WEBVTT 00:00.270 --> 00:03.400 Welcome to baking a normal map in blender. 00:03.510 --> 00:10.260 In this video you will create a normal map you'll understand when to create a normal map we'll be using 00:10.260 --> 00:17.070 a process called baking and see that baking is the fundamental process for creating other map types. 00:17.570 --> 00:25.420 In blender I will understand about cages and why they are used mapping textures to a model Well when 00:25.440 --> 00:27.290 ever they are being used. 00:27.360 --> 00:32.910 It is a form of optimization So you still always be asking yourself does this need optimizing. 00:33.000 --> 00:39.270 If you already have a low polygon model and it suffices then you dont need to do any more. 00:39.390 --> 00:45.030 However if you want to keep it a low polygon model but you want to have the illusion of a lot of surface 00:45.030 --> 00:51.780 detail whether that be a bit of clothing with the weaving in and out or whether it be a wooden box with 00:51.780 --> 00:54.350 the slats and the gaps in between the slats. 00:54.420 --> 00:59.720 Then we can start optimizing and not having to use geometry to create that. 00:59.800 --> 01:05.990 It allows high detail to be baked onto a lower polygon model and have almost the same appearance. 01:06.000 --> 01:12.060 In some cases you can't tell the difference decreases render times especially if exporting to a game 01:12.060 --> 01:12.620 engine. 01:12.630 --> 01:18.060 Now one of the things you've got to consider if you're making assets for a game engine is that the people 01:18.060 --> 01:21.520 demand 60 frames per second or something along those lines. 01:21.630 --> 01:27.780 And we want to make sure that they get that and by using normal maps and other type of mapping techniques 01:27.780 --> 01:35.310 we can increase render speed when it comes to blender itself of course a render of one scene may take 01:35.430 --> 01:37.350 5 10 15 minutes. 01:37.350 --> 01:38.280 Who knows. 01:38.280 --> 01:44.160 By using normal maps we might be able to cut that down by 10 20 30 percent in time. 01:44.160 --> 01:50.660 In terms of its rendering time now for the one off scene that probably doesn't matter so much. 01:50.660 --> 01:52.980 But if you're doing an animation. 01:53.100 --> 02:00.540 This is where suddenly that saving really starts to compound and saves you a a shed load of time when 02:00.540 --> 02:06.510 it comes to sitting there and waiting of course when you're rendering your computer is going full tilt 02:06.510 --> 02:11.970 so it's also a mess save on your electricity bill and wear and tear on your computer. 02:11.970 --> 02:17.850 Poor thing we do pull it through lots with Blender So let's go ahead and create a little shopping list 02:17.850 --> 02:20.000 of what we going to need. 02:20.070 --> 02:25.400 We're going to need a Harley poly gone source model in order to get the detail. 02:25.740 --> 02:32.190 We're going to need a low polygon model same model of course just a lower polygon version in order to 02:32.190 --> 02:33.770 put that detail on. 02:33.760 --> 02:39.380 If we're just going to stick with a high polygon model then a normal map once again won't be necessary. 02:39.540 --> 02:40.670 Possibly a cage. 02:40.680 --> 02:45.240 Now that would depend on the model that you're doing and I'll give you a demonstration of when you will 02:45.240 --> 02:46.320 need a cage. 02:46.560 --> 02:53.850 We're going to need a yuva unwrap of the low polygon model so that we can have an image ready to receive 02:53.850 --> 02:55.240 than normal data. 02:56.100 --> 03:00.190 So now that we've got a shopping list ready Let's hop on over in a blender. 03:03.400 --> 03:10.350 Okay so we're over on our default scene here and we need a high polygon source and of course a cube 03:10.360 --> 03:15.700 isn't particularly high polygon So I'm going to make this really quick and I'm going to use a subsurface 03:15.700 --> 03:19.720 division modifier and crank that up all the way to six and apply it. 03:19.750 --> 03:22.620 And that's going to give us lots and lots of geometry. 03:22.900 --> 03:30.370 While still in object mode I'm going to create a nother cube and I'm going to apply another subsurface 03:30.370 --> 03:36.200 division and well let's go to sarees subdivisions and apply that. 03:36.490 --> 03:47.830 So now if we check how many triangles we got 768 on the low poly and the high poly has 50000 Okay that's 03:47.830 --> 03:50.550 a great extreme example between the two. 03:50.740 --> 03:57.970 Now I'm going to want my Both mine to be smooth shadings There we go let's smooth shade and we can see 03:57.970 --> 04:00.660 a bit of occlusion it's a little bit jacquette around the edge. 04:00.670 --> 04:03.610 I think that is okay for the purposes that we're doing. 