Creating Textures with Normals out of Models

Originally written by Fingernail on http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/1960

• Set up a backdrop image with the diffuse/colour map of the texture:

• Set it to 1024 pixel detail and I made mine 10m large. Then I make a polygon, using the box tool (not extruded, just a flat polygon, around the texture):

• I decided to deal with the top & bottom separately, and just beveled flat matching the diffuse:

• Keep on bevelling in, this is all just standard boring modeling, particularly for such a panel:

• I did the top the same, in a different layer, and Boolean'd out the carved bits in the centre square:

• Filling up all the last bits, leaving out the top carving because it's quite blurred and would look better generated with either a heightmap or the 2D plugin. Also I'm short on time and generally lazy.

Then you triangulate, make sure it's facing the Y axis (the FRONT pane should show what the TOP one does in all my screens. Save it in a D3 directory, or somewhere in the darkmod directory (try to use the same paths you will for the rest of the texture).

Then open D3, drop down the console, and use this code:

renderbumpflat -size x y path\path\mymodel.lwo

the path is the path ignoring C:\path\Doom3\darkmod\ so any folders inside the darkmod directory. Size is just number of pixels, in a power of 2. For this, to match the diffuse, I usede 256 and 1024.

D3 will render the normalmap out, and it looks like this:

BTW I left out several stages of the modeling, even though I took screenshots, because it's quite basic and boring.

I might do a more organic one, which obviously is more complex to model. This could have probably been done with a heightmap, but it's quite slow that way. Also, I usually blend the result from a 2D plugin normalmap for more grainy detail etc.