An Introduction And Understanding Of Normal Maps With Modo

Low level knowledge about what's going on under the hood.
What you'll learn
Talk intelligently about what's going on inside of a normal map texture.
Understand, at a high level, what a normal map baker is doing when it runs.
Troubleshoot common errors in normal maps like seams, smoothing artifacts, and projection errors.
Have a solid understanding of what a floater is and how it can be used to add detail to a high poly mesh.
Requirements
Some experience with baking maps.
Some experience working in modeling, texturing, and UVs.
Description
In Intro to Normal Maps, Warren Marshall will be providing a crash course on normal maps and walking you through the technical know-how to fix commonly encountered errors in your normal maps. Knowing what's going on under the hood will make you a better artist because you'll not just be able to fix errors, but you'll understand why those errors are happening, which is a much stronger position to be in. During this course he'll start at the fundamentals and work our way up to advanced trouble shooting techniques. This will include covering topics such as: What a Normal Is, What a Normal Map Is, What Normal Maps Do and Don't Do, What Causes Seams, and various baking related topics to name a few. We won't cover specific applications or workflows because the idea here is to give you the core knowledge of what a normal map is - specifically, what it's doing for you and what it's not doing for you. Near the end, he'll talk about how to avoid projection error when baking your normal maps and he'll be showing you an easy way to add details to your high poly mesh in the form of floaters. Lots of great introductory content here, so don't miss out!
More about the Instructor
Warren Marshall has been making games professionally for almost 20 years. He's worked at Epic Games for the bulk of that time doing everything from level design to programming to environment art. He's since taken up freelancing and has been spending the last few years working on a wide variety of fun projects.
Overview
Section 1: Understanding and mastering normal maps
Lecture 1 Introduction
Lecture 2 What a Normal Is
Lecture 3 What a Normal Map Is
Lecture 4 What it Does and Does Not Do
Lecture 5 UV Unwrapping
Lecture 6 What Causes Seams
Lecture 7 Cage Baking Vs Distance Baking
Lecture 8 Triangulation
Lecture 9 Projection Errors
Lecture 10 Floaters
Lecture 11 Outro
Lecture 12 Bonus Lecture: Further Learning with 3dmotive
Anyone who gets errors in their normal maps and doesn't understand why.


Homepage

https://www.udemy.com/course/3dmotive-introduction-and-understanding-of-normal-maps-with-modo/