GIMP Normal Maps

[Footman16]

Hey there, was just wondering if anyone knows what settings should be used when creating a normal map from a diffuse in GIMP for a skin in Warcraft 3 Reforged.

Or if anyone knows a better way to alter the normals to fit a diffuse skin edit I'd be happy to here it.

@Moonman I know you've done a lot of work with texturing any ideas?

 

[Barorque]

Well I can only share the information I got from @Tamplier777 on Photoshop NVIDIA DDS Plugin:
The DDS format for Normals there is 3Dc - with diverse option for Sharpening (I use soft sharpen) and some Normalal Map options (Max R,G,B - Unchanged - and Scale 1).

 

[Footman16]

Hmmm I see, I'll play about with the Gimp settings a little more see if i can get something that works.

Id rather not have to get photoshop just to produce normals :/

 

[GhostWolf]

Do normal maps you create from 2D textures even look good, ever? As far as I am aware, 2D images don't contain 3D coordinate space data.

 

[Footman16]

They actually look alright tbh. They just dont seem to be as defined/have as much variance in depth as the Blizz ones.

EDIT: Yeah nah, in-editor they look awful, so I've edited the scales in the Blood Mage to leather, edited the normal map, yet scale outlines still appear on it.

 

[Barorque]

Do normal maps you create from 2D textures even look good, ever? As far as I am aware, 2D images don't contain 3D coordinate space data.

In photoshop you can normalize an image.. so the anchors I added got their 3D look like this (in edit).

You can see his Shoulders, their normal wasn't changed, but it looks not worse or better than the altered Normal maps of the rest.

 

[Footman16]

In photoshop you can normalize an image.. so the anchors I added got their 3D look like this (in edit).

You can see his Shoulders, their normal wasn't changed, but it looks not worse or better than the altered Normal maps of the rest.

View attachment 356979

View attachment 356980

So you used the normal map add-on on just the parts you edited and then cut and pasted them onto the original normal map? Leaving the rest untouched?

Here's the result:

image

Here's the normal and diffuse texture:

image

Here's a comparison of the regular Blood Mage normal and my edited one:

image

 

[Barorque]

So you used the normal map add-on on just the parts you edited and then cut and pasted them onto the original normal map? Leaving the rest untouched?

Here's the result:

image

View attachment 356994

Here's the normal and diffuse texture:

image

View attachment 356995

Here's a comparison of the regular Blood Mage normal and my edited one:

image

View attachment 356996

Exactly, however the only thing that worked is that setting I told about. I'm unsure what settings there even are for GIMP.. perhaps there's the same NVIDIA plug-in?

 

[Footman16]

Here's all the different options:

images

 

[Barorque]

Don't have GIMP atm, but apparently there is a NVIDIA plugin for it as well?
Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.

Here's how it should be for DDS, with the above mentioned settings for sharpening etc.:

 

[Footman16]

Don't have GIMP atm, but apparently there is a NVIDIA plugin for it as well?
Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.

Here's how it should be for DDS, with the above mentioned settings for sharpening etc.:

View attachment 357038

Huh, see the latest version of GIMP has built in support for exporting in .dds format, it has an option for 3Dc but doesn't seem to have an option for sharpening. Is the sharpening necessary?

Also I've just started installing Photoshop so let's hope the £10 a month is worth it lol.

 

[Barorque]

It appears to be crucial. Having no sharpening made the model look flat.
Also are you absolutely insane? Let me say it like this: Kul Tirans have recently had issue with PIRATES, those scum just don't want to pay for the services ey... not sure what I mean here.. cough pirate.. cough bay...

 

[Footman16]

It appears to be crucial. Having no sharpening made the model look flat.
Also are you absolutely insane? Let me say it like this: Kul Tirans have recently had issue with PIRATES, those scum just don't want to pay for the services ey... not sure what I mean here.. cough pirate.. cough bay...

Haha, £10 isn't that much really, at least for me lol. I'm afraid as a member of the Argent Crusade the Light doesn't condone such things

EDIT: Do you have a link for the .dds NVIDIA plug-in to download?

 

[Barorque]

.dds Plugin for Photoshop CC

 

[Footman16]

.dds Plugin for Photoshop CC

And this also allows you to produce the normal maps?

EDIT: When I load the diffuse it seems to have some strange filter over it that looks as follows:

image

GIMP doesn't have this problem :/

 

[Barorque]

Never seen this before.. I don't even see a Layer displayed

 

[Malmgrev]

Very strange that you get the gray layer, Have you placed the dds plugin in the correct folder? Which folder did you add it too?

