Orb - Free low/high poly bump mapper

Antiarc · Post by **Antiarc** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 8:32 pm

http://www.soclab.bth.se/practices/orb.html

Looks like this could be quite useful! It generates bump maps from a high-poly model for use on a low-poly model, saving you tris and giving you insane detail. Hopefully, someone will find this useful; I know I certainly plan to use it.

Post by **nfz** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 2:45 am

Thanks Antiarc. I have been using ATI's command line utility to generate bump maps for displacement and bump mapping and this is much nicer.

labigne · Post by **labigne** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 3:01 pm

Thanks Antiarc

This one seems really nice. I'll have to try it

Chris Grant · Post by **Chris Grant** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:29 pm

Thanks, this is very useful.

Post by **tuan kuranes** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 10:22 am

My preference for generating this normal map goes LARGELY to NVIDIA's one :

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/melody_home.html

win32 only
nice gui
lots of option
control
Can generate progressive mesh very conveniently (you can save LOD at the level you want)
imports 3ds, obj,
works on all ATI or Nvidia indiferently
nice Manuals given with in PDF that explains EVERYTHING with screenshot and math explainations of the trick

just to give some infos here :

This technique is "Detail Preserving Simplification"

this could be done using materials shaders called
offset bump mapping, Parallax mapping, displacement mapping or
dot3-bump mapping

Another GUI tool is here :

http://www.delphi3d.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=233
(obj)

Ati's one is here :
http://www.ati.com/developer/tools.html
(painful to use)

This looks very similar to the optimization as far cry calls "polybump" ?
(check here http://www.farcry-thegame.com/uk/technology.php)

Post by **Kojack** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:57 pm

Well, not quite all nvidia and ati cards, Melody requires pixel shader 2.0.

Post by **Guest** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:18 pm

Didn't seend that in doc, and here ati 9600se with pvs 2.0 ...
Too bad it needs that...

Perhaps you try with an emulator...
(there's a thread in ogre forums on some pvs emulator... )

It is really a lot more powerful than any other tools that does that sort of things... so it's perhaps worth the trouble if you really need it...

yap_wil · Post by **yap_wil** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:40 am

Hi.

Does anyone know what happened to the ORB page? Has it moved?

Thanks.

Post by **nfz** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 3:49 pm

They restructured their website. Here is the new link:
http://engineering.soclab.bth.se/tools/177.aspx

yap_wil · Post by **yap_wil** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:45 pm

Thanks nfz

semicolon · Post by **semicolon** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 5:26 am

Thanks Antiarc. However I couldn't get the link to work... Well it might be down temporarily.

Semicolon

yap_wil · Post by **yap_wil** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 7:30 am

It works here...

bappy · Post by **bappy** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:59 pm

well , i tested orb and melody (few month ago) and i can assume you that orb is very very usefull and faster.
Some people will say that the interface is not very good, but if you want a tool to generate the normal between a low poly and a high poly, use orb.
melody is slow, and you have strange result with it.

that s my experience and opinion. see u next.