3d paintings in blender! My two cents on hand-painting normal maps.

Here I tried to guide you throughout some works of mine based on hand-painted normals. Lets explore the possibility of this super cool technique.
artstation: www.artstation.com/artwork/Ke...
insta: / omarfaruqtawsif
twitter: / faruqtawsif
gumroad : omarfaruqtawsif.gumroad.com/ (shop paused temporarily)
Active shop:
flippednormals.com/product/cr...
craftreaper.lemonsqueezy.com/
Sketchfab: sketchfab.com/omarfaruqtawsif32
If you are new to this concept of handpainting Normal maps check out Nick Lewis and Cody Gindy's tutorials for the basics!
Free awesome 3d model by Nick Scott! www.artstation.com/artwork/xJ...
00:00 - Introduction
00:37 - Preparing the 3d model
01:56 - Baking Normals
03:30 - Hand painting the normals
04:43 - Pushing the visuals more
05:59 - Possibilities

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Hi! Thanks for checking out the tutorial. And my deepest apology for the audio issue of one side being muted. I didn't even notice it because I had "Mono audio" turned on in my setting which sends audio track to both channels all the time. So you can try that while watching the tutorial. And please let me know if you know of a way to fix audio in uploaded videos in youtube. 02:13 I wanted to say "imported!" ! :3

[@NenoUnicoAgain]

Hey this lñooooks really wesome. Really inspiring! I have a question, could this be used in Unity or other engine in order to apply it to a videogame?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@NenoUnicoAgain Thanks! as far as I know those tricks are used for in-animate objects like walls or such in game engine. It wont work well with deforming bodies.

[@QuintusCassius]

Great video! And you did a very good job texturing that knight.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

thank you very much! I am glad you enjoyed it regardless of the audio issue

[@chidorirasenganz]

I feel like this technique is about to blow up in the npr community 🙌

[@durratulaishah3703]

What's npr?

[@chidorirasenganz]

@@durratulaishah3703 non photorealistic rendering. It’s a term for 3d artists who are trying to make their models look realistic but stylized like paintings, anime etc

[@intoovert]

@@durratulaishah3703 non photorealistic rendering

[@hermeswaterlow4401]

nonphotorealistic@@durratulaishah3703

[@TheGreatResist]

Non-Photorealistic Render.

[@codygindy]

Looks SO good!! Thanks for sharing this. 😁

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

My pleasure! 😃

[@BlenderSecrets]

Cool! How are you picking the normal map colors while in material preview?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thank you! Back then one could select whether they want to pick screen colors or just the texture colors. But in recent versions the color picker always picks colors from texture by default. Thats the case here too.

[@With-faze]

I was having problems with baking normals... So that's what it was - thin meshes! Thank you for the vid!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Fantastic! cheers😃

[@reggieisnotadog4841]

Thank you for the tutorial and thank you so much for linking the brushes. They're really great for this.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

You are so welcome!

[@goober7535]

this was an amazing tutorial. it helped a layman like me understand the process. many thanks.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

glad it helped! 😃

[@AnnaGlin]

really cool thank you so much for sharing this technique!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

The pleasure is all mine!😄

[@SpitfireStoryboards]

Love it! Great work.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

thanks! ^^

[@eisenspanigel67]

This looks so damn good! Great work. Love it.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thanks mate!😊

[@lucasgomesart]

Amazing man! Thank you for share this!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

My pleasure friend 😃

[@Qornv]

Looks so good

[@demicatt]

Thank you so much for sharing!!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

my pleasure!

[@ejam2328]

Tq man , been waiting for your new video

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thank you! It really took so long!

[@guillaumedeschamps4566]

This is impressiv. What a true 3D artistical technique ! thanks for this video

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

My pleasure!

[@WanderyenErin]

oh my god! I was looking for that! Thank you so much

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Glad you found it! My pleasure :D

[@intoovert]

Dayumm it looks really really cool:3 gotta try it someday

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thanks bhai! ya give it a try ;)

[@haoding2706]

Thank you for sharing!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

my pleasure!

