Map created in xnormal wont work in 3ds max

Marcins94

I have 3ds max 2017.
i wanted to bake high poly into low poly, so i exported both as .obj (xnornal plugin does not work in 3ds max 2017).
After baking I came back to 3ds max to apply normal map to material (normal bump).
The problem is that map from xnormal doesnt work correctly in 3ds max (both viewport and renderer). It renders black faces and weird shading (it looks like some polys were flipped).
I tried flippng channels (both in normal bump and photoshop) but it didnt solve the problem.
I made normal maps also in 'render to texture' in 3ds max (changing nothing in low and high poly) and this one worked like a charm.
The strangest fact is that in marmoset toolbag both maps work in the same way (they are correct).
Any ideas what am i doing wrong? Or is it just some kind of bug?

Vailias

It likely is a combination of how 3ds max is expecting the normal map data to be mapped, as well as it having a different tangent basis from xNormal and Marmoset. Marmoset is a very well written program designed for a game art workflow around game art tools, and can handle data from different streams well.

Given the history of things I'd say its likely some odd MAX bug. 

Also, as a general rule, preview your work in what your final target environment is, if at all possible. 
It's useless to have something look spectacular in MAX yet terrible in Marmoset or Unreal, or whatever your endgame is. 

Marcins94

Thank You for reply. I'm still learning 3d, thats why I experiment with different baking methods, enviroments, etc.
I'll stick to marmoset preview to avoid this kind of bugs.

musashidan

Max used to have great 3rd party viewport shaders, Xoliul a d 3point shader, but Nitrous broke them around max2012. Max is the last place I would view my NMs. If you have TB2 or Unity/UE then definitely use them instead.