Punk Punk Old car Marvin Washington's Captain America Jen Morgan's Female character Moises Gomes's truck model Sumo
More projects using xNormal
Jul 28, 2010. xNormal 3.17.2 permalink
- Added support for Growl notifications.

- Optimized the software CPU rendering a 5%.

- Fixed reveral bugs ( displacement map computations with MatchUV, Win7 .NET 2.0 detection, OpenGL 3.2 with Optix, hang rendering, DDS mipmaps, etc... )

- Recompiled using the latest libraries ( Optix 2.0 final, DX June 2010, etc... )
Growl
May 25, 2010. xNormal 3.17.1 permalink
Fixed some bugs:

- The TGA files exported from xNormal now can be loaded correctly by 3dsmax.
- Solved a problem loading dotXSI / Collada meshes that was crashing the program.
- The Optix renderer will take into consideration the "Ignore this device" option.
Raid bugs
May 7, 2010. xNormal 3.17.0 permalink
Added support to import compressed meshes using the Marcus Geelnard's OpenCTM format. You can compress a 10M polygons mesh in 1Mb without any quality loss ! It also supports lossy compression if you need to reduce the size more! HERE you have a video showing how to convert a .OBJ/LWO/COLLADA into a .CTM file.
OpenCTM
Recompiled using VS2008. Now the program is 10% faster.

Upgraded a bit the quality of the AO using better probabilistic computations.
VS2008
Added support for Autodesk 3dsmax 2011, Maya 2011 and Phosothop CS5.

Added support for vertex colors in the PLY and DotXSI mesh importers.
MaxMaya2011
Added support in the .OBJ mesh importer to read ZBrush's Polypaint vertex colors.

The 3dsmax/Maya exporters/importers now can import/export vertex colors.

Also, it's possible to project the highpoly mesh's vertex color to a texture.
ZBRush Polypaint vertex colors
Added an experimental ray tracing renderer based on the NVIDIA's Optix / CUDA technology. The results are very good:

Optix AO results
Optix NM results

HERE you can download the results in OpenOffice's .ODF format .

As you can see, NVIDIA's GPU cards beat the i7's software ray tracing performance by a big margin.
I couldn't imagine what a Fermi card could do!

Go and test by youself! Just three notes:

    1. The Forceware 196.21/196.34b drivers are bugged and crashes Optix, so you'll need the previous 195.62 ones or the 197.13 / 197.45. For the Quadro you'll need the 197.57 or above.

    2. If you only have a GeForce card installed and you're using WinXP probably the Windows's watchdog won't allow you to render maps.

   3. Although Optix can run using a GeForce, I really recommend you to use a Quadro / Tesla card to get the maximum performance.
NVIDIA Optix
January 13, 2010. New tutorial. permalink
You can find a new xNormal tutorial at Eat3D:

"In this demonstration we go through taking a finished ZBrush model and generate texture maps from it using xNormal. Everything from exporting your models with polypaint in ZBrush, to generating ambient occlusion maps in xNormal are covered. "
ZB/xNormal tutorial
November 9, 2009. xNormal 3.16.13 permalink
Solved a problem importing .OBJ files exported with ZBrush 3.5.

By popular demand, the examples are now sepparated from the xNormal installer and they're available as an independent 7zip file.
ZB3.5 OBJ
November 6, 2009. xNormal 3.16.12 permalink
The SBM mesh exporter now works with Maya 2010.

Solved a problem rendering tiled/wrapped maps. The UVs no longer need to be in [0.0f,1.0f] range.

Improved the sampling quality for ambient occlusion, bent normals and radiosity normal maps.

Added an option to skip back-faces for the AO.
Maya 2010
Fixed a problem importing SBM meshes into 3dsmax that was causing the Projection modifier to deform the cage.

We've new forums available. Thanks to Eat3D !

Now it's possible to specify a background color independently for each map.
Eat3D
Improved the compatibility with Windows 7.

Solved some bugs.
Windows 7
June 8, 2009. xNormal 3.16.10 permalink
Made the ambient occlusion render softer.

Added an option to skip the file overwrite warning.

Added bright/intensity/contrast/gamma options to the Simple GPU AO Tool

Corrected a lot of bugs.
Softer AO
April 20, 2009. xNormal 3.16.8 permalink
Added 3dsmax 2010 support.

