What about efficient rigging methods?

For fakebumping, or as I woud like to call failbumping, you need to invert the Green Channel of all the normal maps you use. Create two copies of the normal map, with both of the copies having the green channel inverted. Then, use one of the copy and invert it's Red channel, so you have two copies: 1 copy with red and green inverted, the other with only green inverted.

This is the original one:


These are the two with inverted green channels, and one of them has inverted red.



You want to use both normal maps for your fake bumping. In photoshop, Alt+Ctrl+Shift+B or Image->Adjustments->Black & White. Basically for both normal maps, make them black and white, applying the same settings that you use on each.

Start your Photoshop canvas with the diffuse bitmap. Then place one of the two normal maps on top of the layer, set the normal map's layer settings to Overlay, and then use "Black & White" to preview results. It should make the diffuse look fakebumped.
Play around with the settings, but keep the Blue slider at 0 and mainly manipulate the Cyan and Magenta sliders (the sliders above and below Blue). The rest of the sliders at the top you can leave at default values or just change them to 50. After you made the setting that you wanted, apply it to the first normal map, and use the exact same settings on the second normal map. Make sure both normal maps are in the photoshop window, layered on top of the diffuse and are set to Overlay. Then set the Fill of each normal map to 50%, so you are basically combining the two results into one (half of the results of one, half of the other).

Now copy the blue channel from any of the two normal maps and paste it onto the diffuse. Set this layer to Multiply and it should make some of the brighter edges on the diffuse look darker.

Blue Channel:


You can now either just collapse the layers and use the fakebumped diffuse so that you can actually use legit Detail Maps from the halo games (preferred), or you can use the method that you used and save the fakebump as a detail map (not preferred).

In the end the diffuse should look something like this:


Compare the one above to the original you posted:


The diffuse should not look overdone, so you need to play around with the black and white settings as I said to achieve the most perfect result you want.
With this fakebumped diffuse, you can now apply the detail scratches that halo reach actually uses instead of using the fakebump itself as a detail map.
Edited by Xiao on Oct 7, 2013 at 08:12 PM
Edited by Xiao on Oct 7, 2013 at 08:16 PM

Holy crap, having to walk 308,013 Kilometers just to get to the flag... my feet would be hurting after that!

im pretty sure ill have to change my controls after a cap, poor W....

Not sure if you would still have feet by the time you get there.

Says the guy who can't spell "because" the right way...even with access to Google's search engine.
Edited by Dumb AI on Oct 11, 2013 at 10:55 AM

^this... this is why i can't take him seriously [proceeds to die of laughter]

I see what you mean. I tried overlaying the detail map that i made already onto the diffuse and everything was indeed backwards. However, my question is, how do you invert the channels? I was messing around with the photoshop functions but i couldnt seem to get it to work at all

Well in photoshop, go to the channels section, click on one of the 3 channels you want to invert, and just press Ctrl+I, it's that easy.

Wait what? Damn I wish I saw this like a month ago lmao when I catch you online pass me the model for the shield

this is a well known fact. Late to the party are we?

Also, you spelled "Kirby" wrong in your signature, might wanna fix that



Edit:
@Xiao: I found out that if you invert the green channel of the Normal, pull it out, and overlay it onto the diffuse at 50%, you achieve results almost exactly the same as the longer process you stated above.

Proof:
Your Process (Done by me)

Green Channel only

Edited by R93_Sniper on Oct 21, 2013 at 04:10 PM

No major differences...

did i just stumble across something amazing?

You can also take the red channel twice (one inverted, one not) and set it at a low transparency rate for overlaying as well (with the inclusion of the green channel already). Also remember to try to include the blue channel as multiply for darker edges, otherwise it looks way too white and bright. Yeah, I've noticed this before, but I didn't really try to use this method as I was used to the way I have done it before (which is the method I showed), so it doesn't really matter that much to me. Whichever one you like better.
Edited by Xiao on Oct 21, 2013 at 06:55 PM

Too busy, didn't read. LOL

I swear to god I need to update this a bit more often.

Hi guys! So, I haven't done much anything personal work related because I've been busy with college, Project: Contingency, and a some personal issues that have arisen for the duration of the time that I've only made side comments. That being said, prepare for a long post.

Part 1: Happy Birthday....question mark
So, after doing an extensive amount of work to get one very specific map done for my friend's birthday (and giving it to said friend late), I gained bit more insight as to how to do some really simple things with scripting. Kirby was helping me for a while with a lot of the scripting, so he'll be able to tell you just how much of a pain in the butt I was trying to get everything to work properly. That being said, I went back and looked at the scripting that he (and dratt) helped me out with, and thought I'd put some tutorials of how to do some halo related things. I also thought I'd release some pieces of the scripts that Kirby built for me, seeing as his hard work (lots of math) shouldn't go to waste.

