Whats your normal map workflow?

[Tiba]

I have created normal maps before and I understand the process of creating a normal map for a single texture. What I don't understand is creating a nomal map for a diffuse map that has several different textures on it.

Do you break up the diffuse map and create the normal maps separatly for each section and then combine them? Do you create the normal map from the orginal texture images and then copy/paste/tile/etc... them into the larger normal map?

Any recommended workflows for creating the normal map for a diffuse map that has sever different textures in it?

Thanks!

[Talon]

I'm not sure what you mean for diffuse map that has different textures in it. Do you mean more than one model unwrapped to one UV set?

[stocko2k]

i'm kinda guessing thats what he means, so on that basis i would unwrap each seperate and then combine the normals into 1 texture

[Tiba]

Sorry I tried explaining it as best I could, yes that is basically what I mean. Let’s say you have a house unwrapped to one UV set, so that UV set has a roof, siding, doors, windows, etc... and you have a texture map containing all those different textures for that UV set Do you try to create the normal map off the texture you created for that UV set, or do you create the normal maps off the textures separately and them piece them back together for your final normal map.

Hope that makes better sense.

[Sharvo]

when getting normals through my diffuse i normally do parts seperatly so i have more contol over them and can duplicate certain parts or tweak them.

[Talon]

Ah. No, I'll do it all at once, but keep the bits separate... as it were.

If there's a massive difference in what the textures are, I'll set up groups for each part. That way I can duplicate a diffuse group into the specular group or mask it off and easily duplicate the masks.

So my PS layers would look like;

Normal (Group)
- Roof (Group)
- - [Roof Normal Layers]
- Wall (Group)
- - [Wall Normal Layers]
Height (Group)
- Roof (Group)
- - [Roof Height Layers]
- Wall (Group)
- - [Wall Height Layers]
AO Bake Layer (set to multiply - lets me apply it to the spec and diffuse at the same time, any edits I make to it are automatically applied to both)
Specular (Group)
- Roof (Group)
- - [Roof Specular Layers]
- Wall (Group)
- - [Wall Specular Layers]
Diffuse (Group)
- Roof (Group)
- - [Roof Diffuse Layers]
- Wall (Group)
- - [Wall Diffuse Layers]

[Sharvo]

yeah i was a bit vaque with what i meant my layers will be similar to Talons, so that kind of work style