Batch edit Normals?

Pioldes

Hi there! I'm currently trying to get a huge number of grass planes to shade properly. Basically, I edited the normals of the original patch of grass so that all vertices normals would face up. It shaded good so I decided to paint that mesh on my ground mesh with the 3ds Max paint object tool.

My problem is that the mesh normals are now in chaotic directions, completely messing up the lighting when I render it out. Is there a way to make all vertices normals point towards a specific direction?

I tried using the Edit Normals modifier and pressed the Average option. It worked, all the normals are now facing the same direction, but it's not the one I want!

Anybody has any ideas?

Thanks!

Neox

select all normals and move them handles up

just pick and move, very simple. not one button but also not very complicated

Swizzle

If you're using Max and the Edit Normals modifier, then all you have to do is select all the normals (Ctrl+A) and press the Reset button in the modifier.

Pioldes

Thanks! I was trying rotate but it was not working.

I managed to make all normals point upwards, but it's sadly not solving my issue with light.

It looks great and uniform when unlit:

And it looks horrible when lit:

Any ideas what might cause this?

.morph3us

there is a wiki entry about vertex editing here:
http://wiki.polycount.com/VertexNormal?highlight=%28slide%29


just use Slide's Normal Tool on a plane you made (make simple plane flow over your grass area and then subdivide it)