[Jamie Lee]

sure, my photo textures are http://ladyn.tamriel-rebuilt.org/Textures.html. they are free to use as long as i am given credit

as to you Bomret... i [censored] love you :shocking: . that normal map is the most amazing thing i think i have ever done, i practicaly gave myself an orgism while testing here is what i did:
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/3286/ncomparisonwp5.jpg
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/6946/omfgms5.jpg

:wub:

[Calum Campbell]

Here's another one which is useful to touch up low-res textures:

Quick'n Dirty Tutorial: Detail Layer

Detail Layers are textures, which contain details. Wow, what a shock, eh? Normally a Detail Layer is layed over another texture by the engine (like in Armed Assault). Oblivion does not feature this. In our case I mean that a texture containing details is layed upon another texture and baked onto it. It's simple and a good method to touch up a low-res texture with additional details, especially when you enlarged that texture before (e.g. enlarged a 512x512px texture to 1024x1024px). What can be a Detail Layer? Principally all images. It's important to make them seamlessly tilable, use them in a rational way and put the additional information into the normal map, too.
Let's go to work. We want to touch up http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg135/Bomret/Detaillayer1.jpg with additional details. What we do need in most cases are high-res textures which resemble the same thing as our base image (in this case: concrete) to get believable details. E.g.: A wood texture would be completely wrong. The nice thing is that you can make a Detail Layer out of almost every image. For our example I'll use the following two:

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg135/Bomret/Detaillayer2.jpg
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg135/Bomret/Detaillayer3.jpg

These are normal concrete textures which I resized to 1024x1024px and converted to greyscale. Why "only" two? Never exaggerate this! Too much detail can make everything look fuzzy and very ugly. I have chosen one texture for fine details and one for larger cracks and holes. Never just add noise to a texture. That does look very unbelievable. There are various options which can help to adjust the appearance of the texture. This is not limited to concrete. For example, you can put rust onto a metal texture or give more structure to a flat wood texture. You also can be creative and put a scratchy metal texture onto a concrete one. Experiment! There are various reasons to use this technique over creating a completely new texture: For example you want to keep the original because you're just not able to recreate a similar looking one or you don't have the time etc.
Both of our Detail Layers are added as new layers on top of our base image. The order should be that the layer with the larger details lies above the one with the finer details. In our case I set blend mode of the fine Detail Layer to "Overlay" and noticed that it destroys the color information of our base image:

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg135/Bomret/Detaillayer4.jpg

But that's no problem. We activate the detail layer, open up "Image->Adjustments->Replace Color" and set the background layer as our source. You can play around with the sliders to make finer adjustments. The blend mode of the second layer has been set to "hard light" with opacity set to 90% to blend in the cracks a bit smoother. You can work on the layers like on any other image (sharpen, brightness/contrast etc.) but you should do that at the end. Finally: Flatten the image and save it as .dds.

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg135/Bomret/Detaillayer5.jpg

It's a bit darker then the original but you can adjust that later.
As always this is just a very simple example to show off the techniques. When you put time into this and use the right images, you can get a very good quality.

[Darlene DIllow]

sure, my photo textures are http://ladyn.tamriel-rebuilt.org/Textures.html. they are free to use as long as i am given credit

as to you Bomret... i [censored] love you :shocking: . that normal map is the most amazing thing i think i have ever done, i practicaly gave myself an orgism while testing here is what i did:
http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/3286/ncomparisonwp5.jpg
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/6946/omfgms5.jpg

:wub:

Very nice results That's what I meant when talking about quality.

[brenden casey]

Very nice results That's what I meant when talking about quality.

Bomret I learn your method the opposite. Start with 2 g-blur then the next layer 4 and so on. But it turns out to do the same. This can go 20 or more layers add a parallax and your king. You've got a great method there.

Here a leader in the industry with a lot of information.
http://www.bencloward.com/resources.shtml
check many pages for goodies.

[Siobhan Thompson]

Thanks for this thread. I'm still creeping around in search for the 'perfect' stone wall texture for my castle tileset. Although I have already a really good one. :hehe:

[Yung Prince]

Thanks for this thread. I'm still creeping around in search for the 'perfect' stone wall texture for my castle tileset. Although I have already a really good one. :hehe:

I made this yesterday it's just a color map but its already tilable.
http://s266.photobucket.com/albums/ii277/skydye2/?action=view¤t=test.jpg
If you have something in mind let me know.

