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Post 1 \| New	Posted February 24th, 2003
Superfly Driver um, errr, well, you see... Joined: Feb '03 Posts: 74	After a lot of experimenting i have come up with a really simple and logical way of making perfect normals. I will post proof pictures on my thunderbird page shortly. My main point is do people want me to write a tutorial on my discovories? Heres a breif outline. the best time to work on normals is after you split the car up into damaged parts etc, but BEFORE you do the dummies. First off switch 1 of your views to TOP and disable the see through option. Now select any faces that are more or less faces straight up towards you. Detach these face and save as a new object (call it chassis_top). Now hide all objects except this new one and are go, surface normals, calculate. You should see this mostly smooths out all the shading on these faces. Save it and then switch the view to RIGHT (non see through). Again select any faces that face straights towards you, detach them and calculate the normals. Do this for TOP, RIGHT, LEFT, BOTTOM, FRONT and BACK. When you have done all this, reunite the 6 new objects plus the original (which will probably now have very few faces left), by selecting them all then pressing Create Objects, UniteSelect. Distinct join lines in surfaces that should be smooth are usually caused by broken vertices. to overcome this go Select Quadr and select the point where the join lines seem to meet with the right mouse button (drag). Now use Create, Objects, Uniteselect on that vertice to smooth the surface out. ------------------ Outstandlingly zealous, possibly mad, probably has more teeth than brain cells...

Posted February 24th, 2003

Superfly Driver
um, errr, well, you see...

Joined: Feb '03
Posts: 74

After a lot of experimenting i have come up with a really simple and logical way of making perfect normals.
I will post proof pictures on my thunderbird page shortly.
My main point is do people want me to write a tutorial on my discovories?

Heres a breif outline.
the best time to work on normals is after you split the car up into damaged parts etc, but BEFORE you do the dummies.

First off switch 1 of your views to TOP and disable the see through option. Now select any faces that are more or less faces straight up towards you. Detach these face and save as a new object (call it chassis_top). Now hide all objects except this new one and are go, surface normals, calculate. You should see this mostly smooths out all the shading on these faces. Save it and then switch the view to RIGHT (non see through). Again select any faces that face straights towards you, detach them and calculate the normals. Do this for TOP, RIGHT, LEFT, BOTTOM, FRONT and BACK. When you have done all this, reunite the 6 new objects plus the original (which will probably now have very few faces left), by selecting them all then pressing Create Objects, UniteSelect.

Distinct join lines in surfaces that should be smooth are usually caused by broken vertices. to overcome this go Select Quadr and select the point where the join lines seem to meet with the right mouse button (drag). Now use Create, Objects, Uniteselect on that vertice to smooth the surface out.

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Outstandlingly zealous, possibly mad, probably has more teeth than brain cells...

Post 2 \| New	Posted February 24th, 2003
Superfly Driver um, errr, well, you see... Joined: Feb '03 Posts: 74	Smooth surfaces: Contrary to what oleg has written in his tut. Shading on a smooth surface is all about rotating normals. The little gren normals lines should radiate out at right angles the vehicles surface in order to look smooth. How to do it: Select the faces you want to be smooth and detach as a new object. Now go Surface, Normals, Projection. Now click on the faces you want to edit normals for, BUT do it in the view where the majority of the faces are facing you (e.g. if you are smoothing the bonnet, click the faces in the TOP view). Once this is done the surface should appear pretty smooth, but will also look a bit dark. Click to a view where the selected faces are side-on towards the camera (in the case of the bonnet this would be either the right or left view). Now select all vertices in the view, press the SEL button down and use the Normals rotate tool in the view until the normals line are pointing straight away from the surface. Do this for every smooth part of you car and your sorted. If requested I will write a further in depth tutorial explaining how normals actually work and detailing where each of the above methods would be used (including pictures of course) anyone interested? ------------------ Outstandlingly zealous, possibly mad, probably has more teeth than brain cells...

