Preparing a model to bake normals

[Bananaman]

Hello GA,
I didn't wanna bother you people with this, but after 4-5 hours of cursing I decided do bug you after all ;)

I never made normal maps before and figured I'd better learn it now so that I can get better at it. So I figured an axe that is being used by firefighters would be an easy object to start with. But I guess I was wrong.

This is my axe:
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z278/Meinte/ScreenHunter_513.jpg

How should I start preparing it for baking, and how should i prepare it for exporting. Because (especially) the sharp side of the axe is being a pain. The smoothing and normals are giving me alot of trouble.
How would you start and do it?

Thanks to anybody who takes the time to read and reply to my post :thumb:

[Hearshotkid02]

The first step for me at least is unwrapping. If it's already unwrapped, then you have a couple options.

How did you want to produce normals for this? You could use a sculpting program like ZBrush. In which case you can watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYj-UHpgFq4 for a basic run down of baking in ZB.

The other way you could do this is through photoshop. Once you have the diffuse made, you can use NVidia's plug-in for phtoshop: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html
or I think XNormal has a PS plug-in for this too. Either one will bake normals from your diffuse map.

Hope this helps.

[Bananaman]

Ah sorry forgot to mention that I made a highpoly model(which is atm just a smoothed version really, nothing fancy yet). I wanted to use render to texture in 3DsMax.

[confracto]

Hey Bananaman,

this tutorial (http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow.htm) will walk you through just about everything you'll need for normal mapping in max. It's pretty detailed.

post back here if you need anything else :D

[Hearshotkid02]

Oh, in that case I can't really help you much. I don't normally use max for getting normals, DW4 is actually gonna be my experiment for using that method. If you search around the forums though, you should be able to find something.

[Bananaman]

Thanks confracto, I'll have a look at it when I get home. I found that guide before, but didn't have much use for it back then and lost the url.

Thanks for the replies Hearshotkid. And good luck with your DW entry!

[antodonnell]

Hi I m not sure how much help this is but oer the weekened I had written a quick tutorial on this for a different forum. Maybe it ll be of use to you.

http://www.antodonnell.com/baking_normalmaps_3dsmax.jpg

[Bananaman]

Hey antodonnell, I'm new to normal mapping. So every bit of info helps. Thanks for the tutorial :)