Bump and Normal Maps for Character Skins

Sometimes a character skin might have both normal and bump maps. Is this overkill, or are normals better for some things, bump for others, and how are they meant to work in combination? I'm talking specifically in terms of rendering for DAZ studio, not outside applications like video games.

Comments

  • I discard bump maps when I render on iRay and only use Normal maps.

    on the other side I do the inverse with Filament: select Bump maps and discard Normal maps.

    not necessary using both at the same time.

  • Roman_K2Roman_K2 Posts: 1,255

    (Duh...) Is this why when I try altering BUMP settings while rendering in Iray, nothing seems to happen?

  • ZilvergrafixZilvergrafix Posts: 1,385
    edited February 2021

    Roman_K2 said:

    (Duh...) Is this why when I try altering BUMP settings while rendering in Iray, nothing seems to happen?

    iRay works with both maps but is more sensible to Normal maps than bump maps (that is why I only choose one).

    Bump maps on iRay rendering are more viewable when you offset the value more than 1.0 but doing that (useless in my opinion) when a Normal is applied too will be a conflict on your figure geometry affecting the vertex displacement INXS and leading to some optical effects like Moire and many others.

    that is why the "feeling" of bump maps effects are pretty low on iRay, but on Filament the only King is Bump, not Normals. 

    Post edited by Zilvergrafix on
  • zombiewhacker said:

    Sometimes a character skin might have both normal and bump maps. Is this overkill, or are normals better for some things, bump for others, and how are they meant to work in combination? I'm talking specifically in terms of rendering for DAZ studio, not outside applications like video games.

    Normal maps don't have any advantage over bump maps in DAZ. (they can soften sharp edges in polygons, but that is inapplicable to 3d characters)

    In DAZ, normal maps have a slightly higher level of detail than bump maps. They are sort of like the detail you see in HD morphs. I'm guessing they meant it to be an alternative to HD morphs in case someone wants to import their characters into video games.

  • lilweeplilweep Posts: 2,595

    So should we turn off Normal maps if we have HD morphs at high SubD?

  • lilweep said:

    So should we turn off Normal maps if we have HD morphs at high SubD?

    Maybe. I say that because when I load my Kayo HD, I see no normal map but when I load Kayo, I do.

    I don't know if all characters do that but it's interesting.

     

    kayo.JPG
    1152 x 607 - 103K
    kayo hd.JPG
    1168 x 580 - 103K
  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,715

    davidtriune said:

    zombiewhacker said:

    Sometimes a character skin might have both normal and bump maps. Is this overkill, or are normals better for some things, bump for others, and how are they meant to work in combination? I'm talking specifically in terms of rendering for DAZ studio, not outside applications like video games.

    Normal maps don't have any advantage over bump maps in DAZ. (they can soften sharp edges in polygons, but that is inapplicable to 3d characters)

    In DAZ, normal maps have a slightly higher level of detail than bump maps. They are sort of like the detail you see in HD morphs. I'm guessing they meant it to be an alternative to HD morphs in case someone wants to import their characters into video games.

    How good any of them are depends on file type and texture saving, and if compression is used (such as is usually the case with jpg) then that is also going to have an affect. .tiff files over png and png over jpg if you're not sure which is best.

    And yes, don't use both; waste of GPU ram.

  • lilweeplilweep Posts: 2,595
    edited February 2021

    hmmm the plot thickens.  Also, most PAs will put a Normals Off option in the mats.

    always wondered what that was about.

     

    Post edited by lilweep on
  • MelissaGTMelissaGT Posts: 2,611
    edited February 2021

    I use both because often enough, they have different details. In a perfect world, they're supposed to be duplicates and you would use one or the other, but if you pick pretty much any character in the store and open up the maps in the photoshop, you'll see different details in each...so both are needed to get the full effect. And to add even more on top, the HD add-ons offer even more differing details, so you would use all three. 

    Post edited by MelissaGT on
  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,172

    It's been my experience that bump and normal maps do two different things - that normals are better for things small to medium in size like wrinkles and scars while bumps are good for fine detail like pores.

  • @AllenArt - That's precisely the type of distinction I was wondering about. Including a normal map that does the exact same thing as a bump map would be a waste of time (and memory). But if separate maps have different effects, that allows not only for more realism (if done well) but also more variety.

    Take a character who comes with a pores bump and a wrinkles normal. Render without the normal map and now you've created a younger version of the same character without sacrificing the level of skin detail.

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited February 2021

    working in animation you can remove all the normal ,bump and glossy maps from the scene and they will never be missed , increase the defused maps value to max. and add a little gray scale to the glossiness  and your good to go. it will reduce your resource foot pirnt by half and increase your render speed by 5x.  with very good results. But this trick is only good for moving frames & not very efective for still renders.

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • ZilvergrafixZilvergrafix Posts: 1,385
    edited February 2021

    if you love bump maps can use the single diffuse texture instead, and you save gpu memory, is that ethic?, nope, it works?, yes, enhance your displacement compared to original bump map assigned? that is subjective!

    btw, @zombiewhacker, you can have a ton of different opinions about this topic but the final result is only yours. if videogames does not use bump or displacement maps anymore because Normal maps does both advantages over the previous ones maybe they are trying to do tell something to us, and nope, sliding to zero a normal map does not make a young character, you only eliminate detail and nothing else. but like I said we can have more and more pages of debate about this and just do that is more appropiate for your artistical sense and perspective about your own art.

    Post edited by Zilvergrafix on
  • AllenArt said:

    It's been my experience that bump and normal maps do two different things - that normals are better for things small to medium in size like wrinkles and scars while bumps are good for fine detail like pores.

    one does not have an advantage over another in terms of ability, here is a comparison between bumps and normals I did a long time ago (with conversion done with https://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/ ), as you can see they are pretty much the same:

    but yes they are meant for different roles in DAZ .

  • @Zilvergrafix - I wasn't debating anything. I'm completely new to the subject, which is why I'm asking questions.

    It would helpful if some character PAs could chime in with their perspectives. If you routinely create both bumps and normals for your characters, do you believe that the respective maps complement each other in any way?

  • zombiewhacker said:

    @Zilvergrafix - I wasn't debating anything. I'm completely new to the subject, which is why I'm asking questions.

    It would helpful if some character PAs could chime in with their perspectives. If you routinely create both bumps and normals for your characters, do you believe that the respective maps complement each other in any way?

    probably a PA needs to create both maps because their product can be used on 3Delight, Filament and iRay, and now with external bridges the possibilities are bigger, and now more with AO, Roughness, Dual Lobe and Detail maps

  • Roman_K2Roman_K2 Posts: 1,255
    edited February 2021

    davidtriune said:

    ...they are pretty much the same... but yes they are meant for different roles in DAZ .

    I thought it would be fairly subtle, whatever it (the desired effect) was.

    Ok, and now we get to tone mapping. WAAAAAAAY over my head, and now I see there is a notation for it in D|S 4.14x... I'm wondering if anyone has tried the new (?) Kindle version of the third edition of the Jeremy Birn book. Does it work well on an Android tablet??? $40.00, ouch. crying

    Btw on the relevant Amazon page there was a book about D|S "4"... you don't see that very often.

    Post edited by Roman_K2 on
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