[@rinemaru5060]

AMAZING!!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

thanks! :D

[@ShayanNick]

My FAv Artist ! pls upload more video mate.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thank you! I will try 😄

[@adarshwhynot]

Soo good 🔥🔥

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

thanks!

[@batman85057]

Please fix the sound only being in one ear

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

sorry! next time! this one is already uploaded and cant be fixed anymore. but you can try turning on mono audio from setting while watching this if you are on win 10.

[@nalandajayasena6265]

Thank you !!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

You're welcome! :D

[@ultra5538]

Yay! 😄

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

😊

[@tab_blossom]

Cool technique :3

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

indeed :3

[@user-sd6em9fy5e]

Hey. I love your video and I am doing the same thing as I am also hand painted on the 3D Characters and using grease pencil for the animation too for my upcoming first official 3D and 2D animated short film by using Blender!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Wow! Looking forward to it!

[@nacht5033]

hi can use the object space normals that has been baked in subtance painter?

[@alicevescio7203]

Hi! This is really amazing, thanks for sharing!!! I'm wondering how it works with a PBR character pipeline on Unreal Engine or Unity, i mean, if there's already a baked normal map, where i can put this other "painted normal map" in the shader? I've searched a lot of videos about, ma no one explains how to integrate this (that works in blender), also outside in some Game Engine. Please help! :) And, just another question, why in 1:59 did you bake normal map from emissive? I got so confused. Thanks in advance!!

[@22.arachmajiasmirajzwi55]

Nice tutorial.... But where can i find the multiply add node ? I cant found nothing similar in blender 3.5

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

thanks! it is actually the vector math node from converter catagory. Looks like I missed that detail!

[@user-vw5hc2mp6k]

Thank you for your question. I also encountered this issue

[@user-vw5hc2mp6k]

Thank you for your answer@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif

[@musubi-bi]

Thats cool you kept everything in house in Blender! I'll I have to try normal baking and painting in it, when you color pick, is it picking from the normal texture you made and the viewport is just the render?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

yeah! I was always stubborn about handling everything in blender XD! You got it right. even though I have viewport render enabled instead of picking screen color blender is picking the texture color. it feels most convenient. though in earlier blender versions you could define between screen color and texture color from last operation drop down menu.

[@EtailaxiA]

Look super Cool!! Is this any way can be translate back to tangent base normal map ? I see not every place support object space normal 🤔

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thanks! Maybe you can try to rebake normals into a new texture? I have yet to try this though

[@YeralReloaded]

You rock!!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thank you!

[@zossua7375]

Are you painting on the normal map texture at 4:17? What settings do you have on your brush? because it looks like the brush is a changing colour per stroke?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

yes I am painting the normal map. the color is changing because I am sampling with hotkey

[@pipik4449]

Hi! Really nice tutorial, can you explain more how to do brush marks by geometry?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thank you! I duplicated the mesh and used quick explode on it. it is basically a modifier with particle setting. but the quick explode saves you from setting up the explosion system from scratch.

[@nellofontani]

very interesting

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thank you :D

[@jitjm3469]

Has anyone tried using this technique in Maya ? I tried it but it doesn't work anybody knows how to Solve problems ?

[@dragonslayergoblineater9048]

My left ear enjoyed this video

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

haha sorry. I wont forget your other ear next time ;)

[@kostandinkocaqi9932]

This looks awsome. I tried it,looks gret in blender but i cant use it for unreal engine. anyone know why that is ?

[@Tinkler-ew1oy]

thank you, was planning to do something similar to spider-verse this looks very close to that again thank you

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

my pleasure! good luck with your work

[@GreasyGoblin]

Hey, this looks amazing, thanks for sharing your talents (I purchased your brush pack and love it by the way--great stuff)! Do you have any advice on how to convert an object-space normal to a tangent-space normal after you hand-paint the normal maps in object-space? I would like to explore using this on an animated (rigged) VR model in Unity and think tangent space would work better for meshes that deform, and am not sure best practices moving forward for this. Keep up the awesome content! Thanks again.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

The pleasure is all mine! :D I guess you can try to rebake the object space normal to a tangent space normal?

