(Solved) Normal Map Within 3DS Max Appears Incorrect?

Geosmith

If you have the same problem, disable 'Gamma/LUT Correction' under Customize>Preferences>Gamma & LUT.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hello. 
Recently I've come across cases where seeing a normal map within my viewport would be very useful, but for some reason the standard way of applying a normal to a mesh just doesn't work correctly for whatever reason. (Standard Material>Bump Input>Normal Bump>My Bitmap Normal Map + Enable 'Realistic Materials With Maps')

I've tried almost every combination of flipping and swapping various channels and changing the normal method but it just doesn't want to appear correctly. It's exported as a DirectX normal map, appears fine in everything other than Max.

Any help appreciated.

*Left is 3ds, Right is Substance Painter*

Thanez

If these are object space normals, make sure to check dat box, or max will render as tangent space by default.
Either way, check if the Y channel (green) needs flipping. Different applications have different standards.

Geosmith

Where is the object space checkbox? I'm using max 2016, but I don't see one in the mat editor. 

Noors

I wouldn't trust max viewport too much anyway. Also you have 2 default lights which produces ugly shading.
Max has the worst settings by default haha.
It's under configure viewports/visual style.

Geosmith

I'm sure it shouldn't look this bad. I've seen others with perfectly fine baked normal maps within 3ds and it seems they went through the same setup. I disabled the 2nd light but it makes no difference in baking the normal map better. 

Oddly ugly smoothing seams to also return when the normal map is applied. This area specifically has completely flat shading (pic 3) but with the normal map it's almost as if vertex normals are reset, those ugly streaks aren't part of the normal map either. 

cptSwing

Check that you have gamma correction on your normal map off

Geosmith

cptSwing said:

Check that you have gamma correction on your normal map off

Bingo!
I disabled the 'Gamma/LUT Correction' and it's much better. Still not perfect as I can see seams, I'll blame max for that, but it's good enough to work with. 
Thank you!

Joao Sapiro

siks said:

cptSwing said:

Check that you have gamma correction on your normal map off

Bingo!
I disabled the 'Gamma/LUT Correction' and it's much better. Still not perfect as I can see seams, I'll blame max for that, but it's good enough to work with. 
Thank you!

if you baked in Substance painter with mikktspace tangents or other tangents different than 3ds max it will appear borked, thats not max fault