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I was looking around on the net and saw that Samus' Power Suit in Other M had normal mapping on it, confirming the Wii can indeed do normal maps. The question is how do we get Brawl to do the same?

We have speculars, but why not bump mapping.

The wii itself is a platform, and can support whatever files that the game engine tells the wii to support. The engine itself is what dictates whether or not particular files are compatible with the game thats being played. Brawls game engine (to my knowledge) doesn't support them.

Would be fantastic though~

I thought I recalled someone saying that Spear Pillar's Palkia had Bump Maps.

Well, if that's the case then i'm mistaken. :P it's worth looking into

normal maps i've only seen was in kirby's return to dream land, but it was for a mic gfx model...

but if u convert the normal map into an emboss map (aka bump map), it still acts like a normal map (for example, my nova and ghost rider import had its normal maps converted to an emboss, or mariokarts import of some1 over ZSS which had the same thing applied)

Mind showing these?

Giga Bowser's skin in Melee is NBT (Bump Mapped).
not sure if it applies to Brawl, though I assume it would...

EDIT: correction, NBT means Normal Mapped

anyways, my assumptions were wrong... Giga Bowser's skin in Brawl is NOT normal mapped...

anyone wanna start a project with me in porting his data from Melee to see if we can get it working in Brawl??

EDIT: proof:
(https://cloud.fernode.de/index.php/s/a93LWMDg5SZfdFA/preview)
^ the white layer is a bump-map with NBT vectors.

dx8
dont u have the other m models in mdlo format?
we can extract em from there
about mariokart's stuff:
ive heard its a little glitchy in the lighting
and to make emboss maps out of normal maps is a [censored]
also, didnt u say somewhere that u had some lights in the subway stage using 4 different maps?

I actually did some research trying to port bump maps from Other M to Brawl.

Even if the format supports them, Brawl had no idea what to do with them. It didn't work.

I can give you my research if you want.

Also note that it also might have to do with the MDL0 versions.

Other M uses version 11, but Brawl uses version 9.

only way I can think of to get them in is to hex them directly...

my MDL0 template for HexEdit already has support for NBT normals... (any version)
just make sure the compCnt is set to either 1 or 2 (0 is just basic normals)
(1 for NBT where the stride would be 24, 2 for N or B or T with strides being 9)

as for a bump-mapped texture like that of G-Bowser's skin, you'll need a custom TEV specifically set for it (at least)

I'm no pro at materials yet and havn't played around with bump maps in GL,
so I'm not exactly sure how they work directly...

I wouldn't mind seeing what you got :)

I say "resesarch," but pretty much all I really did was brute force a couple of different methods to try and get the model or its materials ingame. None of them really gave the results I wanted.

https://app.box.com/s/h75p4z5w1hqhes6hvn5j

I left a few notes about what's what.

Another idea to do is to apply Other M Samus's materials to the already imported model. That might help.

i took a look at ur test of samus.pac file
the textures dont look right
they look like this
(http://i.imgur.com/Rulx4yd.png)
and they should look like this
(http://i.imgur.com/kVSMRiQ.png)

Hi, excuse me if I'm a bit sceptical but, where or how did you get this info?
Is NBT a term you came up with? where can I find more info on NBTs or can you link me somewhere?

most of my info came from the RVL SDK 2.1, anyone need a copy??
(PM me cause I'm not sure I can freely distribute it here)

NBT stands for Normal Bi-normal Tangent.

but that aside the other half of my knowledge comes from working with OpenGL


bump maps can be single intensity like that... most of the time they are...

as least... from most of what I've seen anyways...

http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/51399/what-are-normal-tangent-and-binormal-vectors-and-how-are-they-used (http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/51399/what-are-normal-tangent-and-binormal-vectors-and-how-are-they-used)

Yes, I left that file in there, but the actual picture the material is using is from Other M, "ball_n_bm," which is this:
(http://i.imgur.com/0TCAbPB.png)

@Tcll & @BlackJax96
Thanks for the Info!
Btw, just to be clear because I tend to confuse things, Are bump maps used in lighting calculations?
i.e. Do Bump Maps change normals based on the light source, like Normal Maps do?

Ohhh... I just booted melee in Dolphin and looked at Giga Bowser's trophy for a minute or two. There's a very similar effect on the Sages trophy in Brawl, if anyone wants to take a look at that.
Here's the file: http://www.mediafire.com/download/8zjw9ab8bndhx2x/Sages_(2).brres (http://www.mediafire.com/download/8zjw9ab8bndhx2x/Sages_(2).brres)

Those models would be the key then?

Though the maps I'm talking about are Normal Maps. I find bumps to be rather...Well...A pain in the arse to say the least.

not sure if the trophy actually has NBT data...
both HexEdit and my DAT import script report an unknown start structure...

but try looking at his skin when versing him in an event or something in Melee. ;)

also... I'm looking through the MDL0 right now...
looking through the attributes of the object data...
so far, everything reports having basic normals...