04:03.670 --> 04:10.700 Of course we need to name these so let's go ahead and name this high poly ball and low poly ball. 04:11.230 --> 04:13.750 Otherwise I won't know which ones which one I'm looking at the outline. 04:13.750 --> 04:20.530 In fact I'm going to use the outliner in order to do this particular work with selecting because these 04:20.530 --> 04:26.050 two need to be on top of one another Cause we are going to be projecting from one on to another we're 04:26.050 --> 04:32.320 going to be projecting from the high poly on to the low poly so in order to do this we're also going 04:32.320 --> 04:34.150 to have to unwrap the low poly bowls. 04:34.150 --> 04:36.460 I'm going to hop into edit mode and unwrap. 04:36.580 --> 04:41.980 I'm just going to use smart unique projects because during this demonstration I don't really mind how 04:41.980 --> 04:45.610 it actually unwraps it in fact it may even highlight some problems. 04:45.670 --> 04:48.690 If we don't take control over that unwrap. 04:48.880 --> 04:53.260 So now I have done that I just need to make sure that that has worked and I'm going to open up a UV 04:53.350 --> 04:55.650 image editor and quickly check it. 04:56.020 --> 04:58.810 Okay so you've got a you've Emap there but we don't. 04:58.960 --> 05:05.380 That's going to control the mapping of the normal map that we're about to create so it's telling lend 05:05.380 --> 05:07.690 out where to place the information. 05:07.690 --> 05:09.000 But there's nothing to place it to. 05:09.010 --> 05:16.150 So we're just going to have to create a new texture and I'm going to call it normal map because that 05:16.150 --> 05:17.690 is what it's going to be. 05:17.720 --> 05:21.260 I'm not going to click okay now before we do anything else here. 05:21.260 --> 05:27.660 There may be the occasion where perhaps you've used one you've mapped a certain scale on a diffuse texture 05:27.670 --> 05:29.140 and that's worked wonderfully. 05:29.140 --> 05:34.900 But now you want to use a different nuveen map with a different scale because we're projecting all of 05:34.900 --> 05:37.810 the U.S. map has to be with in that one image. 05:37.810 --> 05:40.360 Otherwise it will tile and look horrible. 05:40.570 --> 05:47.440 So if we do want to create an extra you v map or more than one we can go to the data properties of the 05:47.440 --> 05:48.670 low poly ball. 05:49.030 --> 05:52.690 Scroll down and we can see we've done virtex groups before. 05:52.690 --> 05:58.660 Below that we've got shape keys and below that we have you v maps so we can create a new UV map and 05:58.660 --> 06:02.460 call it normal map or whatever you want to call it. 06:02.500 --> 06:03.760 It's a different type of map. 06:03.790 --> 06:05.010 So now we've done that. 06:05.020 --> 06:10.990 We can go ahead and then click the little camera there so that's the one that we as active for rendering 06:10.990 --> 06:14.690 that's the one we want because baking is a form of rendering. 06:14.770 --> 06:18.790 So now we have that we can see that we're looking at the normal map as well because the U.S. image editor 06:18.790 --> 06:22.550 has changed the active U.S. map is the normal map. 06:22.930 --> 06:28.100 So let's go ahead now and go to the render tab and have a look at our baking option so I'm going to 06:28.100 --> 06:31.780 have to scroll them all the way down to the bottom and I'm going to open up. 06:31.870 --> 06:32.310 OK. 06:32.380 --> 06:37.620 Now what I'm going to do here in case I need to flick backwards and forwards between other settings. 06:37.690 --> 06:43.970 I'm just going to split this window here so I can see take all the time so it's not disappearing. 06:44.050 --> 06:49.690 Hopefully I won't need to dash about left right and centre but that if I do I can get back to bake really 06:49.690 --> 06:50.850 quickly. 06:50.910 --> 06:55.030 Now we've got a bake button and if we click that is not going to do anything because we've not really 06:55.030 --> 06:56.980 told it what we want to do. 06:57.280 --> 07:02.640 Now here we go no active image found at a material or bake to an external file. 07:02.770 --> 07:06.760 So in this case has our low poly ball got a material. 