Improved the software bent normals rendering speed a 200%.

Optimized the BMP image importer a 500%

Solved some bugs ( Maya tangents, DX10 starfield, weld vertices, etc... )
3dsmax 2010 Logo
By the way... Matt Corcoran has made an excellent tutorial about using xNormal.
I recommend you to take a look.
Matt
March 17, 2009. xNormal 3.16.7 permalink
Modified a bit the mesh cages to produce better results for non-organic models.

Added the "break" and "weld" options to the cage editor.
Now, by default, the cage will be continuous. The user can make it discontinuous if required.

Improved the software AO rendering speed a 200%.
Bugs corrected
February 17, 2009. xNormal 3.16.6 permalink
Solved some bugs:

- OpenGL ".0f" error in the Simple GPU AO tool.
- Ambient occlusion / normal map misalignment.
- Minor problems.
Bugs corrected
January 8, 2009. xNormal 3.16.4 permalink
Added SBM mesh importer/exporter support for Maya 8.5, 2008 and 2009.

Added an option to see the vector displacement map's seams in the 3D viewer

Added a new tool: the SBM file converter.

Added a occluded/unoccluded color to the Simple GPU AO tool.

Solved some bugs ( AO from command line, unsigned height map, unnecessary tangent computation, etc... )
Maya support
December 20, 2008. Two xNormal tutoriasl ( in Chinese ) permalink
AboutCg.com has released an excellent tutorial about using xNormal to create a rifle weapon.

You can find it here http://cn.aboutcg.com/324
xNormal tutorial in chinese
Here is also another good tutorial in Chinese to create a fantasy character

http://www.arting365.com/soft_tutorial/3DMAX/h002/h02/1231395082d202232.html
xNormal tutorial in chinese
November 21, 2008. xNormal 3.16.3 permalink
Added an option to display vector displacement maps in the DX10 graphics driver ( in both object and tangent space ).

It's very interesting because:

1. It gives very good results compared with parallax/relief/cone normal mapping.

2. It's relatively fast ( you gain 100x detail with only a 4x rendering speed cost ).

3. It could be used in DX9 and OpenGL too without problems. Just requires SM3.0 or above.

4. It saves a lot of video memory ( compared with a pre-tessellated static mesh ).

5. It can be used together with animated models.

6. It gives you an idea about the upcoming DX11's techniques.
A lot of bugs were solved too ( cavity map MatchUV, Simple GPU AO tool cosine modes, fixed command line arguments, etc... ).
October 27, 2008. xNormal 3.16.2 released. permalink
Added an option to match UVs for subdivided meshes.

This can be used to render the maps faster and also easier ( you won't have to setup any cage nor to measure ray distances )... the primary rays won't need setup.
 Match UVs
The internal renderer can manage now very dense lowpoly meshes in case you want to use a subdivided model. This, combined with the new Match UVs feature, can be a very powerful tool.

Solved some problems with the height maps and now it's possible to render vector displacement maps. Also it's possible to render multiple maps in one pass.
Subdivision UVs
Added a new tool to measure the uniform ray distances in case you don't use cages and neither the new MatchUV feature. Also added ray blockers support.

The height / thickness / proximity maps are now auto-normalized, so you won't need to set the min/max distances manually never more.
Blockers Distance tool
Added support for Self-Occlusion Radiosity Normal Maps ( SSBUMP), used in directional light mapping ( in both projective rendering and also in the height map/normal map tool.

Improved a bit the ambient occlusion algorithm with occluded/unoccluded colors and added a new CosineSq distribution  to preverve better the detail for wrinkles and roughness.
Radiosity NM
Added Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 support ( including x64 filters ).

Added a new tool to generate ambient diffuse cube maps from cubic environment mapping. It also can output spherical harmonics coefficients.
Ambient diffuse SH cube map tool CS4 support
Improved the memory management for the images. Now should be possible to render bigger bitmaps without running out of RAM.

Improved the SDK's compatibility with some compilers.

Solved a lot of bugs.
DIMM
September 1, 2008. xNormal 3.16.1 has been released. permalink
I finally added RSS 2.0 feed support for the web. Hurrayy! Click on the right icon, using your web browser's RSS autodiscover or over the RSS big letters on the web's main menu.