 

[Footman16]

In Adobe Photoshop 2020 folder/Plug-ings/FileFormats there's a dds64 file.
In Adobe Photoshop 2020 folder/Plug-ings/Filters there's a NormalMapFilter64 File.

EDIT: Huh it's fixed itself... man, I love technology lol.

EDIT: We're getting somewhere but still not solve

So I've got the Diffuse and the new normal working, however the old normal still seems to be present over the new one giving the scale look still. Is this the ORM or is the old normal still persisting somehow? I've looked at the ORM and it doesn't look like much.

I've checked to make sure that the new layers have been pasted and merged onto the original main layer.

image

 

[Malmgrev]

I have no clue regarding normal and orm, never edited those.

 

[Barorque]

So those are the images @Tamplier777 sent me:

Spoiler

Like I said the sharpening may be set to soft sharpen or other options. But it absolutely does work on any textures I made so far.
And yes, ORM does control how the image looks like. If you added custom elements to the texture, like an emblem to a position where there was nothing, you also have to edit ORM.
ORM is saved as DXT5. Blue is Metal - Red is Shine - Yellow/Green is kind of Flat.

 

[Footman16]

So those are the images @Tamplier777 sent me:

Spoiler

Like I said the sharpening may be set to soft sharpen or other options. But it absolutely does work on any textures I made so far.
And yes, ORM does control how the image looks like. If you added custom elements to the texture, like an emblem to a position where there was nothing, you also have to edit ORM.
ORM is saved as DXT5. Blue is Metal - Red is Shine - Yellow/Green is kind of Flat.

So i was able to edit it all fine and it looks like it should work but for whatever reason the scale pattern on the legs is still there. The arms are fine but somehow/somewhere theres still a gray outline of the original scale pattern even though ive edited both the diffuse and the normal.

 

[Barorque]

I eh.. once made a lude ghost banshee skin for no reason.. anyway, the normal on that has to be very sharp, otherwise there are visible lines between texture connections.
So you really need to play around with those sharpening settings, it's quite individual for different unit types (footman and captain seem to have the same settings).

 

[Footman16]

So no matter what smoothing option I choose these scales still appear even tho they're not present on the normal and I'm tearing my hair out trying to fix it, I've tried normal maps exported from Gimp and Photoshop and it still persists I just don't get it.

Here's what I'm talking about:

image

This is the normal there's no scales anywhere on it:

normal

I don't know if its possible for someone else to edit the scale section of the normal of the Blood Mage and see if it can work for them?

EDIT: I've deleted the normal sections relating to the trousers and imported it and the scale texture still persists almost like it keeps taking the original normal skin before applying any other textures, but I've checked it in Retera's model Studio and my textures along with their texture paths should be the only ones present so I honestly have no idea where this scale pattern keeps coming from.

 

[Barorque]

First of all the texture won't show correct in World Editor, because it doesn't accept DDS yet.. even though Blizzard uses DDS themselves.. they just didn't patch it to the editor.
Secondly it is the normal map that's the issue, perhaps you could send it to me and I'll look at it tomorrow:

Discord:
Moonman#5627

 

[Footman16]

Here's all the relevant files, thanks man I appreciate this a lot.

I thought it might just be the editor so I tried testing it in-game but still the same problem so at this point I'm all out of ideas.

 

[Barorque]

I figured out that .TIF works very well for normal maps, and for now on I will be saving all normals as such, until Blizzard fixes world editor to no longer corrupt .DDS files.

 

[Footman16]

I figured out that .TIF works very well for normal maps, and for now on I will be saving all normals as such, until Blizzard fixes world editor to no longer corrupt .DDS files.

I see, what settings do you recommend for .tif saving?

 

[Barorque]

Can yet upload .TIF to Hive, I requested it only recently.
But those are the settings I use:



BTW, the normal is still not perfect, it looks a bit flatter, but at least there is no grey gloss on it:

 

[Footman16]

Can yet upload .TIF to Hive, I requested it only recently.
But those are the settings I use:

View attachment 357248

BTW, the normal is still not perfect, it looks a bit flatter, but at least there is no grey gloss on it:

View attachment 357249

That looks perfect, could you send me the normal file to look at?

I'll save them as .tif from now on and I'll see if that works, thanks so much!

 

[Barorque]

well that's the issue, can't send those TIF, but if you just save the same normal.dds you sent me as .TIF over Hive with those parameters it should look the same.

 

[Footman16]

Sounds good to me, for the tech-tree contest, may the best Jaina win