Anti - Retopology Guide / Devolopment Thread

[SketchCode]

As the title says....

Turing low poly mesh with normal map data , To a near match with the high poly sculpts with PURE mesh data. This techniqe is not PERFECT ( Sometimes it is :) ) , it does its job well

works with soft surface and hard surface ( With Creases )

Here Are Some Demos ( Few For Now ) :
[Thumb]http://i.imgur.com/FqMXbM1.png[/Thumb]
[Thumb]http://i.imgur.com/fARxX9a.png[/Thumb]
[Thumb]http://i.imgur.com/gfcji3T.png[/Thumb]
[Thumb]http://i.imgur.com/FcvUKb3.png[/Thumb]

Nothing much Of devolopment here , this is nothing too Techinical , I can only discover better ways to improve the texture filtering

Here Is A Bad Short Step To Filter Normal Maps

So Here Is What You Need To Do ( You Either Need A Photo Editing Software , Or Blender )
- Take The Normal Map
- If It Is Lower Then 1024 Res , Resize and Increase To Minimum 2048 ( 1024 Processed Image Still Causes Bugs )
- Convert It To B/W , Do Some Contrast Enhancements
- Remove Noise ( If There Is Any , Some Devs Put Noise To Sharpen Maps )
- Filter It ( Blur It , Usually 10-20% Will Do , You Have To Do This Or Else You Will Get Sharp Pixel Artifacts , Lowering Will Give More Detail , But More Artefacts , Increasing It Wil Lose more Detail , But Smoother Results )
-Map Should Not Have 100% Black Or 100& White , So Clamp Those Values Down

Use That As Displacement , Subdivide Mesh To Give Geometry To Displace

BLAM! Done , This Works With All Models

IF , It is Hard Surfaced , You Have Mark The Sharp Creases Manually , if You cant Do That Let Me or Some Other Professional Handle it

I would Like To have Some People Use this Technic To make Some awsome 3D Prints , as Ripping gives you bad low poly results , hope this fixes for them

Note : UV's WORK 100% With This , And Rigs/armatures , So No More Normal Maps For Render :) , but for some extreamly low poly models , you *Just* Might need to tweak the Uv's A *ittle bit*

i would also like for people to expand this and improve this , Heck someone will make a converter app / resigtrable to automaticlly do this :)

[medwed]

Nice idea !

[Digivee]

Care to show how your displacement textures look for the examples you provided?

[Portugalotaku]

Holy shit dude.

[Kalimando]

Converting the normal to B&W to make it a displacer map is pretty common, but the whole advantage of using a normal over a disp in the first place is that it has directional data associated with it.

By removing the color data you essentially turn a slide into a staircase. If you can find a way to do this without removing the color data then you may be onto something.

[SketchCode]

[QUOTE=bigbadbarron;52100754]Converting the normal to B&W to make it a displacer map is pretty common, but the whole advantage of using a normal over a disp in the first place is that it has directional data associated with it.

By removing the color data you essentially turn a slide into a staircase. If you can find a way to do this without removing the color data then you may be onto something.[/QUOTE]

I Am Basically Turing This Into Non Color Data , On Blender , You Dont Need To B/W It , But For Some Other Renderer/ Software You Do , Well Mine Is Not Perfect , I Am Aware , If You Have a Solution I Am Happy To hear :)

[editline]14th April 2017[/editline]

[QUOTE=Digivee;52099301]Care to show how your displacement textures look for the examples you provided?[/QUOTE]

[Thumb]http://i.imgur.com/MHIwqR2.jpg[/Thumb]

This Is How It Would Look On Photoshop , But You Lose Slope Data

On Blender How ever , It Is Different

[Thumb]http://i.imgur.com/T94WBRl.png[/Thumb]

On Blender , I Found A Better Setup
- Non Color Data
- Blue Value To .502 ( Beacuse Normal Map Z Uses 128 to 255 Color Values Instead of 0 To 255 )
- Disable Alphas ( They Create Bugs )
- Enable interpolation if Disabled
- I Usually Use Box Filtering , But There Are Better Ones Inside Blender , I Used A Value of 4 , Which Seemed Perfect For It
- Also If It Is Using DirectX Normals , Flip The Y ( Invert Green Channel )

[parttimegamer]

[QUOTE=SketchCode;52098447]- If It Is Lower Then 1024 Res , Resize and Increase To Minimum 2048 ( 1024 Processed Image Still Causes Bugs )

Use That As Displacement , Subdivide Mesh To Give Geometry To Displace
[/QUOTE]
Wow! Your results are impressive, been searching for a work flow to add details back to low poly from normal map.
However how do you up sample 1k normal map to 2k? Won't this result in pixellation? Photoshop?
And what about subdividing low poly mesh which is triangulated? Which most game models are? Are you using the subdivide modifier in Blender or some other technique?

