Hey all!!

Finally back with another QBT and today's is about a topic that bugged me for a while. Nothing wrong with Blender, I just didn't get it until today.

Now, I've been a huge fan of node textures for a while and I've noticed that on node textures they don't always come out right in the normal department. For those who don't know what normal maps and normal influence and depth maps are, here you go:


These are created for the simple purpose of not having to use physical detail, while the surface of the object responds as though physical detail is present. So you get the benefit of extreme detail over very little physical detail.

In Blender, you get something that is referred to as a Node texture. Node textures are literally just a better way of putting your textures together and gives you almost limitless options when it comes to procedural textures. For me, that limit came on the normal value of the texture and just see below the difference from then and now:


On the then cube, though normal influence has been added, the influence reads incorrectly, causing a flat distortion of color, not added depth of the surface.
In order to remedy this horrid problem, haha, which it was for me, you simply add a node before your normal goes to the output:
Shift+A > Convertor > Value To Normal

Now, you can take your depth map and stick that into the Value input of the Value To Normal node and the Normal into the Normal of the Output node and there you go, you now have the 'now' part. Just for the sake of doing it properly, here's a reference image:


Note: Some textures are still better baked, like the brick texture, so on that, you can check out my basic texture baking tutorial here.

Hope this tip helped you and I especially hope that you would share it with those you know would benefit from this! When GOD put it on my heart to look for a node like this, I wasn't sure if Blender had the capacity yet to do such a conversion and here it is, haha. I should've known better than to doubt that it would work, haha. GOD is always right.

Have a brilliant day all!!

Thank YOU!!!!!!