Next Gen Materials Explained: Basic

[DaneO'Roo]

I've come up with an idea, to show people what bitmaps should look like when creating for next gen games, and to give people a better understanding of them in general, for those who don't know.

The Bump (or Heightmap if your doing Parralax, but I won't go into that):

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/3492/bomberbumpiv6.jpg

Have different shades of white and grey, to have varying levels of height. The blacker, the deeper, the whiter, the higher. This can be kind of tricky though, see, depending on the range of whites and blacks you've used, if you used flat black, and flat white as your two totally different levels of height, you'll have much more range in height, and much deeper maps. For mine, I didn't want much variation, so I just had 2 different shades of grey, fairly close together in shade, but far apart enough to matter.

Also have a very faint copy paste of the specular, just to get a bit of minor detail in there.

If you want a normal map, you can easily use the Nvidia plugin for Photoshop or any other related application, and use the bump map to create it.


The Diffuse:

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/4007/bomberdiffusewl0.jpg

No light shading, nothing that has anything to do with lighting. All the Diffuse is, is the colour, and tone. Basically, what colours they are, where they are, in terms of detail (not totally flat and cel shaded colour, more variation) and how dark/light they are. Specular covers the shine.

The Specular:

http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/4871/bomberspecularvi0.jpg

The more white, the more that part shines, the more black, the less it shines. Spec maps should be pretty contrasted, and should contain more detail than the diffuse. A real life example of this is say, looking at a wall in your house, its a flat colour, yes? But, as you move around it in the light, some parts of the wall shine more than others, due to residue. This is what specular covers. It's not just good enough to simply copy your diffuse and greyscale it.

The Illumination:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/4041/bomberilluminationsc3.jpg

Since it's using so much less of the space, you can lower the resolution of it considerably. Whatever is black, won't glow, so for this, I only wanted the lights to glow, so I made everything else BUT the lights, totally pitch fucking black.

Complete render:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/5752/bomberprogress1op1.jpg


Hope this helps people who don't know, to understand more.

Sticky mb?

Re-opened for anyone who wanted to ask for help or tips. No comments about how awesome it is please.

[Phopojijo]

For most practical purposes -- to save memory specifically on consoles... a lot of developers just apply a desaturation node to the diffuse map and play with add/multiply nodes until they get the color they want.

Doesn't look as good as the hand painted version, but if you make it subtle enough it should be a suitable substitute when you consider the saved video memory... specifically on animated textures. (Especially when you have high detailed displace/normal maps to provide the extra detail elsewhere)

[Zeph]

Your specular is way too much. It's there to define how light bounces off, not further define the bump.

[Phopojijo]

That also depends as well -- like if you know your GPU is too taxed to support levels of anisotropic filtering... then adding extra detail might be necessary to prevent artifacting... or if you procedurally generate it you might need to stick with the same sized output as your input diffuse.

That being said -- those are long shots... especially these days.

[Rob Oplawar]

what about normal mapping? i thought bump maps just generated rough normal maps. what about mapping some real high poly normals?

[Bad Waffle]

Your specular is way too much. It's there to define how light bounces off, not further define the bump.

stay still as i stab you in the face. His specular is SPOT ON CORRECT, you're just used to halo's RGB setup. If you want i can get you 3 next-gen examples of real spec maps to back up dane.

[Tweek]

what about normal mapping? i thought bump maps just generated rough normal maps. what about mapping some real high poly normals?

have fun making a high res.
i couldn't be arsed



Your specular is way too much. It's there to define how light bounces off, not further define the bump.
it defines HOW MUCH light bounces off.

you want a normal map to define HOW it bounces off, based on surface direction.
thats what normalmaps have stored. surface direction.

also, the specular is fine.

[Chewy Gumball]

Also, real next gen spec maps are coloured. Not exactly sure what the colours do but apparently you can just invert your colour map and play with some levels and contrast to get a pretty good one.

[Phopojijo]

Also, real next gen spec maps are coloured. Not exactly sure what the colours do but apparently you can just invert your colour map and play with some levels and contrast to get a pretty good one.Yea if you ever played around with Maya and maybe Max... to my knowledge its just a combined specular intensity with specular color. (This one I haven't seen done in a videogame yet but apparantly it is...)

Most cases people didn't care about specular color... some people might -- like if they want to make a 2-tone paint on a car or something.

And yes I know some people use Specular maps like Dano does... some people also use realtime raytracing instead of cubemaps... doesn't mean its the only way about it.

You'll need to make a tradeoff somewhere for performance. If you think the detail is best served in the specular map to define scratches and other detail? Go for it. If you would prefer to use those resources elsewhere? Go for it.

Assume no-one will look at your sources and just make the best graphics you can.

[Chewy Gumball]

Ya, I also believe it is a combination of intensity and colour but I am not sure as I have never used them, nor used an engine where they are used. They are pretty new though, not gonna see them except in something like UT3 or Crysis. Maybe source will be updated to use them as well but I don't think it will.

