Hello guys, I am quite new to 3D Design and I was just wandering on how do you generate a normal map O.o, Can any of you tell me the ways to generate one since I know that I can't export out Highpolys to Cryengine.

You need a high poly with all the details you want, and you need a low poly which is what the normal map is going to apply onto. You UVW the low poly and then bake the high poly onto the low poly using xnormal, maya or max or any software of your choice. You now have a normal map and might as well bake an ambient occlusion to help you to texture. Good luck!

You can also use NDo http://quixel.se/nDo1/ , crazy bump http://www.crazybump.com/ or the NVIDIA Texture Tools for Adobe Photoshop https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop

It all depends on what you are modeling and what results you are after

By UVW you mean unwrap it in 3DS max then export it to a .obj file ?

A simple tutorial for the max way.
Also check this page for more help
http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap

Happy modelling.

Thank you Birdeez , I owe you one

Please, don't even mention that plastic generator... Please.

I'd either hi-poly model it or handmake it in PS or GIMP withsome smart usage of the basic normalmapping filters.

Wait, you can generate Normal Map of a modelled object with nDO2 ? I didn't know that how do I do that ? because the only thing I know of nDO2 is that you would need a pre baked Normal map then it would allow you to add detail to the object.

EDIT : Wait is this even possible O.o



And the plastic generator what lol....is it that bad ?

Know of any comparisons between CrazyBump results and other apps?

@Adam

CrazyBump:



nDo2:

Crazy bump isn't a bad application if you get used to it and adjust the large detail settings and learn to tweak it, IMO.

Well I've tweak the above image a lot, But thats still awful against the default presets of nDo2

so nDo2 does a cleaner job ???

Sure it does.
www.quixel.se

I could be wrong here but that nDo2 one looks inverted.