Nvidia NormalMapFilter

[SushiMaxC]

hey guys,

just downloaded this new plugin for photoshop in order to create a normal map for 3ds max. problem is i cant find it anywhere in photoshop. says it should be under filters>NVIDIA tools>NormalMapFilter but it simply isnt there and there is no traces of it, at least on photoshop. have i done something wrong? anyone know how to get this working?

URL for download is: NVIDIA Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop (Normal/Cube Maps, DDS)

Cheers in advance

[SushiMaxC]

Anybody???

[ganyt]

Perhaps you have to recheck it in your ps/plugins. Mine looks like this: The "Plug-ins" and "Preset" are two new installed folders, everything else is what it's inside in order:



Opened the PS and I see it's in the filter, ready to use!

By the way, what its use? Can it make 3D out of the flat pics ?

[SushiMaxC]

Oh wow this thread has been open for a while...

Thank you for the reply, I'll try this asap.

The normal map filter allows you to give 2d texture maps the illusion of being 3d, by calculating how the pixels react to light. This means that you can use this texture on a model created in a 3d program to give this illusion to it, without taking up much needless resources creating numerous polygons. This would slow down a game engine and is useful in that respect. If you have played unreal tournament 3 for example, you will notice the bumps and the way light reflects off them. These are not physically 3d, just normal maps.

Hope that helps mate!

[SushiMaxC]

hmmmm... it's all laid out as above but still I can't see it. Is it something do do with the version of photoshop? I have CS4, maybe it was for CS3?

[SushiMaxC]

Ok right after a LOT of searching around, I've discovered that the problem is that I have vista 64-bit (a VERY common problem for game studios). The plugin is not compatible with this platform, so it will not work and Nvidia have stopped working on their photoshop plugins (or so I've heard).

I found an alternative plugin called xNormal, which is a third-party plugin doing the same job and compatible with this type of operating system. This does the trick and goes far.

Cheers for the replies!