Guild of Writers

Hey Guys,

I just tried exporting my first Age with a Normal Map applied to it from a much higher poly model. But when I loaded the Game in Uru it didn't seem that the Normal Map had been applied to the terrain. Does PyPRP and/or Plasma not support Normal Maps?

Jman

Plasma has limited normal map support (note: normal maps, not bump maps). However, PyPRP does not support this because Plasma requires a highly specific order of layers, lookup maps, and flags to be set.

Although there are very few examples in Cyan ages where bump map images (the textures are named "...bump...", not "...normal..." - although they look like normal maps (colored) and not bump maps (greyscale)) are included as textures (e.g. the shores in Gira water, or the walkway in Kemo), I'm pretty sure that normap mapping is possible in Plasma. At least bump mapping.
There are real bump maps (greyscale) as well, e.g. in the City district textures (for Ae'gura), used for stone surfaces. But, really a few only.
But I guess PyPRP does not support including them currently.
It may be able to use them by patching the final PRPs with other tools though (PRPShop, PRPExplorer etc.).
EDIT: (Although, when I read Paradox' post, I'm not very sure any longer - could be a mess to play with these tools to get everything in the right order).

Oh, and the difference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_mapping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping

Or read this:
http://www.spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4478
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:M ... ormal_Maps

Damn it! .... Damn it, damn it, damn it! I spent so long sculpting all the little details on my island so that they would come through on the normal map. Like a whole week just on my High-poly model. Plus I created Normal maps for all my textures to add even more detail. I guess I'm ganna have to look into these other tools. I just can't justify throwing away all that work. On the up side I think that by the time I finished with all my texturing I'll only have one Normal Map image though, so maybe it won't be as complicated as I'm expecting.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions guys. Keep them coming if anyone comes up with something new.

Jman

Edit: Paradox - Has all that stuff been documented somewhere (the layer orders, etc.) or am I going to be shooting in the dark?

Load Eder Kemo up in PrpShop and have a look at the texturing for the walkways. In addition to the layer with the normal map, you will need three others, each using the same little image, which is, I suppose, judging by its name, used as a LUT, of some sort, for the translation from RGB intensity integers to normal vectors - one layer for each axis. Look out for the flags pertaining to DOT3 components.

If you get it working; do share! :))

Where can I get the AGE & PRP files for Eder Kemo? Isn't that age only available in MOUL? I checked the dat folder for my MOUL installation, but only found EderKemo Loc files. I seem to have AGE files for all the other ages I've been to though.

Anyone clear this up for me?

Eder Kemo is named "garden" in the prp and is present in every version of Uru

Umm, ehm, yeah, that, what he said. Sorry about that. :7

I made a first attempt at getting my Normal Map to work with no success. When I tried to load the Age in Uru I got an error saying that Game Files were missing and to try re-installing Uru.

The process I used on this attempt:
- Export the little rainbow texture used on the Bump Map Layers to a .po object
- Import the Rainbow Texture into my Age Texture PRP
- Begin manually recreating the Bump Map Layers via the 'Edit Flags' Window (using Eder Kemo as example)

My plans going forward are to check out the settings in the 'Edit PRC' Window to see if I am missing something. If that doesn't work then I may try exporting each Bump Map Layer and then importing them directly into my Age.

I'm open to suggestions though, so any help would be appreciated.

Did you use urusum, UruFun, PlasmaShop, etc. to update the .sum file after making the PRC changes? Uru uses the .sum file to keep track of modified files and will give you that corrupt files error if they don't match.