rendering (not generating) normal maps in 3DSMAX

Submitted by J I Styles on
Forum
Artists

Just wondering if anyone knows of a way to render shots of your normal mapped model from max - only two solutions I found where a map shader that comes with Kaldera (rather expensive 3rd party plugin), and 3dsmax 5 cheap and crappy work around using the metal shader.

Is there any more elegant a solution out there? A free normal shader would be fantastic.

Submitted by Malus on Mon, 08/03/04 - 9:35 PM Permalink

Not sure if this would work but have you tried cryteks polybump viewer?

Submitted by J I Styles on Mon, 08/03/04 - 10:36 PM Permalink

yah, third party apps like that are really the only way to preview without chucking in an engine at the moment, and that's still just a screen grab - ideally, I'd like a way to render the character(s) animations from within max.

Submitted by Doord on Mon, 08/03/04 - 11:43 PM Permalink

there was a little talk around the place to getting mental ray in max 6 to do it. Maybe something you can look into.

Submitted by J I Styles on Tue, 09/03/04 - 12:05 AM Permalink

yay, after getting dug into it, I've discovered a work around. The demo of the Kaldera plugin from mankua, is incredibly crippled - but since their main feature is generating the normals, I had a gut feeling they may not be too concerned about the normal shader aspect of it (being such a minor element of the product). And, lo and behold, ignoring the generation features, it's possible to use the demo for presentation renders. I've been successfully rendering animated lit normal mapped models using the demo under max5.

Good news for max users [:)]

Forum
Artists

Just wondering if anyone knows of a way to render shots of your normal mapped model from max - only two solutions I found where a map shader that comes with Kaldera (rather expensive 3rd party plugin), and 3dsmax 5 cheap and crappy work around using the metal shader.

Is there any more elegant a solution out there? A free normal shader would be fantastic.

Submitted by Malus on Mon, 08/03/04 - 9:35 PM Permalink

Not sure if this would work but have you tried cryteks polybump viewer?

Submitted by J I Styles on Mon, 08/03/04 - 10:36 PM Permalink

yah, third party apps like that are really the only way to preview without chucking in an engine at the moment, and that's still just a screen grab - ideally, I'd like a way to render the character(s) animations from within max.

Submitted by Doord on Mon, 08/03/04 - 11:43 PM Permalink

there was a little talk around the place to getting mental ray in max 6 to do it. Maybe something you can look into.

Submitted by J I Styles on Tue, 09/03/04 - 12:05 AM Permalink

yay, after getting dug into it, I've discovered a work around. The demo of the Kaldera plugin from mankua, is incredibly crippled - but since their main feature is generating the normals, I had a gut feeling they may not be too concerned about the normal shader aspect of it (being such a minor element of the product). And, lo and behold, ignoring the generation features, it's possible to use the demo for presentation renders. I've been successfully rendering animated lit normal mapped models using the demo under max5.

Good news for max users [:)]