Gimp Normalmap Plugin - Really see your textures in action.

[ihsan]

I have encountered writing about the gimp normalmap plugin a few times in the past but only today decided to actually try it. You see, I'm a photoshop guy so for me gimp is usually for just when i can't stand photoshop's load-time. For no reason at all I decided to update my copy of gimp and play with it, so i downloaded the plugin.

Anyway, here's what the plugin does:
It takes a diffuse map from 1 layer, A specular map from another layer, a bump map from another layer and renders a normal map to a new one.
The best part is that you can see a 3D preview while you work on the layers.
You can just leave the plugin running while you use GIMP normally and just preview the result by switching "filters".

This is a MUST HAVE so get it NOW. (It's free)

http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/%7ecocidius/normalmap/
http://www.gimp.org

Me vandalizing the new texture eX_r_plates01

[tChr]

Sweet.. I'd have a look into it if i had the time please let me know if anyone find anything similar for PS

[ihsan]

Sweet.. I'd have a look into it if i had the time please let me know if anyone find anything similar for PS

It's a clone of a nVidia photoshop plugin:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html

[torus]

Does that work with PS CS3?

[ihsan]

I don't have CS3 so i can't say, but the GIMP plugin works just fine

[mundgerecht]

can you post a small tut? i dont get it ...

where i get the bumpmap?

[esteel]

You must also CREATE the bumpmap.. iirc its a gray scale texture telling the height of the pixels in the 'real' texture. There are ways to generate a bumpmap from the 'real' texture but those will never look at good as a human-made bumpmap. A normalmap is similar but also contains direction info in the rgb channels and the bumpmap in the alpha channel so textures will look way better with normalmaps.

[ihsan]

First of all let me state what the plugin does: It converts bumpmaps into normalmaps.
In this "tutorial" i'll be showing you how to re-compile one of the normal maps from the EX folder.

Step 1: Open GIMP
You must load up GIMP to start with.

Step 2: Open the bump, diffuse and specular maps
In the GIMP tool window click file>open and select, for example, [nexuiz folder]/data/textures/ex/eX_clangfloor_01.jpg (If you extracted the textures from dataxxx.pk3, as many mappers do, the folder would be there)
In the IMAGE WINDOW select file>open as layer and select, for example, eX_clangfloor_01_gloss.tga to load the specular map into GIMP.
Finally the IMAGE WINDOW select file>open as layer and select, for example, eX_clangfloor_01_bump.tga to load the bump map into GIMP as the top layer.
You must be seeing the bumpmap you want to convert in the image window when you load the plugin (remember what the plugin does).

Step 3: Load the plugin.
In the image window select plugins>map>normalmap and click 3D preview. Note the three images are loaded into layers (diffuse is background, specular is above that and bump is visible on top)


Step 4: Configure the 3D view
The plugin assumes that the gimp file is bumpmap so it immediately compiles a normalmap from that, but for you to see what your texture will look like without putting it in a map and loading nexuiz you configure the 3D preview.
In the 3D preview select the layer which corresponds to the diffuse map, in this case the background. Next you select the specular map and enable specular lighting. In the toolbar at the top i like to view the texture on a cube because it reminds me of crates

The plugin only updates the 3D preview and normal map when you change the rendering filter so you can edit each of the layers at will and choose various filters to see the result.

Step5: Saving.
The plugin overwrites the top layer so you can then savt the result as a flat TGA file. Do not use jpg for normalmaps because the compression destroys the data. I save specular as jpegs because i don't think they are as exact but it's up to you i guess.

I like the plugin because of the preview. It encourages you to make better bump and specular maps for your textures due to a much improved workflow. Happy GIMPIing.

[Psychcf]

can someone throw up i386 linux binaries? I seem to be too retarded to compile it... keep getting thrown errors about missing modules and such...