Rendering Normal Maps in 3ds max
Hi,
so first of all hello everyone, first post here
I wanted to ask if anyone may have an idea what is the solution to the problem that I have:
I create and object in 3ds max and then in mudbox I would sculpt it and extract normals (3ds max compatible). In this example, a simple sphere, everything is just fine:
then when I go back to 3ds max and apply the same map to the base mesh I exported to MB mental ray would give me this:
What is even more confusing for me, if I invert green channel and do the same in Maya then object is rendered perfectly, seams absolutely invisible.
I will appreciate any ideas what may be the issue here.
so first of all hello everyone, first post here
I wanted to ask if anyone may have an idea what is the solution to the problem that I have:
I create and object in 3ds max and then in mudbox I would sculpt it and extract normals (3ds max compatible). In this example, a simple sphere, everything is just fine:
then when I go back to 3ds max and apply the same map to the base mesh I exported to MB mental ray would give me this:
What is even more confusing for me, if I invert green channel and do the same in Maya then object is rendered perfectly, seams absolutely invisible.
I will appreciate any ideas what may be the issue here.
Replies
You should try to view it in DX view or a game engine.
The flipped green channel is a mentalRay shader problem i think.
At least in 3dsMax.
who said normal mapping is used only in realtime? I may want to make cinematics or sth like that. And I get the same errors in quicksilver as well
It's not inverted channel or anything, map has been created as 3ds max compatible and material is previewed in MB with 3ds max compatibility selected.
gskol:
I thought the same at first, so I made another quick normal map test and I ensured that everything is in smoothing group 1. Same thing
Prophecies:
Another try, same results. Normals work in mudbox, if I flip the G channel no problems in Maya either (no seams visible, everything is nicely and lit) which should be some kind of a hint, but I don't know what make of it
Well of course you are able to use normal maps in cinematics but its a pain most of the time since you get errors or lose a lot of high frequency detail. At least in 3dsMax, i dunno about Maya actually.
Yea as someone pointed earlier it looks like a smoothing or UV error.
Can you post your UV map and wires? Maybe its a mistake in the Mesh or with the UVs/smoothing.
1: I make my model in 3ds, create UV's then I select all the polygons and make sure they are in smoothing group 1.
2:I export it as .obj using mudbox compatibility preset.
3: I open the .obj in MB, sculpt, extract normal map compatible with 3ds.
4: In 3ds I would import .obj, then create a new material using previously extracted normal map.
Am I missing anything important?
Mesh is a turbosmoothed box and I dont think that there is a problem with UVs. I understand that bad UVs can cause seams to become visible, but when I render this sphere normals across the entire surface are totally messed up.
And again, in Maya its all fine.
Can anyone post a link to any good and proven tutorial for using 3ds with mudbox? I suspect I'm missing something very basic and obvious.
That sounds strange.
However i would do a slightly different approach though.
Try to decimate your HP model out of mudbox then import it to 3ds Max and then bake it in max or XNormal onto a UVed model.
That should work.