Texture positioning - Normal mapping
From TOI-Pedia
For an overview of texturing methods visit Texture positioning - Overview.
Normal mapping
Normal mapping is the fastest texture method. The downside is that you have little control over the placement.
Normal mapping works as follows: When texturing with normal mapping, the texture is projected in the normal direction of each face on your object. If necessary the texture can be slightly deformed Automatically by Maya to make it more suitable for placement.
The principles in the video remain the same, although it is from an very early version of Maya.
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Workflow
You normally undertake the following steps when using normal mapping to texture an object.
- You create a new surface shader (e.g. aiStandardSurface) in the Hypershade.
- You assign a texture to one of the attributes of the material. Lets take the Color attribute from the Base section for this example. You click the checkerbox behind the Color attribute.
- The Create Render Node window will open.
- Choose either a procedural 2D texture or a file texture node from the Create Render Node window. In this example the procedural Checker texture is chosen.
- Change the specific attributes of the texture node if necessary. In this case for example you can change the colours of the checker.
- In your viewport select the object(s) you want to assign the texture to.
- RMB-hold on your shader in the Hypershade (do not deselect the objects) and move the mouse over to the Assign Material To Selection marking menu and release the mouse button. The material is now assigned to the object(s).
- Change texture placement. Whenever you create a texture node a placement node is made with it. In the Hypershade menu go to and a shader network with the connections will appear in the Work area. You can change the orientation of the texture by rotating it, change the repeating pattern of the texture and much more. Placement is much more important when it comes to projection mapping, but more on that later.
