How to create golf ball bump map for 3D modelling?

[JustWakinUp]

Hello Everyone, Glad to be part of this forum.
I've been working with Photoshop for years , well since
4 or 5 I should say. Anyway, on with my main reason
for signing up.

I'm currently working on a 3d project and desperately need
a bump map of a golf ball. Instead of using someones I prefer
to make my own. I'm not quite sure how to get started. If anyone
has any answers please don't hesitate to fill me in...

Thanks..

*ps...Sorry this is completely the wrong type of forum to post this...Feel free to remove this post. I should've done some research before just posting. Anyway now that I know this is a photo forum i'll be sure to save to fav.

[Stroker]

The first thing is the pattern. I don't have a golfball handy, but I believe the dimples are in a hexagonal pattern.

Because you are doing a sphere, I *highly* recommend:

Mapping the Sphere

(While you are there, give Raytracing in PS a read just for kicks.)

I've got another tip, but gonna have to wait a few.

edit:
Wait . . . I think the dimple pattern is geodesic.
What 3d program are you using?

[Stroker]

I'm pretty sure geodesic, so I took advantage of geosphere geometry.
A whopping 5 minutes just to see if a decent idea.
As such, a few things not quite right.
Tris are too big. Dimple 'profile' needs tweaking.
Gradients not quite aligned, but might be fine depending on how close you get.
And bump was looking crappy so I did displacement.

Tomorrow I'll give a quick overview of what I did.
I'm 3DS Max, but the ideas should translate.

[Racc Iria]

Hi Stroker. Nice to see a fellow 3DS Max user on these forums.

I think if you increased the tiling of your displacement map a little, you'd have it. Assuming the map is seamless, of course.

[JustWakinUp]

I'm a Maya user myself and very unfamiliar with 3ds Max.
I'm no pro at this 3d stuff either, but I never thought to
try using displacement instead of bump...I'll give it a go.

This is a ball I did using Ed Harris bump map but as you can
see the middle of the dimples have a rather sharp point.

http://www.geocities.com/grafxdezignz/finalgolf.jpg

[Stroker]

Max users unite!
Started my own tutorial site for 3DS Max:
Max Slop

But I don't Max as much as I used to, so it's fallen to the wayside. At the very least, I should go back and fix a few mistakes.

The map I used is kind of seamless. I stacked all of the tris and did a gradient from each corner. So, the bottom of each dimple is a UV vert. In some places the grads line up, but slightly off in a few spots.

Pointy dimples - this is the tip that I mentioned earlier.

When in PS and you lay down the gradient, make sure Smoothness is set to 0%. If Smoothness > 0%, the B-Spline interpolation will mess up the 'profile'. This is very important. After the gradient is down, use Curves like in the attachment.

Or just do Curves on Ed's map.

More ideas later that should translate to Maya.
Unless you are happy and don't want to hear it.
Either way is cool.

[Racc Iria]

JustWakinUp, that looked pretty good for just a bump map. Don't use a displacement map if you don't have to. A bump map will render faster. Less calculations to perform and all that.

If you need to soften the point inside the dimples, you could just take the map into Photoshop and just paint in a soft circle of dark gray in the center of the dimples. This would remove the sharp black center of the gradient that's causing the pointedness in the render. And, I think, that's what Stroker was suggesting you do to the map, but using curves instead.

Good luck. It looks great!

[Racc Iria]

Stroker, I just took a quick look at your Max tutorial site. Not bad. There are definitely some good tips in there.

I could never figure out how to make a spherical map using Photoshops Polar Coordinates filter. I always just used a filter (from Flaming Pear, I think) that would distort the top and bottom of an image so it would map properly on a sphere. I knew there must be some way to do it with polar coordinates, but could never find any info on it.

Nice job.

[JustWakinUp]

keep'em coming stroker..Im going to give the curves a go with eds map and
try a few other things...Thanks for going off topic too guys!

[Stroker]

Thanks, Racc. Maybe one of these days I'll revive Max Slop and build on some of the fundamentals. Right about now I've got the urge to talk about my ideas, but I'm fighting it. ~grits teeth~ grr

Also, Racc, have you tried Richard's Spherical Mapping Converter? Kind of sounds like the plug you are talking about, but not quite.
http://www.richardrosenman.com/photoshop.htm
About 1/2 way down.

Just, I'll get back with my little thing. But I'm kind of torn. Talk about golfballs or work on my new filter? Decisions, decisions.

[Stroker]

Okay, I actually did two maps. In the attachment is one of them overlayed onto the other. I even darkened the outer a tad for illustrative reasons.

The first map is just an isosceles triangle with a smaller triangle in the middle. Did them with the Polygon tool set to 3. With a little help from Guides, not too hard. Saved just the lines to be used as a temporary map.

However, I also used the lines as a guide for Radial gradients at the outer corners. Ran the gradient from the outer corners to the bisectors. Then Curves as previously shown. Then saved just the gradients out to be used as a map.

Once in Max, I created a geosphere. Opened up the UV editor, made sure the temporary line map was in the background of the UV dialog, and laid down all tris on the bigger triangle. In this way, whatever is in one triangle on the geosphere will be in all triangles on the geosphere. Kind of like face mapping, but with a twist because of isosceles triangles.

Once all UVs in place, swapped the line map for the gradient map.

Tada.

I did try it as a bump, but it was poopy for some reason. So I went with displacement. Had I used a higher tri geosphere, I'm sure the displacement would have killed me - even with just regular lighting. Ug. Pros and cons and stuff.

I've seen a few Maya things and I'm fairly positive the same can be done if you've got the yarbles for it.

I'm not sure, but I think there is a lesson in there about thinking laterally . . . or maybe semi-laterally.

Well, I'm off to work on my new filter.
If I can just get past this file I/O and string thing.

[Racc Iria]

Hi, Stroker. The spherical mapping converter you pointed to in your post... it does the exact same thing as the one I have from Flaming Pear. It just distorts the image at the top and bottom to correct for pinching at the poles when mapped onto a sphere.

Also, I think I'm going to refer a friend to you Max site. He's still learning and gets really confused by the material editor. You had some good, easy to understand explanations in there that I think will help him. I do what I can over the phone (he's too far away to visit), but it's really slow going and difficult.

[Racc Iria]

JustWakinUp... No problem. Glad we could help. Let us know how it turns out.

--Racc

[JustWakinUp]

Im absolutely getting nowhere......*Frustration has set in