10-12-2015, 01:57 PM
Yeah. One huge drawback using Wings to do this is that you can assign a texture, but, not any other sort of map. So, your using it to generate the map, but you have to load it in something else, to see the result. But.. at least its not some of the supposed "pro" applications. I have Rhino (bought it using my tax returns last year, since I liked the demo from ages back I once played with, and had always wanted a real copy), but to do this sort of thing you also need to install the AIR plugin for it, which is another almost $300, over the already over priced application. Guess that is what you get for something that has tool bars, drop menus, and sensible ways to do thing - unlike Blender, which was developed with the old theory, "It works for us, since we wrote it for our production company. What do you mean its hard to find things, or learn how to get to them?" lol
Still, the issue of trying to work out how to "match" the uvmaps led me to keep hunting, and I found xnormal. http://www.xnormal.net/ It claims to be able to convert a high res mesh to a normal map (among other things), and to match them up **even if the geometry differs**. No idea how it does this, since I haven't played with it yet, never mind how well.
Its too bad its not open source. And, I don't think it has an API interface for calling from another application either, otherwise it would be an interesting thing to be able to access from inside Wings itself, or to recode so you could... Always the problem with CG, or raytracing, or both - 40 different tools, all of them that do "one" thing well, no intergration between them, or.. you have to pay an arm and a leg for "professional" products, which people still end up using "third party" apps with, to do certain things... Its like the late 1980s all over again (back when, more or less, I bought a book on POVRay, and it came with a dish full of.. semi useful "tools" none of which where part of the programs actual editor). One would think, by now, we could get past this tendency. lol
Still, the issue of trying to work out how to "match" the uvmaps led me to keep hunting, and I found xnormal. http://www.xnormal.net/ It claims to be able to convert a high res mesh to a normal map (among other things), and to match them up **even if the geometry differs**. No idea how it does this, since I haven't played with it yet, never mind how well.
Its too bad its not open source. And, I don't think it has an API interface for calling from another application either, otherwise it would be an interesting thing to be able to access from inside Wings itself, or to recode so you could... Always the problem with CG, or raytracing, or both - 40 different tools, all of them that do "one" thing well, no intergration between them, or.. you have to pay an arm and a leg for "professional" products, which people still end up using "third party" apps with, to do certain things... Its like the late 1980s all over again (back when, more or less, I bought a book on POVRay, and it came with a dish full of.. semi useful "tools" none of which where part of the programs actual editor). One would think, by now, we could get past this tendency. lol