Virtual Reflective Normal Mapped Surfaces Options

[Corey Kinard]

Hi All,

I just finished reading and recreating the virtual reflective glass tutorial in ArmA. I do have one question though, can this process be applied to NOHQ-MC-AS-SM in order to add fake surface reflections to a model? My hopes are that the normal map on an object will affect the surfaces reflection. Do you know if this is possible? Here is a screenshot I did in Maya to demonstrate the effect.




Thanks!

Corey Kinard
Technical Artist
University of Central Florida
Institute for Simulation and Training

[Toadball]

Not got much experience in texture work or normal mapping but I can't see why it wouldn't work, ultimately the best way to find out is to try doing it and looking at the results and modifying your method to achieve the result your looking for.

[Corey Kinard]

Hey JynX,

I am fairly new to ArmA and Oxygen2 so I am really not sure how to attack this. It appears that reflections are handled through the "glass" pixel shader and vertex shaders. I don't see a way to add this to the NOHQ-MC-AS-SM. I assume it would need to be Glass-NOHQ-MC-AS-SM, that way the normal map would affect the reflection downstream. I will do some more digging, but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Corey Kinard
Technical Artist
University of Central Florida
Institute for Simulation and Training

[Deadeye]

Moving to Addon Discussions

@Corey Kinard : I got your PM, and all I can say is that I am not the author of this tutorial. I just added it to the download section.

[Linker Split]

Hi and welcometo the forum first
Unfortunately it is not possible, ArmA doesn't use these types of shaders (which are present in Crysis and many other new games)

[ObmaR]

Hi Corey,

Yes a Virtual Reflective Surface is possible in ArmA as there is a "Chrome" type reflective surface in some ArmA vehicles. The same technique is also used for rear view mirrors in ArmA.

The reflection won't be as bright and clear as your sample due to the ArmA graphics engine but will give you a desired reflection on your "polished" surfaces. Normal map deflections of the reflection will also be noticeable depending on the angle of the normal this is because it is applied to the surface and not the plane (its an intigrated shader and a stage in the .rvmat file.)


So if you give me a couple of days I PROMISE to make 2 new tutorials for the following...

1: Virtual Reflective Surfaces

2: Virtual Rearview mirrors

This post has been edited by ObmaR: Nov 7 2008, 13:53