EDIT:
just finished searching through every object...
nothing...

the normals report a compCount of 0 (GX_NRM_XYZ)
and the attributes of every object report it's NBT slot being 0

if it's just regular normals with a bump-map applied,
then only the materials/TEVs would show signs of it...

in Brbx, TEVs are mis-pronounced as Shaders


EDIT2:


if I'm right, this could be a 2D normal map, where the alpha is the Normal
where the white fades to black is a combination of the Tangent and Bi-Tangent

Intensity - T+B
Alpha - N

if this were a 3D normal map:
Red - T
Green - B
Blue - N

I'm not exactly sure if I have the proper termage for the vectors, but you can get a basic idea of what I mean...

so is it possible to make a 3d normap map into a 2d normal map?

very much so :)

I = (R+G)/2
A = 255-B

-or to make it simpler, you simply take the 3D Normal map you have and Desaturate it in PS. Would achieve a similar effect if I'm not mistaken, since all the values would become grayscale values.

no
you need to keep the B separate and use it for the alpha...
though you'd want to invert the value from the way the alpha looks in that image >.>

desaturation would mix it with the R and G, which you don't want...
(you would have gray where it should be black)

take note of the shading in the intensity...
the light looks like it's pointed from the lower-left corner

in a 3D image,
the red is a light pointed from the left
the green is a light pointed from the bottom
the blue is the normal value


EDIT:
in PS, you'd need to separate the RGB values into separate images,
merge the R and G values, and apply the B value as a mask.

That seems a bit cumbersome if you ask me...and seems a little ridiculous.

want me to find a 3D normal map for you??

I've separated quite a few of them :P

I've actually tried making my own from scratch.

well just for the sake of showing off:

original:
(https://cloud.fernode.de/index.php/s/AZQfgGDKzqTnmys/preview)

desaturated:
(https://cloud.fernode.de/index.php/s/56ntk6tapkB2cxs/preview)

I = ((255-R)+(255-G))/2
A = 255-B
(https://cloud.fernode.de/index.php/s/MD3gw9ekt6aBBWN/preview)

yes I know my result doesn't look quite right...
apparently the red and green can be on opposite sides
(saw another example with the green on the bottom, but the red on the right)

I had to inverse everything to get it to look like the Brbx results :/

The colors shown on normal maps refer to the Axis. This is discernable in Maya by looking at the visual axis guid on the bottom left corner.

Blue = Z
Red = X
Green = Y

*subscribe*

yep
figured that out from playing around with them a while back :P

I've never actually made one though...
so I can only go off my assumptions :P

Well... I'm tired and I don't want to write a wall of text so I'll leave these here and comeback later to further explain.

4-8Mb gifs Ahead, be patient and let them load.

@Tcll
^This is what I'm talking about. If you don't want to further research because it's not proper Normal Maping, that's totally fine. I might look into it sometime, but not right now


Note: I know these are crappy zoomed-in gifs but my connection is extremly slow to even think of uploading videos to youtube, so deal with it. If you want to take a better look, go to Melee and look at Giga Bowser trophy; or Brawl and take a look at Sages trophy.
I might edit this if I manage to get my thoughts straight.

that's actually not all that bad for quality... :)

yea, I do see the bump-mapping effect a bit...
IDK... last place I can look is the materials...

it's not an NBT model, but it does have an interesting effect >_>

The only downside: there's only one texture in the Sages MDL0 for the actual body, and that's the ""Bump Map""

And that's probably why it doesn't look like Bump maping in the sages.

*subscribe*

I'm an idiot... I didn't realize, bump map vs normal map

the difference between them is a normal map actually follows light...
the bump map only modifies the light no matter what direction you look at it.

for a bump map, rotate both the model with the light, and nothing should change in appearence if I'm correct.
where the lighting would change slightly with a normal map.

the seiges only has a bump map, not a normal map, where G-Bowser has a norml map and a bump map.
(I havn't actually seen the normal map, but the NBT vectors make me think one exists)

Having dealt with such maps in Game Art Assets over here on campus, I can tell you that you that you're correct. Normal Maps react to the lighting, while bump maps do not. It'd be really cool if we could get bumps or normals to work on characters, cause it would increase what we can do with these textures we make and other similar things.

I envy you... lol

anyways, not just ncrease what we can do, but more show the power of what the Wii can do.

I wanna try to get Brawl to support the v11 MDL0 format so I can actually give Pika his fur. :P

normal mapping can be used to make his eyes look better and so on...
(I don't have to explain everything, use your imagination) :P

my knowledge from this also comes from Nexuiz

I'm just a little curious if the wii could actually support depth sampling
I forget the term honestly, here's what I mean: (look at the walls and the floor)
(https://cloud.fernode.de/index.php/s/e6MetnBZkHCRMyr/preview)

I used to have a GL sample that made a floor look like gold bricks...
I think it was called oversampling or something...

Well, I found something interesting while running about, Tcll.

Look into Environment-Mapped Bump-Mapping?

recently no... I've been going off legacy knowledge about it (very little) fo a while...

I'm currently designing the scene graph of my dual-ended graphic interface...
(I'm expecting the VIEWER plugin for UMC v3.0 to be able to render CryEngine3-quality graphics upon it's first release)
^I've gotten knowledge from Ian Mallet to help me out with this.

