Example of tileable normal maps — What are 3D Tileable Normal Maps?

Tutorial by *Liam Yoo*

What are 3D Tileable Normal Maps?

Purpose of This Tutorial

There are three main goals in this tutorial:

☑ Understanding definitions of 3D graphics terminology.

☑ Acquiring basic knowledge of 3D graphic texturing.

☑ Recognizing strengths of normal maps.

A Definition of 3D Tileable Maps

A tileable/seamless mapping is a common technique to create patterned and extendable square image sources for 3D graphic mapping.

Step 1: Usage of Tileable Maps

Tileable Maps

⚬ A tile map is used for not only 3D graphics, but also 2D graphics in the computer graphic industry. Generally speaking, the most common use of the tile map is mapping on tiled materials such as bricks or ground in the video game industry.

Step 2: Normal Maps

Normal Maps

⚬ A Normal mapping is a technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and high polygon data.

⚬ In geometry, a normal map uses three channels (Red, Green and Blue) to store normal vectors.

A RGBnormal map — RGB channels of normal maps

☛ Tips: The normal vector is encoded as Red:128, Green:128, Blue:255.

Step 3: Usage of Normal Maps

Usage of Normals

⚬ Normal maps are used to increase the quality and details of a low polygon model. It gives a great advantage when real time 3D graphics are needed for a specific platform such as video game engines.

Images about an usage of normal maps — An example of normals

Step 4: Strengths and Difficulties

Strengths

⚬ Efficiency with the high quality result.

⚬ It’s an expendable and reusable source.

Difficulties

⚬ It is hard to draw or modify normal maps in Photoshop because normal maps are generated by RGB values.