[Annika Marziniak]

Colourless textures look too unrealistic on the walls ingame, imho. http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/4421/lcfp1.jpg's what I'm using at the moment, originally from cgtextures.com: http://www.cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=16235&s=S&PHPSESSID=f0ffd94d85feb1f85f314f7170252be7). Better normalmap under construction.
I've tried a bunch of other textures, but this one looks best so far.

[Marcin Tomkow]

Absolutely fantastic thread people!

As a result of this I managed to get past some of my problems with normal & parallax maps(TOO MUCH SHINEY!! + plethora of other annoyances). And in the whim of experimenting new stuff that I've just learned I managed to make myself a few retextured armors too.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e105/Von_stahlriven/Oblivion/early2.jpg
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e105/Von_stahlriven/Oblivion/early.jpg

Only sky would be the limit if I only knew how to cut & paste stuff propely in NifScope(I cant get past the cut part...)

[Marcia Renton]

Bomret I learn your method the opposite. Start with 2 g-blur then the next layer 4 and so on. But it turns out to do the same. This can go 20 or more layers add a parallax and your king. You've got a great method there.

Here a leader in the industry with a lot of information.
http://www.bencloward.com/resources.shtml
check many pages for goodies.

Of course you can also go the other way round, but why do you need 20 layers? :blink: 6 should be enough for any purpose. It's best to use blend mode "Overlay" instead of "Hard Light" then.

Colourless textures look too unrealistic on the walls ingame, imho. Here's what I'm using at the moment, originally from cgtextures.com: http://www.cgtextures.com/texview.php?id=1...314f7170252be7). Better normalmap under construction. wink.gif
I've tried a bunch of other textures, but this one looks best so far.

Wow, that looks very nice. Much more medieval than vanilla. Would it be possible to release these textures as a modders resource?

[lexy]

V. Nice. good reading.

I do very similar methods for a tiling bitmap to normal map. My only real addition to that would be some tips I find usefull for the recovering/ painting the height map step. Its usually a bit of mind numbing tedium though. I'll usually experiment with making one of those normal map layers in crazybump... I'll have to organize a little example to demonstrate why....

Now that we have all read that, I vote CSwiki that as a rather good example of how to go about normal maps. Its taken me basically a year of playing with normal maps and texturing to get that kind of quality info, would have been nice just have it there for me in CSwiki. I have been whining about that for ages hehe

I have a few good textures laying around myself. I never really had a specific use for most of the textures I made.

[Jonathan Egan]

V. Nice. good reading.

I do very similar methods for a tiling bitmap to normal map. My only real addition to that would be some tips I find usefull for the recovering/ painting the height map step. Its usually a bit of mind numbing tedium though. I'll usually experiment with making one of those normal map layers in crazybump... I'll have to organize a little example to demonstrate why....

Now that we have all read that, I vote CSwiki that as a rather good example of how to go about normal maps. Its taken me basically a year of playing with normal maps and texturing to get that kind of quality info, would have been nice just have it there for me in CSwiki. I have been whining about that for ages hehe

I have a few good textures laying around myself. I never really had a specific use for most of the textures I made.

Can you post the link to cswiki for normal maps.

[Wayne W]

Wow, very useful indeed!
Thanks.

[Rachel Cafferty]

Back again with http://upload.worldofplayers.de/files/neue%20normalmap.jpg.
It took me more than two hours to make the heightmap, but I think it was worth the effort.

@Bomret: yes, perhaps. It's still far from completed, though.

[vanuza]

Back again with http://upload.worldofplayers.de/files/neue%20normalmap.jpg.
It took me more than two hours to make the heightmap, but I think it was worth the effort.

@Bomret: yes, perhaps. It's still far from completed, though.

L@zarus
Beautiful Job. Hopefully more people can post what they are picking up here. It makes it all worth it. :nod:

[Laura Tempel]

OK my turn!
some things people map not have noticed about this method of normal mapping being discussed.
Firstly using overlay or hardlight and layering multiple normal maps does something like this-
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/OverlayHardlightlayerproblems.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/OverlayHardlightlayerproblems2.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/OverlayHardlightlayerproblems3.jpg

notice in the first picture those lovely green and red colors. But as the layers pile on, it turns into the blue, purple and pinks most associated in normal maps. I like the greens and reds myself. I have to make sure that the layers are keeping those greens and red intact. This is another area crazybump comes in. But! photoshop is pwnage... you can use a layer at the top set to "color" blend mode.

You'll have to play with that. And must normalize if you do that one.

