CrazyBump for Windows
CrazyBump creates displacement, normal and even fake occlusion maps from 2D images. It’s free, fast, sports a nice and clean interface, and makes an excellent tool to quickly take your textures to the next level.
[ev type=”youtube” data=”ohchkP-9oxo”][/ev]
The software developer writes:
You’re welcome to use the beta for commercial work. Textures that you create belong to you. They aren’t restricted at all.
You can find the software, here. Also, questions can be directed to the user forum.
hehe whenever i find a great free (at least that beta) cg software i can be sure it’ll make it blendernation, try this one, it rocks ;)
I was introduced to this by a workmate only this week, and must say that it produces the very best ‘automatic’ normal maps I’ve ever seen! We’ve already added it to our pipeline and I’ve been showing it off to people all week!
An absolute must have for us puny humans!
this apps is amazing!!!!
using with blender will be great!!!
Wow this is great.
First (free version of)MaPZone (http://www.mapzoneeditor.com/) and now this.
Neatow.
very nice!
I would love to have the same one free, opensource and on Linux of course.
If enough Linux users go to the forums and make requests for a Linux version, I’m sure the author will consider it. There’s a post in the forum asking about a Mac version and the author mentioned that he would be willing to create a Mac version after getting the Windows version out of beta.
Wow, amazing… great normal map generation… in about 10 minutes I took some projects to a whole new level! I’m assuming this will be free only during beta? :(
According to the author, CrazyBump will eventually become a commercial app with two editions (Professional and non-Commercial). If the beta version fits your needs however, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to continue using it.
There’s a forum thread discussing the issue:
http://crazybump.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16
I’ll post a question in their forum..
this is what it says in the licence:
You are permitted to use this software until the twelfth day of October in the year two thousand and seven. After that date, you will have no permission to use this software.
so we are only allowed to use this until Oct 12?!
finally, a heightmap maker that does not just take the gray scale of the colored input.
I checked that… and I decide I will keep with my sweet free mapzone (with few bugs I can live with). :)
The cut off dates aren’t usually *that* strict, at least not that I’ve ever noticed ;o)
re: the strict cut-off date, I expect he’ll be switching beta versions then, and wants to make sure the old betas are strictly un-usable, so he won’t have people contacting him with out-dated requests and bug reports.
Linux users can test this:
http://registry.gimp.org/plugin?id=4485
A plugin for GIMP to create normal maps from photos …
this is superb piece of hardwork in Crazybump….to produce nor maps
Hmm, doesnt work with wine :-/
hmm.. if the pricing will be adequate(witch im sure it will) and it will ever have a linux version, then ill definitely find a way to get it, perhaps even several(if there will be per-machine licenses).. 8)”
though i will try the beta trough wine.. :/ and if it works then thats an option too.. :)
Did someone got it to work under windows xp 64 ? Doesn’t work here (I get one of those stupid error message that means nothing)
Awesome, time to add it to my list of bookmarks that I’ll check in a long long time. I really should check out these things sooner, but they don’t really need to be used right away…oh well ;) SOON!
That video looks seriously awesome.
According to the video, the Software seems very interesting, but I haven’t been able to install it.
While starting the installation, the software asked to install Direct X. As Direct X is already installed, I choosed to not install it.
The install aborted and some things staid probably somewhere in the register, because even after uninstalling the software, now I get this warning message :
crazybump.exe – Common Language Runtime Debugging Services
! Application has generated an exeption that could not be handled.
Process id=0xb94 (2964), Thread id=0xb98 (2968).
Click OK to terminate the application.
Click CANCEL to debug the application.
None of the choices helped me…
I hate softwares doing this kind of things !o(
Well, me again.
After the operations above, I was no more able to reinstall the software.Each time I got the warning.
I found and deleted manually the following key in Windows XP register, using regedit.exe :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Crazybump Beta Test
After that I could start an istall again.
This time I accepted to install the DirectX component.
After loading this component, I got an other exception warning… and still no ability to install the software !
Too many troubles for a demo version usable only two weeks…
I was thinking about purchasing the software, but if I fall into the same troubles with a paid version, it is not worth it !
I got the same prompt to install DirectX but, since I know that my DirectX install is fine, I clicked Cancel and that phase of the install aborted with no problems. Everything else went fine, for me.
Could we imagine to see a feature like that, directly integrated in blender?
Beta are known to corrupt files in computers.
That tool works very well!
I am working with MAYA and although MAYA has possibilities to make normal maps, the feature for displacement maps is good.
I hope there will be a noncommercial freeware in the future!
Hi Tcharlss and Roubal,
Sorry about the unhelpful error message!
Most of the time, a crash like that is due to an old video driver. Could you guys try updating your video drivers to the latest versions available? I’ve posted links to the drivers for most cards at http://crazybump.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=124
If that doesn’t help, please send a message to [email protected]. If you include dxdiag report that might help me find the problem!
Thanks for testing the software! Sorry it’s not working for ya yet!
-Ryan
Some background on the nutty DirectX situation…
Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, froze the version number at 9c a few years ago. Since then, they’ve released a dozen updates. Each one is called 9c, even though they are different.
CrazyBump uses the August 2007 version of DirectX. But since no version number exists, there’s no way to check whether DirectX is up to date!
This is actually Microsoft’s official policy – it’s why they froze the version numbers in the first place, so every app has no choice but to install Directx. It’s maddening, but I don’t know what to do about it.
Hi again,
If updating video drivers did not help, I have posted a new beta at http://www.crazybump.com, which may solve the error.
cheers,
-Ryan
Hi Ryan !
Thank you a lot for your helpful informations.
I have updated my Nvidia Driver and installed the last beta release of CrazyBump. I have allowed the installation of the directX component and Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, and now CrazyBump works fine.
And you know what ? It is really Crazy !
It is a gread tool ! Being able to create a Normal Map from a photo without having to create a high poly model first is awesome !
Thank you a lot.
Philippe.
I love software like this – unfortunately, I run linux exclusively so I can’t try it – I’d love to see something like this integrated directly into blender… I just wanna know how it works now… lol
~epat. :)
hi,
wow, nice tool, think how great it would be if this powerful tool cout get integrated in belnder,
can’t say it often enough ;)
Hi all.
A really impressive new video is published on the CrazyBump website. Ryan’s newsletter told me there’s an online Quicktime version here: http://www.crazybump.com/video/ and a Youtube version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_5suERXhRw
Certainly do go and have a look and make a pebble photograph into an impressive normal, displacement, specular, ambient occlusion and diffuse map in like four minutes!
Thanks Ryan!
Sander.