Normal Map Depth problem or something like that

Ziosnarf

Hi,
I have tried to bake my coffee maker but you can see the "cut" effect on the gradiant.
The normal map is a 16bit TGA file. I have bake with XNormal and Subtance designer but i have the same problem

The normal map - if you increase levels you can see the problem.

Bartalon

Bake out a TIFF and convert to TGA, you should get much better results. I don't think there is such a thing as a 16 bit (per channel) Targa. You may have saved it out as 16 bits per pixel, which is different if I'm not mistaken.

You should notice that if you switch your image mode in Photoshop to 16 bits per channel, you no longer have the ability to save as a TGA format.

Ziosnarf

Thank you, that's better. What parameter I need to use when I convert tiff 32bit to 16bit or 8bit ?
Now, I have noise and I scale down the picture to reduce but that's doesn't have realy effect.

Bartalon

Read over this thread. It should cover the bit depth conversions that will help you decide which settings to use. You'll want either 8-bit dithered or 8-bit undithered.

EarthQuake wrote:

Now, to maintain a bit of perspective, take particular note of the final textured shot with 8-bit (undithered) normal map. What were previously very obvious and annoying artifacts have gone away almost entirely. You can still see some issues here and there if you know where to look, but in game/motion and viewed from a reasonable viewing distance you would be very hard pressed to tell. This doesn’t even take into account the horrors that texture compression will play on your normal map.

EarthQuake

Yep, that noise is as good as you'll get it. Reason why in thread linked above. Move on with your life =P

I would be more concerned with the artifacts you're getting around those thing edges. Soften/enlarge the bevels on your highpoly and those edges should bake out a lot better.