Another downside with this method of using the nivdia filter, heavy bumping, and overlaying, the height map must be clean as a whistle. Bumping anything by 80 is going to be very noisey if it isn't clean. In oblivion, a little noise actually fits in, but whats looks good in oblivion is very small blip to the world of normal mapping.

The other area crazybump comes in handy is anolyzing image for 3d shapes. I don't know how else to come up with a normal map like it. I like anyway.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/cobblestoneCrazybumpedLayer.jpg
This is 50% "image for 3d" and something like 70% strength and some messing with the detail levels.

L@zarus- nice normal. totally worth spending as much time as you need to get a height map.

I can only illustrate a specific example. some height maps are easier than others, and can take quite a bit of time. I am working with a 2000x2000 pixel image here.

On this texture, as the stones are a tad lighter than the rest...
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/cobblestonediffusefinal.jpg
I made a "matrix", I only expand the canvas size around 500 pixels or less on a 2048x2048, just to save me from overloading on my 1gb of ram...
with snap on, I make a few copies of the texture map, and pop them into place. merge it down. keeping the orginal layer intact. make a copy of the matrix. On the matrix I will probably high pass it, but keep a bit of detail in there. I will then darken/contrast this layer so that everything that isn't a stone is black.

This is why I choose to use overlays and not color dodge/burns- Make a new layer, set it to overlay. With a white brush, a little soft, brush in over the stones. keep it well away from the areas that are stone. I spend 15-20mins on this. Not too anol about it. Now I could do the opposite, go over the rest, with a black brush, a little soft. Now if the grout areas on the base layer are black. any overshoot from the overlay white layer will not show up on that area. Now that I have painted that white overlay layer, the black overlay will not show on pure white. This means you can't draw outside the lines. I could really flood fill a whole layer in white, set it to overlay and it'll never disrupt the black areas.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/cobblestoneHeightmap.jpg
I thought that would do.

and the normal map- (after some tweaking )
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/cobblestoneNfinal.jpg

and a pic of it from the CS
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/CScobblestone.jpg

sorry for the rambling

[Glu Glu]

OK my turn!
some things people map not have noticed about this method of normal mapping being discussed.
Firstly using overlay or hardlight and layering multiple normal maps does something like this-
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/OverlayHardlightlayerproblems.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/OverlayHardlightlayerproblems2.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/OverlayHardlightlayerproblems3.jpg

notice in the first picture those lovely green and red colors. But as the layers pile on, it turns into the blue, purple and pinks most associated in normal maps. I like the greens and reds myself. I have to make sure that the layers are keeping those greens and red intact. This is another area crazybump comes in. But! photoshop is pwnage... you can use a layer at the top set to "color" blend mode.

You'll have to play with that. And must normalize if you do that one.

Another downside with this method of using the nivdia filter, heavy bumping, and overlaying, the height map must be clean as a whistle. Bumping anything by 80 is going to be very noisey if it isn't clean. In oblivion, a little noise actually fits in, but whats looks good in oblivion is very small blip to the world of normal mapping.

The other area crazybump comes in handy is anolyzing image for 3d shapes. I don't know how else to come up with a normal map like it. I like anyway.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/cobblestoneCrazybumpedLayer.jpg
This is 50% "image for 3d" and something like 70% strength and some messing with the detail levels.

L@zarus- nice normal. totally worth spending as much time as you need to get a height map.

I can only illustrate a specific example. some height maps are easier than others, and can take quite a bit of time. I am working with a 2000x2000 pixel image here.

On this texture, as the stones are a tad lighter than the rest...
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/cobblestonediffusefinal.jpg
I made a "matrix", I only expand the canvas size around 500 pixels or less on a 2048x2048, just to save me from overloading on my 1gb of ram...
with snap on, I make a few copies of the texture map, and pop them into place. merge it down. keeping the orginal layer intact. make a copy of the matrix. On the matrix I will probably high pass it, but keep a bit of detail in there. I will then darken/contrast this layer so that everything that isn't a stone is black.

