Hello, everyone!
I want to share with you my last little work: a very simple texture baking system named Mesh2Bump.
DESCRIPTION
This isn’t a complete texture baking tool, because its purpose is to work only with flat (non curved) models. A complete baking tool would require a high-poly model, a lowpoly model and a cage, while Mesh2Bump just works with high-poly low-relief models to generate the maps.
From your 3D model, Mesh2Bump can generate:
- Normal (Bump) maps
- Height maps
- Ambient Occlusion maps
And you can also choose:
- Output resolution
- Smoothness (blur) for each map
- Unique name of the textures
Everything about the textures computation is GPU-made so it’s extremely fast, but of course the saving process requires some time (about 1s for 1024x1024 textures on my 2009 PC).
WHY?
I started coding Mesh2Bump because I’m really bad with 2D graphics. I know GIMP quite well but I’m not an artist, so I find difficult to create good maps for my textures and I find easier to create simple 3D models. Plus, in some cases the image-based normal map generators (CrazyBump, Bitmap2Material, ecc.) don’t give the desired result, and they become pretty useless.
So, what’s better than detailed 3D geometry to generate normal maps?
HOW DOES IT WORK?
It’s simple:
- Attach the script on the 3D model
- Set some parameters
- Press the green button
And here’s an example: a simple quad with the generated maps, and a complete wheel with some edited maps (based on the generated ones):
ASSET STORE
I’m planning to release this little tool in few days, but I’m still waiting for some feedback from developers. As now, some testers found it useful in many contexts, so I’m encouraged to improve it as much as I can.
What do you think about it?
Thanks to anyone that will give me some feedback! 