Normal Map green value gradient

AdvisableRobin

Hey there folks, so I am having a certain issue with my normal map that has to do with the green channel having small seams in it. I didn't notice it until I brought it into Marmoset and saw the reflections breaking.

I'm using Maya for my 3D program and I'm baking the exploded mesh in xNormal.


This is the section in the normal map, the green value decreased each seam in the direction of the red arrow.


I viewed only the green channel and used photoshop's burn tool to better visualize the seams.


This is what the normal map looks like in Marmoset


Any thoughts or ideas on the cause?

EarthQuake

Yeah, this banding caused by 8 bit images, bake with 16bit and it will fix it (or help).

Saving from 16 bit to 8 bit in photoshop will dither (add noise) which should help as well.

If you can't bake 16 bit, bake 2x as large, turn to 16 bit in ps, then shrink back down, and convert to 8bit this should dither quite effectively too.

AdvisableRobin

How would you go about baking in 16bit? Is that just determined by the file type? I am using Targa for this map, which I know supports up to 32bit or do I have to set xNormal to do that?

Bek

It is in xNormal's settings for file types — set output to tiff and check xNormal is set to 16bit tiff export.

Neox

AdvisableRobin wrote: »

How would you go about baking in 16bit? Is that just determined by the file type? I am using Targa for this map, which I know supports up to 32bit or do I have to set xNormal to do that?

tga is 8 bit per channel, 8x4chanels=32bit, this is about 16 bit per channel

AdvisableRobin

Hey, everything works nicely now! I did not know that xNormal had exporter settings, but now I do. Thank you very much for the help everyone!