Post 2 | New

Posted February 24th, 2003

Superfly Driver
um, errr, well, you see...

Joined: Feb '03
Posts: 74

Smooth surfaces:

Contrary to what oleg has written in his tut. Shading on a smooth surface is all about rotating normals. The little gren normals lines should radiate out at right angles the vehicles surface in order to look smooth.

How to do it: Select the faces you want to be smooth and detach as a new object. Now go Surface, Normals, Projection. Now click on the faces you want to edit normals for, BUT do it in the view where the majority of the faces are facing you (e.g. if you are smoothing the bonnet, click the faces in the TOP view).

Once this is done the surface should appear pretty smooth, but will also look a bit dark. Click to a view where the selected faces are side-on towards the camera (in the case of the bonnet this would be either the right or left view). Now select all vertices in the view, press the SEL button down and use the Normals rotate tool in the view until the normals line are pointing straight away from the surface.
Do this for every smooth part of you car and your sorted.

If requested I will write a further in depth tutorial explaining how normals actually work and detailing where each of the above methods would be used (including pictures of course)

anyone interested?

------------------
Outstandlingly zealous, possibly mad, probably has more teeth than brain cells...

Post 3 \| New	Posted February 24th, 2003
Azz the barbarian. grrr Joined: Feb '03 Posts: 1,785 Type: Administrator	lol, that was pretty much what I worked out at some point last night. If you want to write a tute I'd be happy to post it on my site.. ------------------ azz.gouranga.com est. 1998 (I am oldskoolier than joo)

Post 4 | New

Posted February 26th, 2003

Cerbera
Ben 'Cerbera' Millard

Joined: Feb '03
Posts: 1,800

I thought a 'normal' when talking about light was a line perpendicular to a surface where light was reflected off...to demonstrate that the incident angle = the reflection angle?

If that's the case, then hopw come Zmod doesn't just set the normals perpendicular to whatever bit they are set too? I guess if they are on the join points of the polygons then getting a perpendicular line would be a case of averaging though, which might lead to weird reults...

/ramble. ?:

------------------

My Grand Theft Auto Handling Editor My GTA Tutorials

Post 5 \| New	Posted February 26th, 2003
Azz the barbarian. grrr Joined: Feb '03 Posts: 1,785 Type: Administrator	the main problem is that a curve isn't a curve ib zmod unless you're going for astronomical poly counts. so you can adjust the normal to give a best estimate of how the light would reflexct. yes the program can calculate the perpendicular, but it doesn't give a smooth appearance to the car, so you have to tweak. ------------------ azz.gouranga.com est. 1998 (I am oldskoolier than joo)

Post 6 \| New	Posted February 26th, 2003
Mewish Joined: Feb '03 Posts: 243	rant Meh, You damn 3D people with your normal talk. In my day we made cars in PSP, not some pussyfoot 3D program an oh-leg put together. Bahh! shakes cane It'll be a grand day when your stupid 3D boxamations are usless because of the lack of multiplayer features and you'll come crawling back to the world of 2D old and uneducated, and you'll just have to start over. Where's your GOD now? /rant ~Mewish - Essence de Chat

Post 6 | New

Posted February 26th, 2003

Mewish

Joined: Feb '03
Posts: 243

*rant*

Meh,
You damn 3D people with your normal talk. In my day we made cars in PSP, not some pussyfoot 3D program an oh-leg put together. Bahh! *shakes cane* It'll be a grand day when your stupid 3D boxamations are usless because of the lack of multiplayer features and you'll come crawling back to the world of 2D old and uneducated, and you'll just have to start over. Where's your GOD now?

*/rant*

~Mewish - Essence de Chat

Post 7 \| New	Posted February 26th, 2003
eddy Midgetman Joined: Feb '03 Posts: 153	I think the tut is well worth doing, and definately try and include pics. There's always a time when theres a few normals pointing the wrong way. ------------------

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