this is Cinema 4d normal map

To me the bormal map loaded into the Vue bump channel looks FAR better than the Vue bum map because theres actually more sharpness i think. I see the "vein" on the elephants ear like in the Cinema 4D render, not like the bump though.

I do think Vue can READ normal maps :D

If it is old news again, just tell me to shut up (;

-Trepz

Have you tried to vary the Vue bump intensity? It looks as if this is a bit too strong.

It is wabe indeed a bit to strong,

i forgot to mention up close it really looks poor. My point was loading the actual normal map into the bump channel of Vue gave far better results at the same settings.

you know as well as i do for a long time there has been complains/curiosities about Vue not being able to "read" normal maps. I see from my tests it can, it just maybe doesent know it can :D

The Vue bump map is just blurred, the normal is well...normal :P

This is really funny, Paul, and I agree the best is the Vue render with normal map in the bump channel. C4D blurs too much texture maps by default, so it always looks too smooth, unless you go negative in the blur scale.
But what is strange is that Vue can create  bump out of a normal map that onlyu has rgb information, where it expects a greyscale in this cahnnel. And a normal map converted to greyscale doesn't mean anything...
So the question remains: can Vue read normal maps?
How does it look when you get closer?

Vue doens't have normal mapping but can use ANY colour image to make bumps, hence I plug texture ot bump for poser folk ;)

Yes bruno, it looks damn better than any bump map in Vue EVER. I do believe Vue is an idiot savant :D

I will be back with the close ups..i had some, threw them out :P

but since i love that king of the sky makers so much i will post "poor"

-Paul

:D

BUMP

NORMAL

Well that was really weird...

I rendered the EXACT image with normal and bump and the normal mapped image came out 104K larger...Had to repost.

WTF ?

-Paul

I have given a few tries to CrazyBump recently. It is originally made to generate normal maps, but can make very good bump maps usable in Vue as displacements.
I published a tutorial about using Crazybump with Vue a few days ago.

I found that using a diffuse map as bump map, or even pre-made bump maps provided with some textures gives far too many small details and does not look good in Vue, especially with strong bump amplitude. CrazyBump enables me to tune finely the accuracy of my bump map and choose small details or large ones.

The best approach would be to have at least two layers:

• one for the larger details, treated as a displacement map
• another on top of it for smaller ones

An illustration of what I meant. This is a bitmap texture mapped on a cube. The edge of the cube is visible here.

Vue bump map from diffuse image

Bump map generated with CrazyBump (rather blurry)

Displacement map: diffuse bumps and CrazyBump maps combined

It would need some fine tuning but I think the third one gives the best results.

Silverblade, the weird thing is a normal map doesn't look like a greyscale version, even a colour version of the color map, so this is why I find it weird that Vue creates a bump out of a normal map. This said, it just creates a bump out of it, and it doesn't look too good in close-ups, just as a regular bump map.
Offrench: CrazyBump can also create 16bit displacement maps out of a diffuse map, did you try it in Vue? Your 3rd example is very convincing.

Quote - Offrench: CrazyBump can also create 16bit displacement maps out of a diffuse map, did you try it in Vue? Your 3rd example is very convincing.

I do not currently use the latest version of CrazyBump (mine is 1.05 I think), and have not found this option, but I will give it a try and further fine tune the texture to get the best possible looking result.

Can you post the normal map image for us?

I have made another test with an image found at www.cgtextures.com.

I am still using displacement textures generated with CrazyBump on this one as well.

I have placed this mossy stone wall texture on my website. I included the diffuse and displacement textures. I used the 16bit displacement (found the option in Crazybump) so the file is in tiff format and quite heavy.