Exporting seasurface normals as tiling bitmaps - Printable Version +- Sitni Sati Forums (https://forum.afterworks.com) +-- Forum: Products (https://forum.afterworks.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4) +--- Forum: DreamScape (https://forum.afterworks.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: Exporting seasurface normals as tiling bitmaps (/showthread.php?tid=431)

Exporting seasurface normals as tiling bitmaps - Steve Green - 10-02-2007 Hi, it would be handy to have a way to easily export the surface normals of a seasurface as a tiling bitmap. You can render selected at the moment, but if you use choppiness the sea does not have a straight edge, so (as far as I can see) you have to have duplicate sea surfaces to fill the seam. Thanks, Steve Re: Exporting seasurface normals as tiling bitmaps - sitnisati - 10-03-2007 Hello Steve, "you have to have duplicate sea surfaces to fill the seam" This is the case about non-adaptive grid - correct ? Can you please let me know what would be the reason (limitations) of not using adaptive SSurf and the need of tiling non-adaptive grids ? Maybe we can do something about it. Thanks Kresimir Re: Exporting seasurface normals as tiling bitmaps - Steve Green - 10-03-2007 Hi Kresimir, the main reason for using it is speed on something like aerial or wide shots of something that was quite stormy. When using adaptive sea surfaces, I nearly always get artifacts where the geometry is simplified (particularly if the sea is quite rough) So my idea was to render out a normal map from a single tile of a non-adaptive seasurface (or a couple of variations), then use them on a flat plane (or flat adaptive seasurface), and mix the two tiles in a noise map to minimise tiling. That way, Max would have an easier time of eliminiating shimmering/artifacts since it would be a case of filtering maps rather than geometry. The problem with choppiness is that on a single tile, the choppiness pushes the mesh so that it is not a straight edge, so you need to duplicate the tile to fill the gap, to get something seamless. Hope that explains it. Cheers, Steve Re: Exporting seasurface normals as tiling bitmaps - sitnisati - 10-06-2007 Hello Steve, Thanks for explanation. Can you please send an image of artifacts you are getting ? Maybe this is something that can be easily fixed. Regards, Kresimir Re: Exporting seasurface normals as tiling bitmaps - Steve Green - 10-06-2007 Hi, I've e-mailed you an example. Thanks, Steve