WTF are... NORMAL MAPS?

Normal map vs Displacement map vs Bump map... who will win?
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[georgioschasiotis]

I'm addicted to watching stuff about Blender, how did i end up like this?

[leoanhkhoa]

see Squarespace sponsor:

my brain while watching CgMemeStar : "But can we create a website *procedurally* ?"

[lawrencedoliveiro]

Remember, when using an image texture as a normal map, set the “Non-Color Data” option on the Image Texture node. And don’t forget to have a Normal Map node to convert the coordinates from tangent space to global space before feeding them to the shader.

[juliankandlhofer]

CG Matter's outro cured my grandma's alzheimers. She finally knows who she is again.

[Alvaldong]

He said "see you" instead of "bye bye"

[mrspecs]

I feel like he only explained what bump/height-maps do/are but only said that normal maps have 3 channels ...
for those who still want to know what normal maps do:
normal maps alter the direction in which the surface is facing compared to the actual direction the geometry is facing.
the three colors(coordinates) span a normalized vector. Red is X, Green is Y and Blue is Z.
an unaltered surface is this typical light violet as it has a maximum z (blue) component and ~50% the other (50% 'gray' is equal to 0 while 0% is -1 and 100% +1)
Imagine the vector as a pen balanced on the tip

[Phntomize]

Title: "WTF are... NORMAL MAPS?

My brain: Google Maps

[pinywood]

Why do you look young and middle-age at the same time?

[betanpc]

Even though i don't know how to use blender because of my smooth brain, i like watching this guy because he's pretty funny.

[FlareLaunch]

That was a sick video, straight to the point, quick, informative and the ad was placed at the end without interrupting the flow. This is the first video I've seen from you and I plan on watching more 👍

[sarvagyagupta]

At 2:21, the equation can be daunting at the first glance but it's nothing but "normalising" the normal vector. Basically, the vector we get perpendicular by finding the derivative (numerator) is some scalar and we want a unit length (magnitude 1) vector that's perpendicular to the surface. That's why we divide by the denominator. So all it does is give us a unit length vector.

[flareb]

I still don't understand but thank you for the tutorial anyway

[reculate]

You forgot to say the most important point, they are simply "Normal" Maps, ever heard of the normals every face got, the direction it points at, that is literally a part of the light bounces equation, it simply takes part after a light ray hits the surface, it decides at which direction it bounces, now "Map", We all know what maps are, well zoomers, I mean google maps, it guides lazy people who can't learn their streets where to go, but a normal map simply guides a light ray at which direction it should *bounce*, good luck with life everyone, baiii

[joaquix]

red is roughness, blue is emissive and green is metalness, gg

[bitskit]

When making use of smooth shading, there are two techniques called Goraud Interpolation and Phong Interpolation.

In Goraud Interpolation, the vertex colors are calculated based on their normal directions and the current lighting / material information. That color is then interpolated across the surface of the polygon that's formed by the triangle. This means that lighting calculations are done *per-vertex.*

In Phong Interpolation, the vertex normals are interpolated across the surface of the polygon and the color of each fragment is calculated based on it's normal direction and the current lighting / materials. This means that lighting is done *per-fragment / per-pixel.*

For obvious reasons, Phong interpolation is a lot more computationally expensive than Goraud interpolation, but produces a much more accurate shading that captures things like specular highlights.

Modern computers are more than fast enough to do per-fragment / per-pixel lighting, as is the case with Phong interpolation. But when you use a normal map, you're skipping the interpolation of the vertex normals and simply sampling the fragment normals from a texture image. This is less computationally expensive and gives you more control over how the surface is lit because you're essentially telling the renderer which direction light should be reflected on a pixel level. You can make a very low-poly surface be lit in almost the exact same way as a high-poly surface.

Tessellating a surface into more polygons can also help lighting appear more smooth. If you do this at runtime, you can have a displacement map displace the vertices of the generated polygons to add more detail to the surface. But if you're not tessellating, you can still use the same image as a bump map, in which case you're just creating the illusion of the surface being raised or lowered via a lighting trick. This isn't as good of an effect as normal mapping, but takes about a third of the data.

The use of bump mapping or displacement mapping is a mutually exclusive choice. Do you want more detail, or just the illusion of more detail?

Using bump mapping together with normal mapping is possible, but stupid and pointless. Just choose one or the other. Do you want to save memory with a bump map, or have more detail with a normal map?

In contrast, using displacement mapping together with normal mapping makes perfect sense because displacement mapping creates actual detail, but may not be able to capture some of the more fine-grained details that normal mapping does because it's limited by the tessellation.

[MossMelTV]

logged into youtube just to say how helpful this video was (and how it was fun to watch, nice editing!)

[רפאל-ב]

Wait, why would we use the displacement map if we already modelled the thing?

[Draculus]

This must be the best, most informative tutorial I have seen in a long time. Other explanations are way too technical and this video explains it quickly and easily without much hassle to someone who's just curious. Thank you!

[goliathprojects]

He looks like young Chris Hadfield with a wig

[GroundUpProduct]

Dude I love you, this shit cracked me up and it was fast pace catering to my ADD. Please don’t stop making blender breaking news videos like this