[@GreasyGoblin]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif Hey, I managed to get a functional tangent space normal bake, but there were seams visible not in the texture but in the lighting itself, aligned to the seams I had on my model. Took me a bit of digging since smearing the texture over the seams didn't seem to fix it, but found I had to manually touch up seams that appeared where some UV islands contacted each other by painting over the seams with the neutral color for the normal maps I was using (#8080FF) and try to blend it in best I could. Might be a necessary step to account for UV island orientation/rotation when converting to tangent space, if that makes sense. Thanks again!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

thanks for letting me know! Do seams always appear after bake? If yes maybe you can check denoise setting. I noticed keeping it on causes seam on emissive bakes. Not sure about other types of bake though

[@GreasyGoblin]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif Hey, I had tried baking a couple times, playing with different variables but overlooked the denoise. Once I have a chance to test adjusting the denoise parameters I'll let you know the result! Thanks for the idea.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@GreasyGoblin sure! give it a try.

[@winsoartic2942]

Sound in left ear!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

sorry!

[@bocabowa5305]

How do you do the base color map? I assume the brush colors match the exact size / position of the brush on the normal map, I’ve seen tricks in photoshop where you paint normals on different layers and change their colors for the base diffuse map, but you do this in blender. I’m just curious how I can paint my normals in blender + paint color to match the normals, thanks looks great!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thanks! actually my diffuse map here has no relation to the normal map here. they are totally separate texture and the strokes doesn't match in this

[@renight0343]

Hi! Are you using any addon for additional functionality in the blender baking tab? I haven't tried baking like this yet but there is no "Influence" sub-tab under my bake tab.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Nope. Chances are it is due to difference in blender version. I don't use blender 4 yet since it felt too different sometimes

[@renight0343]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif I understand. I'm using Blender 4.02 right now.

[@aliakdogan9426]

wow thank you

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thank you! I love your work! 💪💪

[@aliakdogan9426]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif thanks so much , your painterly style is really inspiring

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@aliakdogan9426 Thank you! :D

[@dex7378]

any vocals or dialogue should be in mono. assuming OBS, settings -> audio and change 'channels' to mono. i have a mono switch so it's not really a problem for me but most people do not, it's a typical problem that i think everyone has ran into before so don't worry but i just thought you should know how to fix it. thanks for the video!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Yeah! thanks for the tip. I did know about this issue long before. But this audio managed to slip in because I had the mono audio turned on in windows setting (the cure became poison for me XD). Should have paid attention to the sound track channels during editing

[@lilshake6414]

great video sir! im confused as to how you were painting over the normals directly. i tried to follow this video frame by frame but still got lost haha. i have yet to come across any other video demonstrating the same technique

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

glad to see you gave this tutorial a try :D normally you should be able to paint normal maps with regular approach of texture painting in blender. It hardly requires additional steps. I would recommend you to check whether your noemals are facing in correct direction. From overlays you can turn on normal. it will indicate flipped normals with a red color. and feel free to drop by at my discord if u wish to share screen shot or something regarding this issue discord.gg/bPUY7zt4

[@jamaalsineke2405]

Hey Mr Craft, question......do you think that painting the normal map in blender, then painting the base color in like 3d coat would add to this? Or would it make it worse or no difference?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Sure. It can improve outcome for you if you are more used to 3d coats. Specially with 3d coats layering system you can aim for a non destructive texturing process

[@vianger9481]

the new shortcut for samples in Blender 4.0 is Shift + X

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

S was really fine though!

[@pinpingoin]

How do you paint in the viewport and immediately see the results??? I am struggling to understand When I paint, nothing shows up on the view port, only on the image

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Did you connect the textures in your materials?

[@Clases3d]

Cool video and great technique, I´m triying it but im not capturing quite the look, I fail in the hand painting the normal part and I dont know what to do or what I´m doing wrong, please help

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

you can share what you did in discord. did you switched back to eevee by the way?