[medwed]

How would you do it in Cinema4d ? ...Hm

[Digivee]

[QUOTE=parttimegamer;52105003]Wow! Your results are impressive, been searching for a work flow to add details back to low poly from normal map.
However how do you up sample 1k normal map to 2k? Won't this result in pixellation? Photoshop?
And what about subdividing low poly mesh which is triangulated? Which most game models are? Are you using the subdivide modifier in Blender or some other technique?[/QUOTE]

You could always try [URL="https://waifu2x.booru.pics/"]https://waifu2x.booru.pics/[/URL]

It gives everything a slight painty filter, but its probably the best result you'll get

[SketchCode]

[editline]15th April 2017[/editline]

[QUOTE=medwed;52105015]How would you do it in Cinema4d ? ...Hm[/QUOTE]

Subdiving Mesh? or Texture Filtering

[editline]15th April 2017[/editline]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/IrHh1WN.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/kr3m3YD.png[/IMG]

Here Is Something I Forgot To Mention , If You Have A LOT Of Geometry ( 2M+ ) OR Your Normal Map Has Very Low Detail ( Not Res , Just Detail ) , You Can Go away By No Even Using The Blur Filtering Here Is A Good Example

Here Is A Good Example , The Texture Above Has Only Been Blurred 2 % ( Just To Remove The Tiniyest Of Artefacts ) And With Enough Geometry , I Squised Out Every Detail From The Normal Map To Get The Full Sculpt Detail

The Only Video Games Where EVERY Character Has Low Detail Normal Maps Are Dota 2 And Starcraft 2 , But Some Other Games Characters MAY Have It

[editline]15th April 2017[/editline]

[QUOTE=parttimegamer;52105003]Wow! Your results are impressive, been searching for a work flow to add details back to low poly from normal map.
However how do you up sample 1k normal map to 2k? Won't this result in pixellation? Photoshop?
And what about subdividing low poly mesh which is triangulated? Which most game models are? Are you using the subdivide modifier in Blender or some other technique?[/QUOTE]

But You Are Blurring On A Higher Resolution Afterwards , And You Can Upscale In Photoshop , And In Blender Also

And Subdividing Is Basically Adding Geometry , Its One Blender And Many Other Software , And It Will Keep Traingles As Long As You Use Catmul-clark Type ( Which Is Default In Every Software )

[medwed]

SketchCode - How would you do it in Cinema4d ? ...Hm . Blender for me black magic ;)
Subdiving Mesh? or Texture Filtering .All ;)

[SketchCode]

[QUOTE=medwed;52107878]SketchCode - How would you do it in Cinema4d ? ...Hm . Blender for me black magic ;)
Subdiving Mesh? or Texture Filtering .All ;)[/QUOTE]

Texture Filtering Can Be Done In Photoshop / Any Other Photo Editing Software , I Dont Know How About Subdividing Mesh In Cinema4D , I Do Request Thou :)

[episoder]

interesting. turning the normal map into greyscale is not the greatest or most precise solution tho. the spectrum bumps red. but... i just tried a bit to 'denormal' a normal map. even modulating all 4 slope directions seperate, it barely is possible to match all corners. weighted or bent normals just don't... wanna do. so... yeh. it need workarounds.

[SketchCode]

[QUOTE=episoder;52108277]interesting. turning the normal map into greyscale is not the greatest or most precise solution tho. the spectrum bumps red. but... i just tried a bit to 'denormal' a normal map. even modulating all 4 slope directions seperate, it barely is possible to match all corners. weighted or bent normals just don't... wanna do. so... yeh. it need workarounds.[/QUOTE]

I Dont Anymore , And I Am Working On Direction Displacement

[rensole]

I've gotta be honest, I've been trying to get this to work for hours now.
And to no succes in 3d studio max, is there anyone here who can help me out ?

[SketchCode]

[QUOTE=rensole;52112691]I've gotta be honest, I've been trying to get this to work for hours now.
And to no succes in 3d studio max, is there anyone here who can help me out ?[/QUOTE]

Give Me The Model And Normal Map , I WIll Do It For You

[George_Sears]

I've tried to use kinda same method in zbrush, on MGO equipment.
Not bad but quite hard to not let uv deform while making subidvs. Thus i've made turbosmooth of base mesh in max, then made more subdivs in Zbrush, and all problems i have is jagged edges on details (probably because i've saved in fixed maps in PNG) and some tearing of geometry
[T]http://i.imgur.com/kgPEJJ2.png[/T]

UPD
back in max it looks not bad either. But i think i forgot to invert green in normal map for right results, before making it be a displacement map...
[T]http://i.imgur.com/flxVeML.png[/T]

[SketchCode]

[QUOTE=george_sears;52133080]I've tried to use kinda same method in zbrush, on MGO equipment.
Not bad but quite hard to not let uv deform while making subidvs. Thus i've made turbosmooth of base mesh in max, then made more subdivs in Zbrush, and all problems i have is jagged edges on details (probably because i've saved in fixed maps in PNG) and some tearing of geometry
[T]http://i.imgur.com/kgPEJJ2.png[/T]

UPD
back in max it looks not bad either. But i think i forgot to invert green in normal map for right results, before making it be a displacement map...
[T]http://i.imgur.com/flxVeML.png[/T][/QUOTE]

Try Cubic Texture Filtering , I Works Kinda Well , Also Export The Map In TIFF or Other Higher bit Rate Format , That Gives Better Results

[George_Sears]

[QUOTE=SketchCode;52134859]Try Cubic Texture Filtering , I Works Kinda Well , Also Export The Map In TIFF or Other Higher bit Rate Format , That Gives Better Results[/QUOTE]

Ye, but it's still losing slope data and highly confuses some shapes.
I will try your blender method, as much as i don't like blender)

[SketchCode]

[QUOTE=george_sears;52135552]Ye, but it's still losing slope data and highly confuses some shapes.
I will try your blender method, as much as i don't like blender)[/QUOTE]

Hmm , i am trying out a way to separate xyz into separate displacement layers , then properly mixing it