This is why I choose to use overlays and not color dodge/burns- Make a new layer, set it to overlay. With a white brush, a little soft, brush in over the stones. keep it well away from the areas that are stone. I spend 15-20mins on this. Not too anol about it. Now I could do the opposite, go over the rest, with a black brush, a little soft. Now if the grout areas on the base layer are black. any overshoot from the overlay white layer will not show up on that area. Now that I have painted that white overlay layer, the black overlay will not show on pure white. This means you can't draw outside the lines. I could really flood fill a whole layer in white, set it to overlay and it'll never disrupt the black areas.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/cobblestoneHeightmap.jpg
I thought that would do.

and the normal map- (after some tweaking )
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/cobblestoneNfinal.jpg

and a pic of it from the CS
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/CScobblestone.jpg

sorry for the rambling

Good example
Another method is to use overly not hard light just straight overlay for your layers. flatten when your done offset to check your seams. Fix if need be then offset to the same spot as before. Now open up the filter and normalize only. This fixes the channel and the blues come back.
On the height map ( this is for parallax so you know why Ghogiel using one)
This is a good spot to hand paint the grey to white. Some blur and your set.

This is just another way. It will have a completely different look. It seem to have a nice clean look. But people will find lots of ways to do things. Just have fun.
http://www.cgtextures.com/tutorials/normalmap/images/deep_normals_video.avi
http://www.cgtextures.com/tutorials/normalmap/images/deep_normals_lid_video.avi

[Natasha Biss]

First off this is for my personal use and learning experience

I have only just begun looking into the Construction Kit and I know VERY little about modding or texturing and such. What I really want to do it very simple ... I think ... I have downloaded so many cool mods with really awesome looking equipment in but all the content or the enchantments and such ruin my idea of balance in the game. So what I want to do is simply change the look of the items I do use in Oblivion.

Example I really like the look of the knife from the shadow ranger mood, its looks really lethal or the little handaxe called Volkoth from a legendary weapons mods. I want to take those Meshes and Textures and make Methrunes Razor look like that. I love Nico's arrows but I think his bows are too extravagant and they look so cumbersome so I want to use his arrows instead of daedric and so forth.

I just want to improve my visual Oblivion experience and make my character look cool

Any help greatly appriciated

[LittleMiss]

Good example
Another method is to use overly not hard light just straight overlay for your layers. flatten when your done offset to check your seams. Fix if need be then offset to the same spot as before. Now open up the filter and normalize only. This fixes the channel and the blues come back.

I always use overlay instead of hardlight. the difference is minimal from what I see anyway. I never was able to get the greens/oranges/reds back if they washed out if did any overlay layers. Normalize does just that, it normalizes the map as a whole. It doesn't recover that lost information. I have ways around it, from cutting out selections to crazybump to a color layer. Its just one of those things I work around.

[Cat Haines]

When you do the method I described and use hard light you will not lose any detail, regardless wether the colors get brighter (renormalization does fix that). But you might lose fine detail when using overlay that way round. Every normal map in my SI texture pack teasers has been done this way.

[Baylea Isaacs]

When you do the method I described and use hard light you will not lose any detail, regardless wether the colors get brighter (renormalization does fix that).

Detail is not the issue I mention. I'll use your own texture as an example and same methods to demonstrate what
I am saying. notice the color range. normalization does not fix this issue.

Here I used the height map you posted and used your exact method, cept I boosted up the bump on the first layer to exaggerate the green and oranges- these colors are still correct in terms of normal information
The first layer-
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/ColorUnDestroyed.jpg

as soon as I hardlight the layer above,
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/ColorDestroyed1.jpg
notice the hue change. this is also compounded further by the fact your method stacks progresively weaker normals at the top, this will surely remove any of the low frequency normal colors.

running the normalize over this only averages the total sum of the maps pixles to 1 in normal height. It will not recover the lost hues.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/ColorDestroyedNormaized.jpg

I mostly do textures where this method of stacking progresive normals alone is not a viable. I know it still looks good enough in these kinds of textures. I'm just demonstrating its limitation. sometimes that green or orange is totally invaluable! losing it is detrimental. I have spent a lot of time getting techniques that bypass overlaying/hardlight normals on top of each other.

I did learn something, I am going to switch to using hardlight in some cases now
:goodjob:

On the height map ( this is for parallax so you know why Ghogiel using one)
This is a good spot to hand paint the grey to white. Some blur and your set.

In theory yes. in practice, unlikely, If I did that, it probably look cack as a parallax map. a really stark map like sugested on a texture like this....I'm skeptical.

[David Chambers]

Detail is not the issue I mention. I'll use your own texture as an example and same methods to demonstrate what
I am saying. notice the color range. normalization does not fix this issue.