[@Clases3d]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif no, I do it in cycles

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@Clases3d I see. I would recommend eevee

[@Clases3d]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif I tried it and yeah it looks like I can se better what I´m doing, still I dont know exactly what to do, what colors to sample, etc... I put it in the discord

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@Clases3d cool! you are getting there. about sampling you just sample colors from those faces and slowly start to create flatter brush marks. you may slightly intrude surrounding color but be careful about not to drift too far with sampling color. stay localized. and most importantly test with lighting from time to time

[@vladimirchargoy1711]

Hi, I'm interested in your Wingfox course, but something happened and I can't buy it because it's not available. Also, is there somewhere I can buy it other than that platform? or what do you recommend I do, greetings and thank you for your time

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thanks for your interest! It is in Flippednormals now

[@superfuchsia8916]

did you ever make a tutorial about modifying normal maps with procedural textures or did i imagine that?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

not mine. but I remember coming across a few tutorials of procedural normal map creation too!

[@Blindconcept]

My bakes end up totally saturated in magenta and green on the other side (nothing like your normal color knight at the end). Any hints on how to better set this up?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Hi! I suspect that you forgot to switch image mode to non color. You should check on it first

[@Blindconcept]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif Hey thanks for the reply! It was set in non-color and I tried baking with emmit setup and normal setup. Do you have a discord or something where we could chat maybe? I would really appreciate your help.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@Blindconcept sure! feel free to share your file too so that I can have a look at your setting discord.gg/VmmatF9d

[@Ghost-zm1rk]

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for, thank you!!!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Glad it helped!

[@Ghost-zm1rk]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif So I'm still having a bit of trouble generating the normals, when I do the node setup you show onscreen I get a blacked out mesh... when I bake the normal's (normally) following other tutorials the normals generated don't behave properly with the light either. I do love your tutorial though im trying to create characters with an Arcane like style to them so This was helpful

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@Ghost-zm1rk Did you check around 2:50 ? I tried to address some normal map issues.

[@Ghost-zm1rk]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif Actually yes!!! all my normals are facing the right way and the normal map looks normal I think but It interacts wrong with the light drive.google.com/file/d/1fe0MXkCrYdjt69ieB64rzXz_1U_hpDSS/view?usp=sharing Edit: the normals are working fine now :) but your node setup doesn't work for me

[@Ghost-zm1rk]

nvm I realize you set multiply and add values to 0.5 my bad

[@ignazioacerenza9881]

What i'm not following is once you hand paint the normal maps could this be run by any other engine (unreal) with the same effect? These would go really well with a project I'm working on.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

I am not sure about all the effects shown here. But at least there is Romain Durand who made complete handpainted pbr materials for unreal before.

[@SirenRyan]

Hello! Did you ever figure out the answer to this? I want to do this for my Animation Thesis which is being rendered in Unreal Engine! Did you ever figure out if you could achieve this in Unreal? Thanks!

[@cleve741]

Could someone explain how he was using the brushes in this video? It looked like it was smearing or averaging the color automatically, but it was on texdraw.....

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Hi! it is not automated. I am just sampling color from the normal map and painting with low opacity brush. hence the illusion of 'averaging colour'

[@cleve741]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif Good to know! So in one part where it appears you are changing the color without returning to viewing the normal map in texture preview mode. How does that work?

[@yiyike3587]

good！！！！

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

thanks!

[@marruu]

@craftreaper man i cannot find ur course on normal paintings, can u pls link?

[@marruu]

I only see your shop with brushes and scenes, but i remember i saw ur course on this video! PLS REPLY

[@marruu]

Nvm, i saw ur latest video, sorry to hear that, i had been waiting to but it, Pls do upload somewhere tho, thanks so much! Good luck~

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@marruu yeah things happened 😅 I am sorry it turned out like this. I should have studied their background first. About normal painting this video is my most comprehensive tutorial on this matter. But you can learn beyond this from the channel I suggested in the description

[@marruu]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif got it, thanks so much!

