Normal Map Export Issue

Silver91748

Heya guys,

So for some reason when ever I export the normal map on this flashlight it renders out like total garbage. The display in Substance Painter looks fine, but when i apply the map to the object in other programs such as Maya it looks awful. Can someone explain what the cause of this is? I've tried to export in both 8bit and 16bit, along with in OpenGL and NormalX. I seem to be getting basically the same results each time. ):
Substance Render Preview:


When I apply the normal map in Maya: 

seb3d

did you set the bump node to tangent space normal and the file texture color space to raw?

Silver91748

Wowzers, that fixed it!! How did you know that would do the trick? Also where can I learn more on tangent spaces and such? I fixed it, but I still don't understand how tweaking the settings like that worked.

gnoop

It's a simple logic . Normal map represents  a pixel  normal , a vector (direction)  each pixel  is facing in comparison to vertex normals (tangent one).    So if you see it wrong  there is only a few possibilities: 

a. the direction is wrongly recorded to the texture .   Green inverted maybe  or  color  representing standard is wrong  (should be  linear)  

b.  model has messed UV or vertex normals

c.  Ray projection from each pixel  to  serach  and borrow surface normals from  hi res  target goes in wrong direction or distance.

Understanding  basic principles helps a lot in investigating and finding quickly  a source of a problem     without memorizing   lots of  buttons and checkboxs in different programs. 

At least it was my experience.  Once I figured out what normals  are representing it all came clear   and reading  software documentation  stopped to be  some ancient Latin.   So I suggest to start from Wikipedia  first  and a bit of  geometry from Rene Descartes and   ancient world mathematics.    I recall a simple  geometry  history course had been an eye opener for me once. 

Why I suggesting geometry history.    Because for a typical art person any math looks boring and alien as hell  usually.    And geometry related    history courses  sometimes  called  " scene perspective geometry"  or  "descriptive geometry"  or simply "perspective"  make it a bit of interest for art people.

Especially  when you learn  about people invented it , their short and tragic lives sometimes.  How it had been forgotten and re-discoverd again during Renaissance .

Classic geometry and modern 3d  soft is all around  projections and learning that  the base principles have been developed sometimes   2 thousands years ago  amazes you  and   you suddenly find yourself getting a core understanding meanwhile  .