Normal Maps for textures

[DankeKTM21]

tracks will turn amazing with shade maps on textures? is this posible? or will?

[mace-x]

tracks will turn amazing with shade maps on textures? is this posible? or will?

not yet

[Garasaki]

I've tried this as well, but yeah it dosen't work.

I have seen DJ mention that it is coming. Can't be sure that is true, or when it would come...but would sure be neat.

[jlv]

Definitely going to do it at some point. It needs a different pixel program since the normals have to be in world space instead of tangent space to work correctly as the terrain mesh adjusts its resolution.

[DJ99X]

A few questions:

1) Will the normal map for the terrain be generated by the game or will it be an extra file (like shading.ppm)

2) How will the decal normal maps be blended? Are they just going to be alpha blended with each other, or will we have to choice to overlay blend? I'm guessing they will have to be overlay blended to the overall terrain map?

3) What will happen with shadows? Will shadows.pgm just act as a shadow map (ie making the lighting ambient wherever it lies)? Or will it just rely on shading.ppm (which will mean the specular will still act in the shadows)

4) If shading.ppm isn't used, will we still have a file to vary the colour?

[jlv]

1: It would be created from tangent space maps that go along with the decals (e.g. sand.png and sand_norm.png). When it renders a terrain texture it would convert from tangent space to world space with a shader program.

2: I'd probably just use the alpha from the decal to blend it.

3 and 4: I'm not sure. The baked shading won't get along with the normal maps, but old tracks rely on it for coloring too, so it can't just be ignored. Might have to add a setting in the lighting file that tells it to use normal maps instead of shading.ppm.

[Garasaki]

So terrain shadows would also be real time calculated by the game?? Meaning the larger shadows on the sides of hills, and such?

[DJ99X]

Nope. Only the angle based shading will be calculated. Ie what all the statues / bike and rider models do now.