Max: Normal Tangets, seams and Gamma/LUT

3DKnight

Posted this in Autodesk Area, but not getting any response, anyone else run into this?

So I am having a display issue error with my normals baked from XNormal and displayed in Max.

Turing Gamma/LUT correction off usually fixes the seam issue, but as a result your texture are not really correctly displayed.

Turning Gamma on shows very ugly seams.

If you go into the normal map and play around with the local to tangent buttons, switching back and forth a few times, while disabling the gamma on and off, it will magically FIX ITSELF!! You now have correct normal tangents showing with the gamma ON!

i haven’t gotten true repro steps for this, but i think for sure this is a display bug

attached pictures to help

image 1: Gamma/LUT off

image 2: Gamma/LUT on (seams on top caps of beams)

image 3: Gamma/LUT on after messing around a bit with options

image 4: Gamma on FIXED!

woody

I am having a similar issue which I have yet to resolve in another thread. Are you using max 2012? Because if so I am starting to wonder if there is display issues. Try baking your normal map in max see if you get the same problem.

edit: Try Marmoset if you have it, works for me.

My thread: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95668

3DKnight

yeah it seems to me a max display error.. I got it to display properly after messing around with the settings with Gamma on, just annoying

Joshua Stubbles

Although it's nice to have accurate color in the max viewport, it only really matters what it looks like in the engine or final rendered image. With that in mind, it's generally pretty common practice to disable Gamma/LUT from the get go. It's one of the first things I do once Max is installed.

We've absolutely seen the issue on a few machines here at work, disabling the gamma/lut usually fixes it.

I've seen a problem where someone had the Gamma/LUT turned on and baked the map in max. Disabling it didn't help. They had to rebake the normals with it disabled, before it went away. Strange stuff.

poopipe

gamma correction changes the colours - this sort of thing will happen if you enable it for bitmap input/output

game engines (as a rule) don't expect to be given gamma corrected textures so if you're making game engine assets you shouldn't have gamma correction enabled.

woody

I will definitely be disabling gamma/lut from now on.

I don't mean to hijack the thread with my own problems, but could someone post a screen with their Photoshop colour management settings. Just to compare my settings, as I still believe Photoshop is editing/adding gamma.

Eric Chadwick

Did you turn off gamma in Max, rebake your normal map, and test with that? It is very unlikely that Photoshop is at fault.

poopipe

I set everything that'll let me to use the adobe rgb colour settings. this is mainly because i have Samsung monitors and their colour profiles don't work. I've not had to touch anything on the dells i have at work

cg.stefan.this

good game !

GhosTDoG

That's not a (display) bug in Max, it's just how gamma works with a linear workflow (2,2).

You have to reverse/de-gamma non sRGB spaces like your normal and displacement maps or you get seams!

Just put a "composite map" before your texture >> Advanced Options: RGB= Gamma/Contrast -> 2.2

Eric Chadwick

Using a composite map won't fix the normal map if you're actually making it for a game engine. It's better to use the gamma override when loading the bitmap, which of course only fixes it inside Max, if the normal map was saved with 2.2.

I don't see why cg.stefan.this dredged up this old thread. With a post like that I was on the verge of banning you as a spammer.

Well anyhow, some good reading here on Gamma
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Gamma

GhosTDoG

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Using a composite map won't fix the normal map if you're actually making it for a game engine.

I didn't say it will fix a baked (2.2) normal map, but it "fixes" the display/offline rendering seam issue in Max, if you are useing a linear workflow in max and got bakes from f.e xnormal, which doesn't bake with 2,2. (referring to post 1)

(For offline rendering, you can also use the "gamma+gain" map.)

And actually it makes no sense to test a normal map in max, if it's not your target engine, unless you want to quickly check rough baking errors.

monster

I know this is an old thread, but it doesn't seem to have an answer for viewing normal maps in the viewport when Gamma is enabled.

If gamma is enabled you should Override the gamma setting when you are selecting the file. You also need to plug it into a Normal Bump node.

GhosTDoG

monster wrote: »

I know this is an old thread, but it doesn't seem to have an answer for viewing normal maps in the viewport when Gamma is enabled.

If gamma is enabled you should Override the gamma setting when you are selecting the file. You also need to plug it into a Normal Bump node.

Never worked for me. Only works if I reverse gamma in the shader, not on import.

AFAIK "Master Zap" (http://mentalraytips.blogspot.de/) mentioned somewhere, that there is/was a bug due the import override dialog.

marks

Someone seriously needs to make the gospel article on gamma for games artists lol

Eric Chadwick

Read the links on the wiki, they explain it pretty well I think. Though maybe you just want the tl;dr version...