[DaneO'Roo]

Well, of course I could have gone into every single possible outcome to do things, but I just went with the most common arrangement :P

[Chewy Gumball]

I was just adding it as a side note ;)

[Phopojijo]

Well, of course I could have gone into every single possible outcome to do things, but I just went with the most common arrangement :PI'd actually figure a desaturation node would be a bit more common since high detailed height/normal maps seem to be the mainstay of most game companies.

That being said the mainstay of most game companies seems to be bloom your eyes to the point you bleed out your tearducts... but hey whatever. Even Epic it seems, which is kinda disappointing IMO.

[Xetsuei]

What's wrong with bloom? <3 bloom.

[Phopojijo]

Nothing, its a realistic aspect to portray how your eyes operate at very wildly different intensities.

Unfortunately... a lot of companies kinda crank it up unrealistically -- defeating its purpose.

[Limited]

Thats not really true next-gen textures. They have alot more than just the maps you have stated. Texture randomization, alot more multi layered textures that are blended together (real time)

[Roostervier]

Thats not really true next-gen textures. They have alot more than just the maps you have stated. Texture randomization, alot more multi layered textures that are blended together (real time)


Well, of course I could have gone into every single possible outcome to do things, but I just went with the most common arrangement :P
.

Even says basic in the title. I think it's good reference for the basics in next gen materials, could be helpful to those unaware.

[Limited]

Um, no next gen materials are basic. This is basically just normal textures with alot of detail.

[DaneO'Roo]

No, your wrong, I'm not counting detail maps in this. Those layered textures are just the engine, and design choices. You'll find most of the time games these days don't layer things up with multiple detail maps and such for things like bipeds weapons and vehicles. Do you really think they'd waste texture memory on shit that what I listed can achieve?

The only places they ever use what your referring to, are environments, where things need to vary and look non repetitive.

The "normal" or "last gen" shader setups you should be referring to consist of baked colour maps, a specular, with cubemaps and detail maps.

[Bodzilla]

No, your wrong, I'm not counting detail maps in this. Those layered textures are just the engine, and design choices. You'll find most of the time games these days don't layer things up with multiple detail maps and such for things like bipeds weapons and vehicles. Do you really think they'd waste texture memory on shit that what I listed can achieve?

The only places they ever use what your referring to, are environments, where things need to vary and look non repetitive.

The "normal" or "last gen" shader setups you should be referring to consist of baked colour maps, a specular, with cubemaps and detail maps.
ooooo

beat down lmao.
Dano's texture looks pretty fuckign awesome to me :D
and isnt that what matters the most?

[jahrain]

Next gen materials will use infinite resolution analog textures. :eng101:

[Limited]

The only places they ever use what your referring to, are environments, where things need to vary and look non repetitive.Um, no, characters, equipment nearly everything uses it.

[Tweek]

seriously, don't turn this thread into a "i'm right, you're wrong, and my dick is bigger than yours" thread.

dano tried to inform the people who didnt know, he did, then some people got on the carebuss, and started yelling NO THIS IS HOW ITS DONE!
shut up.

[Patrickssj6]

"...and your dicks are bigger than mine"
ftfy

[Bad Waffle]

you know what, i was just skinning something (because i suck at photoshop, i really gotta fix my lopsided skills) and i was thinking, "now where can i find references on how to do this right, quicker?"

First thing i thought of was this right here. Gday, mate.

[legionaire45]

Something else right here (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/art/features/nextgenenv/)that some people might find useful, though it deals more with organization/planning then the actual texturing process.

[DaneO'Roo]

Ok, figured I'd post some examples of true current next gen material maps, for you to learn a bit better from.

This is the Flak Cannon from UT3. The textures are the property of Epic Games.

Normal Map
http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/2883/flakcannonnormalmaprx1.jpg


Diffuse
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/8621/flakcannondiffusesl3.jpg


Specular
http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/733/flakcannonspecularae3.jpg

Ingame

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/1396/sycthere9.jpg


Now study with your eyes and learn little bunnies. That spec map has allready taught me a thing or two. The diffuse though, feh ^_^

Also, <3 design.

[DEElekgolo]

Normal maps + spec maps = for the win.
Are there any games out there that use displacement maps

[DaneO'Roo]

Unreal Tournament 3 does. It only works on flat surfaces though, so only floors and walls and stuff. There is this one wall that springs to mind, a big pretty necris plate thing, and I was sure all the detail was modelled in, but as I moved around it, just BARELY noticeable, theres a slight wierdness, and it hit me. Parralax. It also uses ambient occlusion too, apparently :awesome:

[Tweek]

yea, you can stuff ambient occlusion maps in it too.

think of any shader technique, and good chance that ut3 can do it.

[DaneO'Roo]

Example of Parralax and Occlusion:

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/9831/crazybump3ca6.jpg

:3

[Tweek]

and with the shader creation tool in ut3, you can make it even much more prettier.
also, i mock your 1024 resolution.

[DaneO'Roo]

and with the maya hypsershade-esque tool in ut3, you can make it even much more prettier.
also, i mock your 1024 resolution.

:3

[Tweek]

!

i demand bans!