Normal Map Problems (CrazyBump/Maya 2008)

Cryer

Hey,

I am using Crazy Bump to create shader maps for use in Maya 2008. The preview in Crazy Bump looks nice but when i use the bump section of a Blinn shader in Maya and render its looks nothing like the CB preview.

Can anyone help? Here are the images.

CB Preview:



Maya Render (Bump Depth Section of Blinn)



Maya Render (Bump Value Section of Blinn)



The Normal Map:




Thanks for your help.

Brice Vandemoortele

I think crazy bump displays the result with an offset mapping shader, which adds more depth to the model. What is the final purpose of this map? if it's for realtime purpose then just don't render it and prefer a viewport shader (highquality rendering or a custom cgfx/hlsl shader). If it's for rendering then I guess somebody else is going to point you how to link properly the map to your blinn, since it make sense the bump slot is expecting a grayscale heightmap

Ryan Clark

It's possible that your Y-axis orientation is mismatched between CrazyBump and Maya.

Try changing the Y-axis orientation on CrazyBump's control panel. Does that help?

Funky Bunnies

keep in mind that maya's software renderer doesn't handle normal maps very well. Give mental ray a shot if you need to render it out.

Ryan Clark

Does Maya need a grayscale map instead of a normal map?

If so, try using the map from CrazyBump's "displacement" tab.

CheeseOnToast

Maya software render treats a normal map as a greyscale bump map. Use mental ray to see it properly as Funky Bunnies said.

IxenonI

do use the normal map as a bump map set to tangent space normal. Use Mental Ray to render...

Cryer

Right. Looks like i better get into mental ray! Cheers guys, very helpful.

rooster

you can use jsnormalmapper to render in maya software if you want