OTOY Forums

https://www.knaldtech.com/

Knald is in open beta. Go snag yourself a copy and take it for a spin...
but you may want to watch the 40 minute demo video first.

I just started playing with this -- but I am very impressed so far...

You can choose GPU or CPU acceleration. It has a kick-ass 3D preview. It
can make excellent Normal Maps from images... It generates gorgeous AO
in seconds (can crank the ray count to thousands and still generate AO
in under 30 seconds). Nice charcoal interface too.. which is always a plus.
Really has about about every texture baking bell and whistle you will likely
need.

Enjoy!

Great
Seems to be more efficient than CrazyBump, will try it for my next project.

up to now I was happy with X-Normal but this tool looks sweet, too.
I hope it will be still free when it is out of beta.

is it just me, or does this normal map have very little effect in Octane. Doesn't look anything like the preview in Knald.

Anyone having success?

Edit: Ok, I saved it as a 32 bit TIFF instead of a 16 bit PNG and it looks a lot better.

I almost asked that!.. I figured that was it. And if Normals don't look.. er.. normal...
they prolly aren't. (though, I am not an authority on normals.. or being normal..
I don't use them near as much as I should)

I've been working with this for an hour or so now, I kinda like it. Only thing is: I can see both my GPUs in the program, but I don't seem able to choose another one besides the default.

It seems to fail quite a bit. I've used it for about an hour and have had to reload the program about 10 times because it stops working.

Great software!
For a 1st beta the ui is nicely polished, it's not filled with bugs and pretty usable.
I will use it this day for realtime works (the software is free to use at this open beta stage, no problem for commercial uses).
So I'll test it in small production areas and have a better idea of its quality/efficiency.

Nice features. A few more I reckon than Crazy Bump... not sure if GPU speed helps. NOt something I run into for texture generation... but hey... every little bit helps I guess

I haven't had a chance to play with it more - since first posting.. but I
suspect that the (GPU-powered) magic comes when you load up an OBJ
with tons of polys and generate an AO - using thousands of rays... my
guess: it smokes everything out there.

I can't wait to screw with it some more.. If I didn't have clients crying for
images, I would be using it this very moment.

I, personally, am more interested in using this for WebGL than game stuff...

Back to work. Damn.