normal maps from ZBrush to Unity?

wannabeartist

Hi all,

What are the correct settings for getting normal maps from ZBrush to Unity3D?

I tried to go with just green channel flipped, but my test object just doesn't look right in Unity. Is there something else that needs to be changed before creating the map?

here's a screenshot:

Kitteh

You sure unity isn't trying to read it as a grayscale bump map or something?

wannabeartist

Good guess, but that's not it.

I have the generate from grayscale box unchecked. It looks to be as some channel or something is still in the wrong direction, causing those dark areas.

imperator_dk

To me it looks like the map was baked to a box with a single smoothing group bit it's being applied

wannabeartist

Thank you for mentioning that!

I think it was indeed a smoothing group problem. It seems that ZBrush assigns smoothing groups automatically when transferring to Max using GoZ.

Anyways, I put everything in the same smoothing group and here's the result - not the same cube, but similar. Looks a lot better!

cryrid

Anyways, I put everything in the same smoothing group and here's the result

I don't think you want everything in the same smoothing group, especially with such a hard-edged object like a cube (see http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap#Smoothing_Groups_.26_Hard_Edges). Try hard edges around UV seams.

Also, cubes are always bad examples for normal maps. A simple bevel would probably take it a lot further, especially as the high-poly is so rounded looking.

wannabeartist

Right,

Here I just wanted to quickly get "maximum roundness" and to see how well that 6 sided cube can deal with the rounded "sculpture". I asked previously about smoothing groups and in that project (ZBrush was not yet involved), it turned out that they are indeed very useful in some places, but overall I try to keep them to minimum.