Here I used the height map you posted and used your exact method, cept I boosted up the bump on the first layer to exaggerate the green and oranges- these colors are still correct in terms of normal information
The first layer-
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/ColorUnDestroyed.jpg

as soon as I hardlight the layer above,
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/ColorDestroyed1.jpg
notice the hue change. this is also compounded further by the fact your method stacks progresively weaker normals at the top, this will surely remove any of the low frequency normal colors.

running the normalize over this only averages the total sum of the maps pixles to 1 in normal height. It will not recover the lost hues.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/ColorDestroyedNormaized.jpg

I mostly do textures where this method of stacking progresive normals alone is not a viable. I know it still looks good enough in these kinds of textures. I'm just demonstrating its limitation. sometimes that green or orange is totally invaluable! losing it is detrimental. I have spent a lot of time getting techniques that bypass overlaying/hardlight normals on top of each other.

I did learn something, I am going to switch to using hardlight in some cases now
:goodjob:
In theory yes. in practice, unlikely, If I did that, it probably look cack as a parallax map. a really stark map like sugested on a texture like this....I'm skeptical.

Hmm, interesting. But I never did see any problem/disadvantage ingame, may it be Oblivion or other games when using this technique. Can you clarify the problems that arise? By the way I think Qarl used either the same method or a very similar one. You can also see some of these hue changes on his normal maps but there is no problem ingame.

[Tai Scott]

Great thread here, guys! :tops:

[Brooks Hardison]

I dunno what to tell ya. stacking normal maps just does this. If I am working in 3d, and bake a normal from high to low poly, I can see the true offset in space between the meshes, and the results in the extracted normal map. anything detail in the high poly that has some real distance from the low, is going to be green or orange. this method of stacking only allows for blues, purples, and pinks. Its still fine, but if you want a really noticeable self shadow and only have a couple pixels, I might want some green and orange. Which I cant get with this method alone.

I guess the proof is in the pudding. I quickly made a normal map from your height map, roughly how I'd want it to look. for comparison, I took the normal map you posted, normalized it, and saved it as a dds. I use the heightmap as a diffuse. all dds export settings are default.
In the CS they compare like this-
Mine- http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/compareMine1.jpg
Bomrets- http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/compareBomrets1.jpg

Mine- http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/compareMine2.jpg
Bomrets- http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/compareBomrets2.jpg

I prefer mine

-*notices TK posting...*waits to read repy

[Keeley Stevens]

Hmm, interesting. But I never did see any problem/disadvantage ingame, may it be Oblivion or other games when using this technique. Can you clarify the problems that arise? By the way I think Qarl used either the same method or a very similar one. You can also see some of these hue changes on his normal maps but there is no problem ingame.

The problem that Ghogiel demonstrates is that as the Normals data is lost, the profile of the image is effectively flattened. I'll continue with his example then, and this is something I only recently noticed as well.

So in http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/ColorUnDestroyed.jpg, We have a very 'steep' profile, as noted by the deep purples, oranges and greens. When using the http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/textures/ColorDestroyed1.jpg blend, we do add lots of detail, but the steepness of the overall profile goes more towards http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/throttlekitty/temp/profiles1.jpg -kindof. this is a very poor example, mind you.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/throttlekitty/temp/GhogielNormalExample2.jpg and separated out the channels. We can see that the red and green channels work more or less the same, until we get to the blue channel; the Z axis. Much of the steepness is lost, and is almost entirely replaced by the hardlight layer.

Edit: now I need to re-find that tutorial that talks about this, annnnd it isn't in my bookmarks, figures. I'll be back with that in a while. and I JUST reorganized all that stuff recently too! ...course then along comes skydye with a few more gallons of fun to toss in there, hah! I need a firefox plugin that looks like the back of a hand, so I can just scrawl links on it.

[daniel royle]

:stare: <- imagine this smiley looking dumb and scratching his head and you get an idea of me sitting in front of the pc.

Well, none of my normal maps does look like the ones you posted, Ghogiel. And they don't look flat ingame when made correctly (For example I used values of 120 or more for the first layer on some landscape textures I created to give them a very bumpy surface (rocks for example)). Take a look at the examples posted by Lady Nerevar. They look like they are supposed to look. I'm really sorry, I don't just get what's wrong with this method. Maybe I just don't have the knowledge you have. Maybe you can explain the disadvantages in a very simple way? Yes, it's possible that the blue channel does not have much contrast. But where's the problem? The normal does not look flat ingame. I am really excited about your tut, Throttlekitty and hope to understand all this hassle someday

Edit: What I forgot. Ghogiel I think you forgot to reduce the normal map back to original size (cut of the edges). The normal map that's been posted is in a matrix. It looks heavily misplaced.