3DS Max Qualified mode

Zyth

I can not for the life of me get this to work. I'm using Max 2013.

I've read through the thread that discussed this. A lot of people were having problems with it not working. Has this been resolved? Is there some secret to getting this to work? When I switch modes do I have to re-bake the Normal maps?

So far I've noticed no difference in Qualified mode and Legacy mode.

SsSandu_C

Take a look at this Is that the thread you were talking about? From what I know it hasn't been fixed. From v2012 they've started focusing more on nitrous as the display solution. You can try that and choose hardware dosplay with maps, but don't forget to down the necessary product updates.

Zyth

SsSandu_C wrote: »

Take a look at this Is that the thread you were talking about? From what I know it hasn't been fixed. From v2012 they've started focusing more on nitrous as the display solution. You can try that and choose hardware dosplay with maps, but don't forget to down the necessary product updates.

Hey thanks for that info. I had no idea Nitrous could display Normal maps in the viewport. For some reason I also had the idea that Qualified mode didn't work in Nitrous but it actually does.

Creating a cube with a Normal map in the viewport with Qualified mode on gave me good results. Does this look correct?

SsSandu_C

No prob. Yeah it does correctly show normal maps as long as you load it through the bump map slot. bump(100)->normal bump->slot1->bitmap->your normal map, hardware display. Well Qualified mode has to do only with displaying correctly your 3ds max normal baked maps.
I think it looks okay but there is some funky shading on the lower left edge but it might be from the 2 point light setup of the nitrous display. Can you post another pic from another angle? Anyway I wouldn't bake my normal maps like that(1 smoothing group) mostly because engines are not synced with the max baker. If you want to bake thing like that then you should look into handplane.

Zyth

I'm wondering if the weird shading has to do with the relationship between the high poly and low poly? The high poly has very rounded edges whereas the low poly has sharp edges. I've attached a pic of of the high and low poly (the low poly is transparent). I've also attached a pic of the normal mapped cube at different angles.

Right now I'm mapping the box like that to test out synced tangent basis in 3DS Max and, using handplane, in Unity.

cptSwing

I was always under the impression the 'Qualified Normals' setting was DX9-specific (ie not using Nitrous)?

Zyth

cptSwing wrote: »

I was always under the impression the 'Qualified Normals' setting was DX9-specific (ie not using Nitrous)?

I was under the same impression. I just double checked and you're right. It has no effect on the normals in the Nitrous viewport.