07:07.060 --> 07:07.450 No. 07:07.510 --> 07:13.750 So let's go assign material to it and I'm going to call this normal map just so I don't get confused 07:13.750 --> 07:16.870 with any type of other type of material that we set up. 07:16.990 --> 07:26.050 And I'm also going to scroll down here and set the surface colour to an image texture and I'm going 07:26.050 --> 07:27.550 to change it to a normal map. 07:27.670 --> 07:31.510 Now this isn't how you apply a normal map we'll go to that in a moment. 07:31.510 --> 07:34.810 This is just so I can see real time on the model. 07:34.810 --> 07:35.800 What is going on. 07:35.810 --> 07:41.070 I was going to hop out of edit mode there into object mode and change it to material. 07:41.230 --> 07:43.950 So there we go we can see both are black. 07:43.990 --> 07:49.260 So what we need to do is take from selected to active. 07:49.270 --> 07:51.980 So from Behi poly to the low poly. 07:52.210 --> 07:58.210 So let's go ahead and click on high poly hold down Shift and click on blow polin you can see why I'm 07:58.210 --> 08:02.640 using the outline it's a Select rather than the meshes that are on top of one another. 08:03.060 --> 08:06.630 I'm going to change my bake type here to normal. 08:06.630 --> 08:10.680 There it is and make sure selected to active is ticked. 08:10.680 --> 08:13.550 Now I'm going to hit the back button and let's see what happens. 08:13.830 --> 08:14.130 Okay. 08:14.130 --> 08:15.470 So that's not surprising. 08:15.600 --> 08:19.890 And that is exactly what I was expecting to get because both of them are pretty smooth. 08:20.040 --> 08:25.590 So let's go ahead and add some detail to the high poly ball and I'll use the sculpting tool to do that 08:26.100 --> 08:29.740 just so we can see what's going on and I'll create some highs and some lows. 08:29.760 --> 08:31.830 I'm going to use add and subtract. 08:31.830 --> 08:35.730 When it comes to that somebody is going to hide are low poly ball. 08:35.910 --> 08:38.050 I'm going to going to sculpt mode. 08:38.110 --> 08:38.490 That's good. 08:38.490 --> 08:39.860 That's a solid. 08:40.530 --> 08:42.060 I've obviously not could it's selected. 08:42.060 --> 08:47.940 There we go sculped mode and I can't see much of what's going on so let me rearrange my screen really 08:47.940 --> 08:50.910 quickly and I'm going to draw a smiley face. 08:50.910 --> 08:52.830 Who wouldn't draw a smiley face. 08:52.830 --> 08:53.840 There we go. 08:54.300 --> 08:57.980 So we've got ourselves some oh oh I've got symmetry turned on. 08:58.020 --> 08:59.420 Oh it's two smiley faces. 08:59.460 --> 09:00.420 Excellent. 09:00.420 --> 09:02.220 Now let's do a subtract as well. 09:02.220 --> 09:06.450 And let's say there we want to is. 09:07.430 --> 09:09.010 And there we go. 09:09.090 --> 09:13.770 It looks more like a love heart there but never mind Kate So we've got some detail now on the surface 09:13.770 --> 09:14.590 of our model. 09:14.610 --> 09:17.550 Let's see what happens if we go and bake that. 09:17.610 --> 09:18.730 So selected. 09:18.750 --> 09:22.090 Hi Polly shiff low poly too active. 09:22.290 --> 09:25.570 And I'm going to click Oh cant see it. 09:25.590 --> 09:29.340 So that's enable it and then bake if it's not there we can't bake it. 09:29.970 --> 09:34.650 Okay so we can see that the indents that we've made are appearing on the normal map. 09:34.770 --> 09:37.700 But these raised areas seem to be cut outs. 09:37.710 --> 09:43.720 In fact if we changed to material we can see the normal map actually being applied to our model as as 09:43.750 --> 09:50.310 a diffuse texture in this case and we can see that the raised areas are just ignored all together and 09:50.310 --> 09:51.090 that is no good. 09:51.090 --> 09:52.710 We want to include them. 09:52.770 --> 09:55.350 Now there are two ways of including them. 09:55.350 --> 10:02.580 Number three actually three ways of including them we can make the low poly ball bigger so we can go 10:02.580 --> 10:08.490 in here scale the low poly ball up so let's go to object mode select the low poly ball. 10:08.490 --> 10:09.940 Scale it up. 10:10.230 --> 10:11.170 Okay. 10:11.430 --> 10:15.120 Now go to a high poly low poly and make. 10:16.660 --> 10:17.350 And there we go. 10:17.350 --> 10:18.660 So that's one way of doing it. 10:18.760 --> 10:21.950 But now we have a problem. 