normal maps and smoothing groups

Ruz

justpaint a blue background and a smiley face in purple then you will be fine

Joshua Stubbles

My solution for this isn't quite as helpfull as it seemed, at the time

It's a very case-specific situation, and doesn't work on everything. In my particular instance, it resolved the problem.

MoP

Ah... any hints as to what it was, just in case any of us get stuck facing a similar problem?

Joshua Stubbles

I was simply hand editing the normals of the problematic areas. I applied the edit normals modifier, and tweaked from there.