Stop Bludgeoning Normal Mapping

Give us some concrete examples to discuss and dissect

I personally find normal mapping extremely useful, you can archive extreme amounts of detail with minimum bandwidth, though you have give the gpu a resource. But yeah, sometimes I do agree with you, artists do sometimes overuse normal mapping when unnecessary, which can actually worsen the final render.

But that's just my opinion.

My observation is that normal mapping is nowhere near as bad as it was years ago. In common with any technique, when it's new there's a "wow factor", just having that technique on it's own is viewed as sufficient, and it tends to be overdone in order to emphasise the fact that a game has it. We saw this with coloured lighting too.

Regarding your other points and examples, the best effects are subtle: they look like a natural part of the scene, you tend not to notice them, and everything looks coherent and consistent. Unfortunately this doesn't translate as "good graphics" in the minds of many players; many players want to be able to see that you're using bloom, DOF, motion blur, etc, and an effect that just combines naturally with the scene doesn't let them see it. This has the ironic effect of cases where effort going into making a natural effect leads to players complaining that a game doesn't have that effect; example: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1445048-does-id-studio-let-you-inprove-the-graphics/

Either way you can't win, it seems.

Give us some concrete examples to discuss and dissect

I don't even know where to start.

And yes, I perfectly well understand why the normal mapping looks bad in these screenshots (and many many many more), but here's the lesson:

It's their mistake of putting it into the game without having it up to par with "baked" approximations which are at least bearable to the eye.

Despite it being a 2004 game, Halo 2 is the first time I noticed this problem. Yes. They had technical limitations, but so do many modern games. Halo 1 had normal mapping (and even more technical limitations), but it was always subtle and looked great everywhere they used it.

Halo 2





I can't find any screenshots of Halo 1 that demonstrate its application of normal mapping, but I might take some of my own. Don't worry, I'll try to pick the ugliest.

You haven't said what's wrong with any of those pictures

And yes, I perfectly well understand why the normal mapping looks bad in these screenshots (and many many many more), but here's the lesson:

It's their mistake of putting it into the game without having it up to par with "baked" approximations which are at least bearable to the eye.

Normal mapping is a baked approximation. You sculpt a super detailed model that's not usable in realtime, then you make a low-poly approximation of it and bake the surface normal onto your low poly (along with baking AO / anything else at the same time).

Ideally, it would look the same as if you were simply using the high-poly model, except with a blockier silhouette. Normal mapping on its own is just a way to fake higher polygon counts (while also putting the information from those polygons through the texture filter to reduce aliasing).

Are you saying that these devs have used normal mapping, but have also chosen not to bake static shadows/lighting into their diffuse textures?

And yes, I perfectly well understand why the normal mapping looks bad in these screenshots (and many many many more), but here's the lesson:

It's their mistake of putting it into the game without having it up to par with "baked" approximations which are at least bearable to the eye.

No, it’s their fault for using a classic (and deprecated) lighting system. Some of them are using Phong shading instead of a physically based model. This in itself will cause non-realistic transitions between the main surface into the “shadows” of the normal map.

There is nothing wrong with normal mapping itself. It’s their lighting model that is to blame, and it would not look any better if it was just polygons and no normal mapping.


L. Spiro

There was a time when everything was normal and gloss mapped up the wazoo (Perfect Dark on 360 springs to mind), but that has probably passed now. Everything looked damp!

SSAO seems to be the major offender now (bloom was previously, and lens flares in PS1 era), it just looks like everything has a fat dark outline to me... Far Cry 3 on XBox 360, I'm looking at you.

No, it’s their fault for using a classic (and deprecated) lighting system. Some of them are using Phong shading instead of a physically based model. This in itself will cause non-realistic transitions between the main surface into the “shadows” of the normal map.

There is nothing wrong with normal mapping itself. It’s their lighting model that is to blame, and it would not look any better if it was just polygons and no normal mapping.

I'd just like to note that I find many "modern" games unappealing due to the excessive amounts of normal mapping they use without sufficient artistic control or physically-based accuracy.

Baked => physically-based accuracy can be simulated statically even without the hardware to "update it" every frame. This is primarily about diffuse.

I reiterate, normal mapping is not the problem. Lack of artistic control and physically based (not “physically-based”) shading models are a separate problem.

As was correctly mentioned by Hodgman, normal maps are an “artificial increase” in polygons—neither eliminating the normal maps while keeping the same polygons nor increasing the polygon count would create a better result.

L. Spiro

Photo realism attempt always fail the uncanny valley test anyway. Most of the beautiful graphics games avoid this. Zelda Wind Waker was one of the best looking games IMHO (great animation helped too of course). The only other games that wowed me were Resident Evil 4 and the original Halo (realistic grass!).

I reiterate, normal mapping is not the problem. Lack of artistic control and physically based (not “physically-based”) shading models are a separate problem.

The problem I'm blaming them for is bludgeoning it without sufficient...

This is rediculous. I already explained my point in the original post:

There's a quality threshold between when an effect needs to be baked -- despite having many dynamic properties -- and when technology permits to achieve the same amount of static quality, but also properly capturing the dynamics.

The point of the topic is not: NORMAL MAPPING IS A PROBLEM.
The topic is: STOP BLUDGEONING NORMAL MAPPING.

As was correctly mentioned by Hodgman, normal maps are an “artificial increase” in polygons

Diffuse maps are the same thing, but regardless of dynamic lighting conditions. It's a texture map. Instead of having a point cloud, voxel volume, or trillions of solid colored triangles, we use texture mapping. What's your point?

—neither eliminating the normal maps while keeping the same polygons nor increasing the polygon count would create a better result.

There's an incredible amount of abstraction behind the idea of a diffuse map. Transmission and reflection themselves are both intransitively-distinct to the idea of diffusion, though both phenomena are part of surface diffusion's broad notion in many complex ways. Diffuse maps approximate a lot, but we subtract anything that is approximated in real time e.g. strong specularity is usually first for the boot. You can approximate any lighting effect (just as megatexturing boasts), but only as long as it's not dynamic.

Fuck all of you

lol

Dude, chill! And I see your lol and raise you a lollerskates.

I'm just sick of things.

I'm just sick of things.

See that's a more calm way to express your feelings.

Thank's for the optimism.