10:21.950 --> 10:27.610 Essentially the the low or poly models are bigger and we don't really want to do that so let's undo 10:27.610 --> 10:28.150 that step. 10:28.210 --> 10:34.680 But that is one way you could go about it the other way you can go about it is to add a cage. 10:34.780 --> 10:43.840 Now a cage has to match the low poly model in terms of its triangle count so if we duplicated that and 10:43.840 --> 10:50.680 then made it match as close as possible to have a high poly ball that would enable us to use a cage 10:50.680 --> 10:51.660 to make that. 10:54.830 --> 10:59.090 Now the race distance is kind of similar to scaling up the model. 10:59.630 --> 11:05.120 And if we go and scale this up well that's not really scaling but it kind of gives the impression it 11:05.120 --> 11:09.410 moves the projection a bit further away from the surface. 11:09.440 --> 11:13.900 If we now try and do that let's see what results we get. 11:13.940 --> 11:17.010 So at Point two we seem to get a relatively good result. 11:17.090 --> 11:23.870 Now bearing in mind this can cause distortion on more complicated shapes you have to use that with caution 11:24.050 --> 11:28.490 and if you've got something that's massively different that juts out from the surface. 11:28.610 --> 11:34.790 These are not really that exaggerated they're not that extreme in terms of how far they stretch away 11:35.000 --> 11:40.820 but if they were to do that you may want to use a cage rather than just adjusting the race distance 11:41.170 --> 11:45.530 but it seems that point to in this case results in a relatively good normal map. 11:45.880 --> 11:47.360 That looks pretty impressive. 11:47.510 --> 11:52.740 So now that we've got a normal map made what we need to do is apply it. 11:52.790 --> 11:58.540 So in order to do that we're going to need to go over to our node editor. 11:59.210 --> 12:04.280 And this is the material that's currently set up and this is another great thing about applying it to 12:04.310 --> 12:09.950 the diffuse texture straightaway because the image text is already loaded and ready for us to use. 12:09.950 --> 12:17.210 So once again I'm going to hide the low are of high poly ball from our scene all together and I'm going 12:17.210 --> 12:21.400 to make sure the low poly ball has it's applied. 12:21.530 --> 12:25.250 So let's go ahead and let's go down here. 12:25.250 --> 12:26.840 Yes it's got the. 12:28.900 --> 12:30.790 It's got the normal map apply to it. 12:30.790 --> 12:32.170 That's absolutely fine. 12:32.170 --> 12:37.270 Now it may be tempting a course to Let's unplug that so we can see what's going on. 12:37.330 --> 12:41.340 It may be tempting to plug the colour straight into normal. 12:42.740 --> 12:46.060 Well that didn't work and there's no surprise in that that hasn't worked. 12:46.070 --> 12:53.630 We haven't told it anything at the moment so let's be explicit let's tell blender that the input the 12:53.630 --> 12:56.060 textured coordinates i.e. you v based. 12:56.240 --> 12:58.580 So let's join in to there. 12:58.610 --> 13:04.420 Now we don't want the colour be mapped to the normal we need it to go through some sort of filter. 13:04.430 --> 13:08.010 Now we could plug it into the bump mapping that we used earlier. 13:08.030 --> 13:17.360 We can also put it into a normal mapping So if we go ahead and add a vector normal map and pop it in 13:17.360 --> 13:22.500 between those two areas there we see that the colour is controlling the colour. 13:22.580 --> 13:28.430 We have not selected a u v map here but we can select normal map in this case and looking down here 13:28.490 --> 13:31.320 we should now see that this is starting to change. 13:31.340 --> 13:34.950 Our model Lets go into rended mode and have a look. 13:35.150 --> 13:35.920 There we go. 13:35.960 --> 13:41.770 That is looking pretty good but it does have some problems we can see its jerking around these edges 13:41.780 --> 13:47.460 and this is one of the art effects that can happen if you dont take control of your seams. 13:48.790 --> 13:51.000 Let's make the light a bit more exaggerated. 13:51.000 --> 13:58.030 I'm going to go for a sunlamp and what we should be able to see here is if I just line this up when 13:58.030 --> 14:04.750 we go ahead and move the sun lamps I'm just going to rotate that sunlamp or on the y axis or something 14:04.750 --> 14:05.900 along those lines. 14:06.040 --> 14:13.390 What we should find is that the shadows change is as if there is real geometry there and that's the 14:13.390 --> 14:16.150 whole point of using these normal maps. 14:16.150 --> 14:16.930 That looks pretty. 