Even a fool prove software couldn't save an idiot!

From my previous post (frost giant revisited), I said ORB wouldn't run because a missing opengl extension. Also xnormal refuses to run with the same error. And guess what. I set the Nvidia graphic "extension limit" to on. I don't remember why or when. Now orb run flawlessly aswell. Aswell as Xnormal in OpenGL mode. Clearly not the software mistakes here... lol

Welcome to... 0wn3dville

So I'm on my way back from my office. Here's what I spotted on my way home. It's a spa and health center, but specializing in foot reflexiology. Either the owner loves linux so much and thought "aaah no one ever heard of linux beside me, the logo is cool, heck why not using it for my business, no one will know anyway" or in opposite, never heard of linux before and got ripped by the designer he/she hired. ROFLMAO.

It's 100% untouched copy of the Gnome Project logo. Although I'm no businessman myself, I do think this is bad example of business. How can an owner don't really care about critical stuffslike this, specially the image and "soul" of the business he/she runs?

Why not modified it just a little bit before using the logo, maybe keep the toes but loose the G shape. That wouldn't so hard to do isn't it? Geez!

pidgin 2.0

Well, this isn't anything about CG. But pidgin 2.0 is out. Pidgin was formerly known as gaim. They changed the name into pidgin to settle some legal issues with AOL (with their AIM instant messenger... who's using that anyways). Anyways gaim is one of my favorite instant messaging client. Simply because it supports tons of protocols. The only downside is that this software is kind of huge. Yet it's safe and support linux. Other clients I use are Miranda and easymessage. Pidgin 2.0 was said to have better support on file transfers. I installed it and the GTK theme looks more clean and pretty on windows.

You can visit their website at www.pidgin.im

Frost giant revisited part deux : Commercial softwares VS free (both beer and speech) softwares showcase

Well, got my sinus operated. The experience itself : priceless! I mean how many times you get operation or do you even expect to get operation? ROFL. When they drag me to the room and told to lay down all i see is the huge lamp on the ceiling. Everything is white. Whoa... they gonna turn me into Strogg! Wohoo!

Started to get anxious and the nurses sticking stuffs to my body also plugged my hand with the infus needle. 10 o'clock the anaestetic drug flows in, heh, I'm telling you that's one cool experience. You started to feel like sleepy but veeeerrry sleepy. You resisted but yet your eyes are very heavy. then everything went black. When I woke up I can feel my bed was dragged outside. Saw the clock on the wall 11 am. 1 hour only, that's fast.

So here I am again. Refreshed. Without any green goo dripping from my nose. Ew. Gross. Thanks doc.

Getting back to the giant model. Finally found a solution. Pointed by Santyhammer, I should play with the "cage" settings. I downloaded the whole tutorials and bummer. The cage tweaking requires the 3d viewer launched. The viewer refuse to run on my machine, said my hardware don't support "GL_ARB_multitexture", I don't know what the heck is that, something todo with opengl perhaps. Nevertheless, it generates the map flawlessly (outside the artefact problems of course, which would require the cage tweaking within the 3d viewer).

Researched many times on the google, downloaded ATI normal generator, but it uses its own format and I can't find an exporter for blender. I am too dissapointed with this issue so I lost my mood of researching ATI's normal map generator any further.

So heck I turn back to Nvidia Melody. Just one correction from the previous post; turn out melody should be able to generate displacement maps aswell. On the previous post I use version 1.1 of Melody. I checked on nvidia.com, they already released 1.20. So I'm gonna give it another shot. Installed and imported the obj flawlessly. Also the map it generates is cleaner, but not without any problems. It still have the artifacts but lesser than xnormal using default settings. Nothing that can't retouch within GIMP. Score 1 for melody.


But I don't know why, Melody crash alot. I think it have something todo with displacement map creation. When I just turn on generate normal and turn off others, It runs fine. Xnormal scored 1 in term of stability compared to NVidia's. Melody is built by gigantic company that holds the graphic technology "standards". While xnormal is built by individual. Perhaps it's the deep love of "parents to child" between a programmer and his/her software?

The seams? I fixed them using polyboost clone tool within max. Heck this software's super cool, and surely far cheaper than Right Hemisphere's Deep Paint 3D or Maxxon's Bodypaint. And all I need is the clone stamp for removing seams.

I test and apply the normal map within max. Here's the result :
Seams are everywhere. I already tried to tweak any possible settings within the normal mapping on the material editor. I give up.

Anyway here's when applied to diffuse map. See any seams?
So I fire up blender and apply the normal map onto the dude. Here's the result :


No seams. How come? Maybe I'm missing a couple of steps in max? Maybe. If I'm not than definitely blender have far more superior support for tangent-space normal map. Score 1 for blender. So now I can sculpt the dude further within blender without any worry.

Here's the current progress with the diffuse map + normal map :

BTW I also had the chance to test a max plugin called "polyspeed3D". The creator said okay you can be a beta tester. Just like that. It is said it'll improve Max performance further. Whoa... wait for my review on this one guys.

Another correction : I fire up xnormal, the viewer now runs smoothly I don't know what the hell I did. ROFLMAO. XD. Well, I should give it a further try then.