Hello guys, I have just downloaded "Melody". It is an program used for generating normal mapping and other stuff. If i understood correctly, normal mapping is used to save the polycount, I mean, to have low poly model but with high poly look. I think I am right. But the problem is, I don't know how to use Melody. If you used it and you know how to use it, please write here in few steps, how to make normal mapping. Thanks, Nebo

I haven't done any normal mapping implementation yet myself, but from what I understand, it's a colour map which is applied to your model like a texture... except that instead of applying it in such a way that it affects the pixel colour, it affects the way shadow is calculated. So normally, flat polygons appear flat because they have one normal to them. But with a normal map, the flat polygon can have smooth shaded effects because they have different normals spread over its surface.

The way it's implimented (again, as far as i know) is that the 3 colour components of any given pixel can be construed as a vector indicating the normal at that UVW point on your the lightmap.

Sorry that I don't know how to use Melody, but maybe this theory can help you understand better.
As ever,
*Cosmic*

Thanks!

Do you guys know any other program for applying normal mapping?

Nebo

I have tried a few.
Melody - junk
ATI normal mapper - junk
Kaldera (or how ever u spell it) - not keen on
Cryteks polybump - seems best
(expect many more tools soon with all the games
comming out that use it)
+ max7 has some implmentation (as do older, but they mention
it as a feature so maybe they have fixed it :))

Probably because Cryteks tools have been in used in
anger they are the most useful, I won't go into details
but suffice to say I could take a game asset and get good
results from thier max plugins quickly while maintaining
data.

Crytek have a demo of their tool on their website,
they want you to buy what is a decent tool.
Maybe I shouldn't mention it, but they give away
the full version in the Far Cry Tools.
They know this of course, but probably don't
want everyone to realise it?

Sorry to mention it crytek guys...

Best to read the instructions/help for more information on how to use it.

Thank you! But can you tell me which of those is free or do you know any good but free programs?

Nebo

ATI and Nvidias tools are free,
Kayldara or whatever it is not free and is a plugin for max

As I said the best in my opinion from the point of
view of using in a high volume art pipeline would be
the crytek polybump which is a free-ish (although they might
not be keen on your using it) look for Far Cry tools or sdk.
These are both plugins for max and maya, so you would need
to be using this software to make your assets.

Another alternative is to 'handcraft' you bumpmaps
and then convert them using the nvidia normal map plugin
for photoshop, this requires a bit more skill - well its just
different. Here you are adding the detail you would of had
to model by drawing it. A nice feature of the Crytek polybump
it also allows you to mix a bumpmap and highpoly model.

Ok, thanks!

Can you explain me in several steps, how to make the normal mapping using Melody please?

Nebo

Im inclined to say no, cause its a junk piece of slow usless software. There are instructions avalible from nvidia.

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/melody_home.html

There is a user guide and FAQ

ORB is free too and works fine.

Besides that there's plugins for all major 3d packages, or they do it off the box.

You'll need a hipoly and lowpoly models to create normalmaps, and a game engine that supports them (like Doom3).