I'll get there though... eventually :P


however, I am interested in your findings :)

Well, my findings sadly only amount to looking around for the types of mapping possible for the Wii, EMBM came up and it sounds interesting.

well heck, I'm interested ;D
any sources or cites?? :)

Well, Technopedia has a very sparse rundown on it, that may be a place to start.

ah I think I found it: http://www.techopedia.com/definition/26365/environment-mapped-bump-mapping-embm (http://www.techopedia.com/definition/26365/environment-mapped-bump-mapping-embm)
boy this is quite sparce, but I think I understand it...

I'll have to look up a few other things to fully get the idea :P

I'll get to it when I get to advanced materials ;)
(the modern materials used in shaders which use more than the 5 basic definitions)

EDIT:
here's a better explanation: http://www.anandtech.com/show/298/5 (http://www.anandtech.com/show/298/5)

Falcon has a spec map doesn't he?

yea, but that's just specular... neither bump nor normal

unless I'm missing what you're pointing at :/

You could look at how that is implemented...are you actually able to edit Brawl's shaders?
I'm pretty sure the only way to edit the raw shaders is to write raw opcodes.

I don't believe BJ ever got in depth about how the TEVs work :/
I'm still playing around with GL's FFP to figure them out... >_>

EDIT:
I know how specular maps work though, but don't know how to describe it...
bump maps are like specular maps, but really that's putting it lightly...

I'm not exactly sure just how complex bump maps are... >_>

Well, Brawlbox CAN edit shaders. It's just that most of us don't exactly know what does what.

I'm absolutely positive that the effect can at least be replicated on a V9 MDL0.

I know alot about the opcodes... heck I've documented them in my template. :P

the algorithm is what puzzles me, as I've tried to get it working using blender nodes and failed...
would be nice if there was a bit more documentation and a better interface... heh

well there is a better interface, and UMC can easily be extended with it (almost, UMC's current internal model format is a knot), but the interface is a bit complex for me to deal with right now... >_>

I'm restructuring UMC v3.0 to have extendable material classes for modern interfacing so it'll be easier to support these.
but alas, it's yet another game of wait on my end. -.-*
(truthfully I'm kinda bored of playing it, but I'm gaining knowledge, so I'll go another round)

EDIT:
btw, v9 is more than capable of NBT *glares at Brawl Giga Bowser*

By opcodes i believe he was talking about the game's Assembly opcodes, unless i'm mistaken at least.

Editing the shaders in BBox isn't editing the way the game computes lighting, it's changing what feedback the game receives from the model. In order to force the game to recognize and implement a map that it doesn't natively support you need to tell the game engine how to read and interpret the data.

we're talking about the opcodes for the BP register, not the ASM

open an MDL0 with my latest hexedit template and you should see what I mean :)

EDIT: here's a screenshot from when I got the TEV's working properly:
(https://cloud.fernode.de/index.php/s/NdzN6EGC4q3XZJX/preview) (https://cloud.fernode.de/index.php/s/NdzN6EGC4q3XZJX/preview)
^link to larger image

EDIT2:
please tell me if I havn't released this ;)
I think I have though <_<

ah i see, i don't know jack about that sorta thing xD hahaha.

XD
wanna learn?? :3

only problem though is where to start if so... >.>

hah yeah.. Other M uses emboss maps as normal maps since thats what they normally are..

and yeah, the subway stage from Mortal Kombat 9 uses diffuse, spec and normal maps (along with some that uses luminance maps too)

I just remembered, the Nintendo Gamecube Tech Demo has a stone-gem pillar spiral-staircase where the gems are normal mapped.
I'm not sure if it uses normal maps or emboss maps though >_>
(I'm sending the file to my compy as I type this)
^my brother currently has my games HDD :P

I looked up the Gamecube Tech Demo on Youtube and found it. The spiral staircase uses bump and shadow, not necessarily Normal Maps (at least it's not named as such). So it might be. Found it a bit interesting though.

just extracted the ISO, the NDM files are the models, and have quite a few similar structures, as well as the data is actually named (strings exist in the data).

I should have a HexEdit template out for these in a few days :P
(unless I continue working on UMC which is likely)

EDIT:
also just about cracked the very simple DTX texture files.
the header is only 16 bytes, and the rest of the file is just the data

EDIT2: OT:
just now decided to look in the audio folder and found an H file containing:


I wonder if it's actually used, or if it's there for educational purposes

NDM sounds like a proprietary file format for the Gamecube's hardware to me.

I'm thinking ND Model
the game's name is "ND Demo" :P

there's also associate BGH and MCD formats for the NDM

not sure which is the priority format is though

quote:

Parallax Occlusion, that's what I was thinking of >.<

decided to re-look into PyStream (now that I'm getting into GLSL) and stumbled across that in this:
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/16886/Bray_Nicholas.pdf?sequence=1 (https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/16886/Bray_Nicholas.pdf?sequence=1)
I wanna try see if the wii can be made to do that. :)

Posting in this old topic to add some more thought to this. Did Samus' Other M model's bumped lines react to light at all in the cutscenes or game in general?