Tool:NormalMap Subpalette

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Note: ZBrush now has available a vastly more powerful plugin, ZMapper, for creating normal maps. You will almost certainly want to use it for all but the simplest normal map creation. In addition, ZMapper comes with extensive documentation that explains normal map concepts, as well as the use of ZMapper.

Image:Tool_NormalMap Subpalette__Tool_Normal_Map.jpg


Concepts

A Normal Map is similar to a texture map, except that it controls the apparent angle of a surface point, when lighting calculations are done. In other words, a flat surface could be made to appear grainy or wrinkled, depending on the normal map applied.

Normal maps are generated for polymesh models having multiple subdivision levels. The surface at the highest subdivision level will be compared to the surface at the current subdivision level, to find differences in surface orientation at different points and thus generate normal maps.

Again, you are strongly referred to ZMapper for both a more powerful normal mapping tool, and extensive documentation on the concepts and practicialities of normal maps.

Controls

Tangent: If on, the normal map will be created in tangent space (local to the object). If off, the normal map will be created in global space.


NMRes: Determines the size (width and height) of the generated normal map.


Adaptive: If on, the normal map will be generated with greater detail in areas of high geometric detail, at the cost of longer processing.


SmoothUV: If on, causes UV coordinates to be smoothing during normal map generation. This can be used to obtain desired results at sharp edges of the model.


Create NormalMap: Generate a normal map using the above settings.

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