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Attaching objects makes the attached object inherit all the normal properties. WTF.

greentooth
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fearian greentooth
This has been driving me mental this morning.

Basically, I have this building I've made out of modular parts, so that the panels and windows all share texture space properly. At the moment only the panels have normal maps.
neOpJ.png

To get the normal maps to bake and display properly, I used an edit normal modifier to tweak the normals (before Instanced it about).
x0WpS.png

Now when I try to attach the objects together, the object being attached suddenly absorbs the same normals as the object I'm attaching it too. This results in the normals for every face in my model facing the same way. This is batshit crazy and not what I want.
GR1Bk.png

Why is this inheritance in effect? How do I get it to go away? The only other solution is to manually fix every normal myself after I'm done attaching.


Many thanks to anyone that can shed some light into this!:thumbup: On a side note, Should I be better off just importing my original tiles into UDK and building the modular thing there? :poly124:

Replies

  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    Both objects had enormals modifiers put on them, and then where collapsed into an editable poly before attaching. (the modifier in the screenshot is just to show what's wrong.)
  • Bal
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    Bal polycounter lvl 17
    Yeah, max is so silly with edited normals, it's annoying (doesn't stop me from using them all the time though, so useful).
    I thought there was a solution for this, by attaching both objects to another object with no edited normals (had to find the right order). Can't try it here (only have Maya at work) but I'm pretty sure there was a way to do it like that.

    By the way, you may be able to realign all your normals really fast otherwise (once you've attached them all) with the script from this thread: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75753
    I use it all the time, it's awesome.
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    Thanks guys, I had a glum feeling it might be one of those 3ds Max 'Quirks'. :/

    Bal that attaching workaround sounds like it might do the job, I'll report back after I've eaten lunch.

    E: Had a quick test to satisfy my curiosity, no joy. The new 'un-edited' object didn't affect the normals or have it's normals changed. The attached objects all just adopt the normals of whatever original they are instanced from.

    *le sigh*

    I'll give the scripts ago after lunch.
  • Mark Dygert
    Your best bet is to try and control the normals through more manual methods, breaking geometry and smoothing groups, these things are persistent.
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