The Maps of Madness

Over the last week i have been endeavoring to create working normal maps and import them successfully into the UT3 engine along with a column mesh, colour and specular maps. Below are my first two attempts at this and as you can see the first was disastrous. However except for a very slight anomaly with the tiling the second attempt went much better.


Following these failed attempts i decided to take a step backwards and look at the fundamentals of normal mapping. I downloaded a plugin for Photoshop that allows the creation of normal maps and then set about creating a simple map to test on a wall in the Unreal Editor. The results can be seen below.


Following this success i then made several variations on the normal map in an attempt to help me understand and manipulate them. The results can be seen below.


I then began the process of creating a new column in Maya and generating a good looking set of UVs for it. Once this was completed i exported the mesh as an obj file and then imported it into zBrush for further sculpting and creation of both colour and specular maps. The first normal map i tried for this column was created using the relevant tools in maya. Below can be seen all of the incarnations through which the column's collection of maps passed.

The bottom row shows the final maps of my choosing. The normal map was infact created using the zMapper application in zBrush and was manipulated in Photoshop; the stone texture you can see on the right was made into a seemless tile and lade over the top of both the red and green channels to give the column the appeaence of being made from stone. The final test of the column can be seen below.