My first attempt at bump mapping in AM

[Duke]

Hi all

 

I made this mike as part of my music video project. and have run into a problem.

 

The top and bottom mesh's are the exact same decal, it kame out pretty well at first and looks quite cool, until I decided to make it a bump map, as I wanted the wire mesh to stand out to add detail. so top part bump mapped, bottom part is just the decal.

[attachmentid=21147]

now for the question:

Do I forget about the bump mapping and just leave the top section same as the bottom half.

 

Or: if someone can explain to me what I'm doing wrong that the decal comes out white? (It is originally a grayscale .tga image)

 

And please as always, comments will be appreciated.(by the way the mid section has not been textured yet)

 

Leo

[jpappas]

Leo,

 

We're both working on the same old fashioned microphone! Actually, I got to a point where I thought it looked OK so I haven't touched it in a few weeks.

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=196875

 

I like the look of your bump map on the top, my suggestion would be to keep it, and if possible to shrink the lines so the wire mesh is even tighter. For the bottom, isn't the bottom of these microphones solid? I thought they only recorded from the top, but just for artistic purposes, I do think making the bottom look different maks it look more interesting. BTW, if you ever flick by CNN during the Larry King show I noticed the show uses a CG image of this exact microphone for when it goes to a commercial break.

 

-Jim

[rusty]

Leo,

 

A bump map does not add any color. It only adds the illusion of 'bumps' if you will based on the shades of gray (white=raised, black=sunken). You can add the image as both a color and a bump map and this is common practice. The color map can be gray scale or colored but the bump map should always be gray scale (you can get lazy and use a color image for both and this will work okay in many cases).

 

All you do is decal the image as usual leaving the map type as color (the default) then, right click on the Image Section (not the image) and select 'add image'. Then you make this one a bump map. I sometimes use up to 8 or 9 layer maps (called layered mapping... duh!) by convention the first one is color, the next one(s) are bump, then specular intensity and size then diffuse. There is a tut on my site which goes into detail on this (url in signature, go to Gallery and look at the bottom of the page).

 

Hope this helps!

Rusty

[Duke]

Leo,

 

We're both working on the same old fashioned microphone! Actually, I got to a point where I thought it looked OK so I haven't touched it in a few weeks.

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=196875

 

I like the look of your bump map on the top, my suggestion would be to keep it, and if possible to shrink the lines so the wire mesh is even tighter. For the bottom, isn't the bottom of these microphones solid? I thought they only recorded from the top, but just for artistic purposes, I do think making the bottom look different maks it look more interesting. BTW, if you ever flick by CNN during the Larry King show I noticed the show uses a CG image of this exact microphone for when it goes to a commercial break.

 

-Jim

 

JIM! I got such a fright when you said that we were making the same mike, I am glad when I saw that they are quite different..

I have decided to rather leave the bump mapping on the mike for now, possibly will look at it if I have time later. I seem to recall that the mike's are solid at the bottom but I thought it looked cool this way,,, (call it artistic flair)

it's for a kids video series that I'm making this so they wouldn't know the diff's.

 

I've seen the one on Larry King, but forgot about it completely. but now that you've brought it up I'll check it out again.

 

Thanx

 

Rusty.

 

Thanx for your help I have gone to your website before and saw some cool stuff there, I'll be going back there right away, thanx to your post.

 

thanx dude

 

Leo

[Jeetman]

I'm not an expert at bump maps and you may know this already but I believe that when you flag a decal as a bump, the shades of the decal dictate if it's recessed or protruding. The lighter colors of the bump map protrude and darker ones recess.

 

I think the gray color you're getting is actually the model color because the bump only controls depth. If you assign a material color or just a color to the group, it should change the color and still show the bump depth.

 

You can try to do what I did which worked pretty good. Place the same "modified" decal over the bump decal but make sure it is flagged as a plain decal.

 

I did this for my Sponge Bob model. Instead of modeling the pores of the sponge, I used a gray scale bump and then took the same gray scale layout and saved it as a new file. I then changed the gray color spots to an olive green and flood filled the rest with the same yellow color I used as my sponge material.

 

I then placed the new decal (as a plain decal) right on top of the bump map which worked perfect. I attached a render. I still need to do the sides but you get the idea.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Jeetman

[jpappas]

Hey Leo,

 

You certainly don't need to worry about modelling something like this! Heck, I made mine just for fun too, that's what A:M is for!

 

If you plan to model the audio cable coming out of the microphone I'd love to see more posts here on how you attack it. I ended up making a series of cylinders each with a bone so I could move and twist the cable as needed, but it didn't work the way I had hoped, so I have to revisit that at some point.

 

-Jim

[Duke]

Thanx Jeetman

 

I'll add your directions to my collection of handy tips. I appreciate it.

 

BTW, love the Sponge Bob, He's the nuts!

 

Leo

 

Hey Leo,

 

If you plan to model the audio cable coming out of the microphone I'd love to see more posts here on how you attack it. I ended up making a series of cylinders each with a bone so I could move and twist the cable as needed, but it didn't work the way I had hoped, so I have to revisit that at some point.

 

-Jim

 

Hey Jim

 

I have been giving some thought to the cables, Ill be needing allot of them for the guitars and amps etc.

I would probably do it with sweeper and then make some pose sliders for the movements. but then again, I am just thinking as I write this post. might not work with poses.. anyway, I'll definitely show what I've done and possibly how I got there.

 

BTW, forgot to mention that your mike looks cool

Leo

[MattWBradbury]

I don't think that's bump mapping. The top half of the mic looks like it is using displacement mapping, and the bottom looks like it is just color map. I suggest using a normal map of the bump map decal because the intended geometry is curved rather than rough and rigid. You could also make a transparency map which will make only the wire mess visible. You could then add the same dakr geometry to the inside of the mic so it looks like the foam covering.

 

 

Source

[Duke]

Hi Matt

 

The top is a bump map I used, it is the same as the bottom image which is a color map, when I selected displacement it gave me a very fuzzy almost hairy looking finish so I selected bump and set the percentage down to round 20% and that came out like the image above.

 

I have decided to rather leave the bump or displacement. as I rendered it out in my chore and it came out nicely. I'm happy with the end result.

 

Here's the result.

[attachmentid=21157]

 

Thanx for the suggestions, I appreciate it.

Leo