Normals with 3PointShader and Xol Come out Bad! Need help (3dsmax)

Sammy101

Hello, I've posted on this forum before and you were extremely helpful. So I come to you again with another problem as such:

I have original baked normals from 3ds max,
http://puu.sh/1SFfW
http://puu.sh/1SFgQ

As you can see, they look fine. However when I add text to the normals through Photoshop using the Nvidia Filter, xNormals Filter, and even NDo2, it all comes out the same like this:

http://puu.sh/1SFiK

Note the uv seams in this picture:

http://puu.sh/1SFjB

I had to make the cut in that area or else it would stretch, but that seam shouldn't be a problem, should it? Anyway, so I did some testing and just took the original normals and ao and saved them without making any adjustments or changes in Photoshop, and the same problem happens. So even without changing anything the original normals become bad once I save them as tga (also tga output saved file through 3dsmax) and apply them to the model.

What is the problem may I inquire, and how would I go about fixing it?

Ace-Angel

Most likely, you have the RLE compression enabled and/or your Photoshop is saving your textures with a color profile correction (this could be SRGB correction or Gamma correction).

Make sure you disable anything and everything on PS during saving, since that will screw up your normal maps.

Sammy101

Hmmm you might be right. I will check this.

edit:

http://puu.sh/1SGuN

I am saving as Targa

http://puu.sh/1SGvV

It's not on, Any other ideas?

Bryan Cavett

Save it as a 24 bit targa not 32

EarthQuake

Post some images of the actual normal map, before and after adding the text.

Also, disable the text layer and save the file. Still getting issues? If so, its something to do with saving the file out of photoshop.

Sammy101

An interesting note when I saved the file as a 24bit:

I copied the unmodified normal texture to my desktop so I could save the copy as 24bit. But before I tried saving it, I put it again in another slot of my 3dpoint shader for normals, and it gets the same error. The normals were not modified or anything, it was an exact copy of the original normals and it stil got the error. I am now thinking it might be a bad file? Maybe something went wrong with the bake?

Sammy101

http://puu.sh/1SM0j
Without text

http://puu.sh/1SM3k
Without the text turned into Normals

http://puu.sh/1SM8F
With Text

EarthQuake wrote: »

Post some images of the actual normal map, before and after adding the text.

Also, disable the text layer and save the file. Still getting issues? If so, its something to do with saving the file out of photoshop.

I did try just saving the normal as plain vanilla through photoshop, and it comes out bad. Yet I don't know what buttons I would be pushing wrong, considering I dont compress anything and save as tga.

Sammy101

So as a bump, I fiddled around with it, and I chalked part of the problem up as seams, which I was thinking in the very beginning. But the other half of the problem is the shaders.

http://puu.sh/1TipJ
Original Normals

http://puu.sh/1TioS
Ran through PS and saved as TGA

So I am curious as to why it is doing this, when there were no changes made. Maybe I'm saving it as a different quality through Photoshop? I have never had this problem before so it is driving me crazy.