Part 2: Halo 4 Master Race! Or was that Master Chief....
To clarify, I don't like halo 4 very much, but there were some things that stuck out to me in particular throughout the game. Namely, some characters and some guns. I figured out how to do some silly stuff with the extraction methods and now present you with true magic, right here.

See this ugly, disgusting, foul creature? Yeah, I got it rigged...:D...(imsorrydontkillme). I've got all the permutations rigged up too, but I think I should have added some more space for the jaws to be moved. Oh well. Sidenoting that, I'll be inverting the alphas for the control bitmaps to test out some color change tomfoolery. The color change mapping in halo 4 bitmaps is really weird and confusing and I don't want to deal with it. So I'm going to edit it like a loser.

Part 3: Pot3ncy
This actually refers to a member here in the forum: P3. He asked me personally to get him a bunch of stuff (see picture below) from various halo games. I don't have everything he asked for yet, but by extracting these things and playing around some, I got the general idea of how to do better max shaders. Lots of experimentation had to be done. I'll take some of the stuff he asked me for and release it (Considering it was on my to-do list anyways, just further down it)

(yes that's a frigate in the back, deal with it)

Part 4: The ACTUAL To-Do list
I think you guys might remember from a while back, I posted a To-Do List. Here's what it was,


So, out of all that, I released the H4 Mastercheif Model (rigged up n junk), I don't think I released the halo Reach weapons but I DO have them ready to be released, so i'll give you guys those soon. The Spartan I'm going to have to take a little while to sit down and just burn through that. The Frigate I cant make as a tag because of stupid collision issues, so i'll just release the model. The Other stuff I still have to work on, so it'll be done in due time. I'll put a newer To-Do list in here when I finally split up what I actually want to do




Part 5: The end!
No seriously, that's the end of this post, kthnxbai

Are you gonna release the elite as one of those cinematic models or are you gonna ingame it? (Cinematic model plz so i can leak h5 again)

I think it'd be cool to see that halo 4 elite with halo reach armor swapped onto the model. I'm probably the only though.

Or at least some damn arm guards!

I agree with Delicon. It would be cool. It's good to see that the community isn't dead, I haven't been on here in a while. We should really get a lot more people into HCE. Seriously.

Reach armor would just look wierd to me on 4 elites.
Edited by MEGASEAN2812 on Feb 12, 2014 at 01:41 AM

Before I leave you this fine evening (well actually its super early morning), I'm going to drop you a little something I did in about 20-30 minutes

Hey look, it's the most disappointing alien design to ever crawl forth from the bowels of 343 industries.

I actually really liked the Didact's design...

WHY???

Because I do? The design of his actual body is pretty plausible, and then his armor is even more cool looking. With perhaps the exception of (some parts of) his head, the design is really cool in my eyes. Probably the best out of all of Halo 4 with maybe the exception of the hunters

While I like the armor design, I cannot stand the actual design of 343's forerunners themselves. Of all the mental pictures I had of the forerunners, none of them amounted to 343's design. Seeing as the forerunners are this mysterious group of beings from a time long past, and are supposedly very similar to humans, I would've rather seen the design go more in the direction of something very similar to that of a human being, but more arcane (Yeah I know that's a vague description). 343's design looks more like something from Star Trek than Halo, and I find it to be atrocious.

Personally the Didact's head does feel very halo. Though its not exactly how I imagined the forerunners, it does feel like it belongs in the Halo Universe. The Rest of the body however is pretty close to regular human anatomy (save for the fact that the rig has 179 bones and its hell to try to work with all those moving parts).

I'm guessing it's because of 343's sudden liking for self-assembling tech.

I got a bit bored and copied a guy's work
Here's the guy's custom stuff

Note that there's a theres a bunch of missing pieces and the textures seem really weird

Here's what I showed him to exemplify what I meant about missing armor and junk


Also, you can find the guy's facebook here, because sourcing.

any thoughts?

I think his version of the Mark V looks pretty well done.

Yes, I like how he did some models.

The reason he looks like a space voldermort is the fact that he did those experiments which really messed him up. Him (before the alterations) and the Librarian both looked quite humanoid.

Ew that lime color.

The shaders doesn't look very good tbh...

I summon my multi-colored super soldiers.