Also added permalinks for each page's news ( the small blue and white arrows ).
RSS 2.0
Added an option to disable the tiles's updating in the preview window ( to gain some speed ). Also added a new map type ( the ray direction map ).

By popular demand, xNormal no longer uses adaptive sampling. It was hard to configure and the final quality suffered a lot.

Improved a bit the quad face support and optimized the loading times ( specially for the .OBJ importer ).

Added an option to re-topologize two meshes using tangent space normal maps to avoid seams ( "the base texture is a tangent space normal map" checkbox in the high resolution mesh list ).
Eye anti aliasing
Added some experimental GPGPU CUDA implementations.

Also solved a lot of bugs ( including the AA pixelization inherited from the 3.15.X versions, fixed the cone map tool, etc... ).
Powered by CUDA 
June 27, 2008. New tutorial. permalink
Anton Kozlov made a good video tutorial about generating normal maps with xNormal using an object exported from ZBrush.  Anton's tutorial
June 1, 2008. xNormal 3.15.2 released. permalink
A small patch:

Added an option to the "render wireframe and ray fails" to display UV seams. This is specially good to detect tangent-space problems.

Solved some bugs ( incorrect mesh clear, a crash when you set the sampling minAA=1 / maxAA=1 crash, etc... ).
 Seam detector
May 25, 2008. xNormal 3.15.1 released. permalink
Now you can render three new map types:

- Wireframe and CW uv face map.
- Ray fails map.
- Cavity map.
 Wireframe and cavity
Added 3dsmax 2009 support.

Also added a 3dsmax SBM importer.
3dsmax 2009
Added global illumination and radiance in the realtime ray tracing graphics driver.

Also improved the rasterization precision ( which is very noticeable while rendering the ambient occlusion ).

Added a new technology to default renderer to prevent seams. I want to thank
Morten Mikkelsen for all his help with it.
Cornell box
Finally, solved some bugs. By the way, if you use the old 3.15.0 better delete it... It used a buggy normals compression that could cause small but noticeable artifacts in the tangent basis.
April 18, 2008. xNormal 3.14.6 released. permalink
Improved a bit the user interface with things like:

- Multiple selections
- Drag and drop
- Autoassign cages
- Button to clear meshes

Also made the preview window bigger.
 Drag and drop support
Solved some bugs with the NVIDIA GeForce 7 series cards with the OpenGL graphics driver. I was running out of interpolators and texture units due to the complexity of some shaders... so they were restructured to use less instructions and registers. GeForce 7
Solved problems with multiple monitors.

Now is possible to specify if you want to use Dualview / MultiMon or not.
Multiple monitors
Added a new and interesting feature to harden the vertex normals. In that way the vertex normals will be set equal to the face's normal. Somebody told me that could be useful to avoid beveling for hard-edged objects like a cube.

And, to finish, fixed several minor bugs.
Harden normals
April 13, 2008. New tutorial about ambient occlusion/cavity. permalink
Donald Phan has made an excellent tutorial about ambient occlusion and cavity maps using xNormal.

You can find more info on the tutorials section or directly HERE
 AO tutorial
April 4, 2008. xNormal 3.14.5 released. permalink
Added a gamma correction option to the DX10 graphics driver.

Corrected the DX10 tone map operator to be more sensible to the exposure.

Added some ambient cubemap probes donated by Håkan Persson based on Devebec's lighting probes.

Solved more bugs.
 Gamma correction
March 29, 2008. xNormal 3.14.4 released. permalink
Improved the DX10 graphics driver with screen-space ambient occlusion ( SSAO ).

Here is a video showing the effect. Notice you can control the AO radius, bright and also the bias to solve self occlusion problems.

It runs very fast and it's taking 64 samples.

Currently is only available in the DX10 graphics driver, but will be ported soon to the DX9 and OpenGL drivers too. The technique can be ported very easy and could be used for dynamic scenes too.

Added a fake'n'fast  indirect-lighting feature. Added a new example ( the Cornell box scene ) to show the global illumination effect.
I gonnal try to improve it much more soon.

Enhaced a bit the quality of the ray tracing realtime graphics driver too. Now runs at the same speed than the previous adaptive version but at much more resolution.

Also recompiled the program to use SSE ( you'll notice a small 5-10% speed increase ).  Expect even more speed improvements in future versions.

Some bugs were corrected too.
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