14:16.930 --> 14:18.950 That's a good example there. 14:19.030 --> 14:20.730 You can see that it's light on one side. 14:20.740 --> 14:25.120 And if we rotate it all the way round it'll become light on the other and then dark. 14:25.120 --> 14:31.540 Now you can see here some artefacts that are being caused by having such a low poly model here. 14:31.630 --> 14:35.330 Let's just check that we do have smooth shading turned on. 14:35.470 --> 14:36.310 Yes we do. 14:36.310 --> 14:39.460 It's just unable to interpret the model. 14:39.520 --> 14:44.910 And of course the normal map has been is causing this horrible jaggedness. 14:45.250 --> 14:54.070 Oh no no wait I see what is going on here and I have forgotten to actually change the type of image 14:54.100 --> 14:56.210 that this thing is. 14:56.440 --> 14:58.630 Let's change the image texture itself. 14:58.630 --> 15:01.150 We haven't said this is non colour data. 15:01.330 --> 15:05.680 So it's interpreting the rgv values as colour. 15:05.860 --> 15:10.980 When we don't we want the r.g. values to be treated as individual values. 15:10.990 --> 15:17.860 There are three channels there from a value of zero to 100 percent and each one of those we need it 15:17.860 --> 15:21.800 to be interpreted completely individually in a blend between the two. 15:21.880 --> 15:24.720 So we can do that by changing it's a non colour data. 15:24.760 --> 15:25.480 There we go. 15:25.480 --> 15:27.760 That is the look we're looking for. 15:27.790 --> 15:35.480 And now if we go ahead and grab the lamp rotate it around and access and we can see here that it changes 15:35.480 --> 15:38.830 is as if the geometry were real. 15:38.830 --> 15:45.220 Now the question is of course if I have that there and I put the other one there go have Turn the lamp 15:45.220 --> 15:46.350 off instead. 15:46.390 --> 15:48.690 Can you tell the difference between the two. 15:48.730 --> 15:55.440 I'm going to render these out now side by side and I'll show you how great this is WOWO case are blown 15:55.570 --> 15:58.410 up to full screen and tried to fit them on as best I can. 15:58.540 --> 16:01.640 And I want you guys to guess which ones which. 16:04.000 --> 16:04.320 Okay. 16:04.330 --> 16:06.120 I'll give you a clue here. 16:06.220 --> 16:07.900 We look for reclusion. 16:07.900 --> 16:14.320 So even though the outside is relatively smooth we can see the eyeball on the other side on the right 16:14.320 --> 16:18.110 hand side in the shadowed area at the top left. 16:18.160 --> 16:20.500 We can see a bump of the eye. 16:20.500 --> 16:23.860 Let's head round the back of this particular smiley face. 16:23.860 --> 16:30.160 Now the great thing about this is the one on the left is less than 1000 polygons I think it's something 16:30.160 --> 16:32.810 like seven. 16:32.950 --> 16:37.500 The one on the right is nearly 49000 polygons. 16:37.630 --> 16:40.550 There's a huge difference in him there. 16:40.570 --> 16:44.560 But there's very little image quality difference at this point. 16:44.710 --> 16:49.410 So you can see how a normal map can really help you out. 16:49.480 --> 16:55.810 And of course if we combine that with the displacement map as well we can get some really impressive 16:55.810 --> 16:57.400 results. 16:57.460 --> 17:01.560 So bearing that in mind it's time for a challenge. 17:01.810 --> 17:06.480 I would like you guys to create a normal map similar to how we've just done. 17:06.730 --> 17:12.450 So take one of your models up to at least an L O D C or D level of detail. 17:12.560 --> 17:18.280 So we going to take a duplicate of the elodie B or A that you've currently worked on and really add 17:18.280 --> 17:28.000 some detail to that model then go ahead and create a normal map based upon that and apply it to a lower 17:28.000 --> 17:31.350 polygon model so apply it back to the level of detail. 17:31.360 --> 17:33.250 A or B. 17:33.250 --> 17:37.050 And finally of course share it in the discussions. 17:37.060 --> 17:41.990 The two side by side and see if people can guess which is which. 17:42.130 --> 17:46.290 If you do it really well it would be very very difficult to tell. 17:47.070 --> 17:51.990 I'm going to not pause a video at this point because we've almost run out of time for this particular 17:51.990 --> 17:55.680 lecture and we'll go through the solution in the next lecture. 17:55.920 --> 17:56.770 See you soon.