The built in tool for making normal maps from bump maps in Unity is ok for when you want to do something quickly but I’d recommend against using it. You’ll generally want to make the normal maps in another tool (like photoshop) and then import them into Unity. It makes it much easier to modify and tweak them, there’s a free normal map plugin for both gimp and photoshop you can use and it’ll convert your image to a normal map.
As another option for actually generating the textures, Shadermap Pro is a good alternative to Crazybump and it costs a fraction of the price. I haven’t upgraded to the current version yet but it looks pretty slick and I’ll be getting it soon.
@lofwyre
Nice, that looks much better. You said in your first post that you’re making the specular map from the bump/normal map? I wouldn’t do that, try making the specular map from the diffuse map instead (no blur either, you want to avoid that too unless that’s the look you’re after). What I usually do is I’ll take the diffuse map, desaturated it, and then turn up the contrast up a bit. Depending on what it’s supposed to look like, you may even want to invert the specular map afterwards. The reason you want to make it based on the diffuse map is because that way you’re able to catch all the subtle details, darker rocks might be less shiny than lighter rocks for example.
The third image in your first post, the grayscale and blur edge one is actually what I’d be aiming for with the specular map in this case so try that one and see what it looks like (only play with the contrast if you want the darks darker and the brights brighter, sometimes you won’t even need to make any changes).
Looking at the diffuse, the rocks aren’t wet or crystalline so specular for this wouldn’t be natural. They’re just dry rocks and it’d look strange. The desire to have that shiny effect is great, but you’ll always be manipulating and manipulating wondering why the surface just doesn’t look right.
Also, some of the rocks in the diffuse are smooth and eroded while some look still jagged and sharp. Your normal makes all the rocks look smoothed and lumpy due to the blur to run in your normals process.
In the game industry, most normals are hand-painted to avoid that look that results when you feed the entire texture through some filtering process. I recommend bringing the diffuse into zbrush, mudbox, sculptris, or 3dcoat and going from there. I paint a pure black and white (not greyscale) mask of all the rock boundaries in the diffuse and use that as a base from which to paint a normal.
With Tessellation (which is available in Unity4), you can add more life/extra details to your texture without adding extra geometry. As example: You want a ground with stones bumping out of the texture and not just a plain texture itself? Then Tessellation is everything you need. (Dynamic Hardware Tessellation Basics | NVIDIA Developer)
Usually you’ll find Tesselation + the example scene which demonstrates this very good under Assets > Import Package > Tesselation (DX11). Make sure that your project is marked as an DX11-project. To do this, go to Edit > Project Settings > Player and then under “Per-Platform settings” there is a column named “Other Settings”.
@Jingle Fett
Yes I experimented with that a bit. Also I picked up shadermap and I can see how they created the normal and spec from a middle stage diffuse as you describe, it’s good to learn by example.
@QuantumTheory
First up… Love your asset store landscapes, just wow mate. I think at first I just wanted to get as much bump effect as possible. But you are very right, learning to do it properly is best. to make a dusty, sharp edged look would be better (and more of a challenge). “zbrush, mudbox, sculptris, or 3dcoat” I’ll look at these, do you recommend any tutorials for learning to paint this stuff by hand as opposed to processing. Thanks again, really appreciate.
@Mauri
Tessellation looks incredible, is there a big performance hit from this, how do you handle fall-backs for non-dx11 cards?