Normal Map stripes

chrisavigni

Well, here we go with another Normal Map thread...
Does any one knows why I am getting these stripes? I baked using X-Normal and Maya. It is not a complicated mesh, just an air duct. Everything is correctly set: Hard/Soft Edges, Uvs, etc. Tried other resolutions, Nvdia normalize, and so on. I really don´t know what I am doing wrong!


Thanks for your time!

passerby

what is the normal map compressed as in UDK

haiddasalami

Multiply the normal map by 1,-1 and 1 to flip the green channel.

chrisavigni

passerby: TC_Normalmap. I changed to TC_NormalmapUncompressed and I got much better results, but the stripes are still there!

haiddasalami: Yeah I already have done that. The stripes only changed position!

The curious thing: if I don´t use specular I get no stripes at all using this normal map, but when I combine a clean normal generated using NDO and specular I also get no stripes. So to be honest I really don´t know what to do! I even used this material on another mesh, and stripes again. And I have just baked another Normal and guess what? more stripes.:poly127:

Also downloaded the Marmoset Tool and got the same problem there.

Any ideas?

SkyGround

I think you should show here normal map and specular, as they are in UDK/marmoset - TGA or DDS.

chrisavigni

I still think the problem is the Normal. As you can see I am using a constant for diffuse and specular and still get the same error!

Here are the textures:

Xendance

Try applying that material onto a BSP surface and see if it still causes problems.

passerby

when you baked with x-normal did you make a cage or did you calculate out the proper ray distance to use for a cageless bake.

chrisavigni

Xendance:Yeap. Same issue.

passerby: Cage as in Maya.

Well I did all the steps again, but this time I used another mesh: uvs, bake, photoshop, crazybump, etc. And again these :poly127: stripes. But this time I changed the compression to Uncompressed and voil

throttlekitty

Yes, targa files have display/banding issues in some applications.

passerby

ya just continue useing uncompressed, and when you got your spec, gloss and diffuse done try it out again with compressed normalmaps, the artifacts aren't very noticeable when other things are in the material.

and it also isn't always a issue, my last few bakes that are useing compressed normals are looking fine in udk, think it mostly happens when there is a very subtle gradient in the map.

chrisavigni

throttlekitty: Thanks for the input.

passerby: I will do that. At least for my portfolio.

Thank you all for your time.

Defonten

Google search and Polycount rules! I LOVE you guys! I was experiencing the same stripes/banding problem and now it's solved thanks to you! Just resaved my stupid jpgs as tga and it did the trick!