[@xexodus3196]

Greetings, can you please open up the gumroad shop I cannot download any of the brush sets u provided on the links in the description

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

hello! sorry for the trouble! In gumroad only the illustrative brush set is kept on hiatus due to payout issue on my region. The free pack is still downloadable. Also did you try flippednormals/lemonsqueezy link?

[@mrThepunisher92]

if you don't mind sharing your lighting setup, that would be awesome

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

It is a basic three point lighting system! With a hdr too because they make better reflection on metal. also dont forget screen space reflection

[@eliodonvito9252]

Is it possible to create a PBR material based on this technique?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

this one is pretty much of a pbr material already with normal map, albedo etc. feel free to use roughness map or anything else you may need

[@eliodonvito9252]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif yes ! But I am wondering If I could create a material that can be directly applied on every model

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@eliodonvito9252 yeah! there is procedural method too. search up "2d style materials in 3d animation" by joey. it is shown in the very end

[@eliodonvito9252]

Thanks you a lot ❤

[@snark567]

I'm a bit confused, how are you painting the diffuse and normal at the same time? 3:38 It would be helpful if there was a slightly more in depth tutorial explaining these things.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

at 3:38 I am painting normal map with viewport shading turned on. it is fun to see how normal paint affects light that way!

[@randisanchez6744]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif The what? How do you do that? I've trying to do it for the last week and failed to find that option

[@tolkien6666]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif I would really appreciate a tutorial on this part specifically

[@UcheOgbiti]

How about you export the normal maps as an image and use Topaz Studio to apply a brush stroke neural filter instead of hand painting it?

[@zossua7375]

Yeah it works. I tested it. Not with Topaz though

[@UcheOgbiti]

@@zossua7375 what did you use instead of Topaz?

[@nacht5033]

@@zossua7375 what app did you use

[@Lodreus]

You plan on creating tutorials on this?

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

This is the tutorial though? Do you mean something more elaborate?

[@Lodreus]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif A full tutorial from start to finish for beginners or those who are already familiar but need someone to guide them still in some areas. I'm familiar with Blender but not proficient as you are. I'm used to slow-pace tutorial.

[@overcookedwalrus4482]

my left ear

[@LilJarvan]

The sound is broken in this video. It only plays on the left. Nothing on the right. Should be a simple fix.

[@a.t6066]

hello sir, the flat shading issue can probably be solved by going to Object Data Properties > Geometry Data > Clear Custom Split Normal Data :)

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thanks! I will look into it

[@astridtrisorio4894]

It´s amazing, but why you have to go so fast? not really easy to follow along. Besides that, cool stuff :)

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Thanks for letting me know! I kinda got lost with controling my pacing well there. Will keep it in mind! It wasn’t a follow along tutorial btw. Just sharing some tips about this workflow for different situation

[@astridtrisorio4894]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif yes yes i imagined that it wasn´t your goal, but the technique is so good that i´ve wanted to follow along. If you make a long version of it i´d gladly pay for it :)

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@astridtrisorio4894 thanks! Thats very nice to know!

[@bruhmomentum3633]

thanks a lot man but why are you whispering to my left ear

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

haha welcome! Sorry for whispering to your left ear. I am right handed after all 😉

[@ThePlacehole]

Really nice effect! It's so hard to understand what you're saying, though :(

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

My bad! :( I will try slower tutorials next time

[@ThePlacehole]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif thanks! :) It does not help that the right channel is silent. Maybe a different mic or post-processing would also help. Maybe try your phone's voice recorder? Sorry, I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth... Thanks for the video, I think I got the gist of how to do the effect anyway.

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

@@ThePlacehole thanks for the feedback. though it is hard for me to understand the issue. I do hear from both channels . But yeah! Time for some upgrade hopefully

[@marc4177]

Hello Omar! Your English is very hard to understand. Nonetheless, awesome video!

[@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif]

Haha I understand the problem. Would it help if I were talking slowly?

[@marc4177]

@@CraftReaper-OmarFaruqTawsif Its the accent