Normal Map Maker
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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
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Chris and Didier, Good work. This is a very neat function added to Sketchup's "bag of tricks".
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Neat!
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Thanks Didier, too!
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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)
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Hi,
Just edited the script and re-uploaded it, because the menu option was not working.
Sorry for the inconvenience, -
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.
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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
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@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.
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And it's the skewed one we want!
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ah...
But a skewed texture only needs three co-ordinates - why are these troublesome for triangles?
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@thomthom said:
ah...
But a skewed texture only needs tree co-ordinates - why are these troublesome for triangles?Maybe I use the wrong wording... it's textures that are somehow rotated/skewed/sheared that need four UVs ?
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Only distorted textures needs four points.
Normal size (based on material width and height): 1 point
Uniformly scaled: 2 points
Non-uniformly scaled: 3 points
Skewed - sheared: 3 points
Distorted: 4 points -
It's
distortedthen - do you mean that we CAN export these already using a TW and the material's actual face front-material?
If so, how do we 'know' a face has a 'distorted' texture as opposed to a 'skewed' or 'rotated' one ?
Let's say I have a face with a material that has its texture distorted and some other faces use that material 'undistorted'.
The material is exported 'undistorted' and used with most faces with the simple 3-point UV-mapping...
I need to know how to find which face has which type of texture, then if it's distorted then export that texture as a 'variant' using the TW with the very face, and then use that image-file for that face in the exported data.
Is this what the built-in OBJ-Exporter does when it makes distorted texture files for some faces...The main issue is how do I tell if a face's material's texture is 'distorted' and needs this extra step...
It would greatly improve my OBJexporter and some 3rd party tools I am involved with... -
sorry for the stupid question but...
1 - whats the advantage of normal map over bump and displacement maps (both of which can use the same grayscale bitmap)?
2 - VRAY doesnt use normal maps, does it?
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@aceshigh said:
1 - whats the advantage of normal map over bump and displacement maps (both of which can use the same grayscale bitmap)?
a) is a bump map
b) is a parallax/normal map
c) is a relief map (normal map with self shadowing)@aceshigh said:
2 - VRAY doesnt use normal maps, does it?
Not sure what V-Ray 2 does - but the version V-Ray for SketchUp currently use doesn't.
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@tig said:
The main issue is how do I tell if a face's material's texture is 'distorted' and needs this extra step...
It would greatly improve my OBJexporter and some 3rd party tools I am involved with...http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=23947&hilit=distorted&start=60#p204899
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@aceshigh said:
1 - whats the advantage of normal map over bump and displacement maps (both of which can use the same grayscale bitmap)?
A bumpmap is like: Hey, change your normal (surface direction) by this grayscale amount!
A normal map is more like: Yo, use this normal instead of your old one! -
I just downloaded and installed this plugin, but it doesn't seem to work, I am sure I missed something, nothing shows up in the plugins menu. Anybody have a step by step?
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@tspco said:
I just downloaded and installed this plugin, but it doesn't seem to work, I am sure I missed something, nothing shows up in the plugins menu. Anybody have a step by step?
It doesn't work for me either
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