Maya Bump Map stepping - how to fix?

thenior

Hello,

Been visiting Polycount forums for quite some time now. I've been playing with Maya for the last 5 years or so, but I am still a major beginner.

I am having some problems with Bump Map stepping. See below:





Scene details:

1x cube 50x50x50 resolution
1 point light
Maya Software, high quality
128x128 Color and spec map
2048x2048 Bump Map

What I've tried:
Tried lower/higher cube resolutions
Mental Ray Renderer
Using a higher res spec map.
Using 32bit BMP Bump Map (what you see now)



I have no clue how to fix this. If I give the Bump Map less details, it looks ok (just edge details, for instance).

I'd glady use Normal map instead, but to be honest, I don't know how to use NM in Maya software, only maya hardware (the NM renders a bit flat in Maya Software).

MoP

Use 32-bit texture formats.

Basically if you're using 24-bit textures, you have 256 levels of height. That leads to stepping.

Save your textures as 32-bit single channel greyscale textures.

PredatorGSR

If you've used the levels or contrast tools in photoshop, you are compressing the number of colors you have, which can lead to stepping.

thenior

I used nVidia's normal map PS plugin, and it showed stepping too. I forgot that Photoshop, when using gaussian blur or other subtle tools, tends to create a bit of a banding.

Fortunately for the scene I am working on, the tiles will be off in the distance. But still, I wish I could have a better solution.

Synthesizer

Adding a slight bit of noise reduces banding, but of course adds ... noise. It can be helpful in some situations though, when you can't use 32bit textures.

killingpeople

Going from memory here, but I believe I fixed this with the smudge tool. Blur and softbrushes would cause stepping for me at one time. Applying a very slight scatter to the smudge might help as well.

chronic

you can try playing with some of the filtering / prefiltering attr's on the file node there is also a slider in the fileNode>Effects>Filter

In general filtering bump or normal maps is undesirable or bad practice but it might help.