Normal map banding with specific lossless formats
polycounter lvl 5
Hey again,
first of this is not an 8 bit normal map issue. Instead this is a very weird thing which I keep on running into when using PNG or PSD formats to save a normal map.
When I use TIFF format the banding is eliminated, even if I resave the PNG or PSD files as TIFF.
What could cause these issues? They're persistent in Unreal Engine 4 and Marmoset Toolbag 3.
What could cause such issues? And since UE4 does not support TIFF format is there any good alternative besides PSD or PNG? Thanks!!!
first of this is not an 8 bit normal map issue. Instead this is a very weird thing which I keep on running into when using PNG or PSD formats to save a normal map.
When I use TIFF format the banding is eliminated, even if I resave the PNG or PSD files as TIFF.
What could cause these issues? They're persistent in Unreal Engine 4 and Marmoset Toolbag 3.
What could cause such issues? And since UE4 does not support TIFF format is there any good alternative besides PSD or PNG? Thanks!!!
Replies
I'm just wondering what could cause these issues, of course making a diffuse would hide such small artefacts but in any case it's still a small problem.
16bit PNG support is bad and varies between applications. Don't use it. I avoid PNG pretty much all together for game art uses because of the horrible alpha support and 16bit support. I believe that is the core part of your problems and why you are seeing inconsistencies.
You can controlling the shading/normals on your low poly model to produce less harsh smoothing, which will create less harsh gradients on the normal map, which will compress better.
Anyways my question is what if you'd like to have that oomph in your reflections, smooth mirror like surface in the scene. What if you do want a 16bit normal map, what format would you use? TIFF seemed like a nice option for me until I found out that UE4 doesn't support it
If you want perfect glossy reflections, controlling the shading and using plenty of geometry will help. Epic added some extra normal precision settings for getting better reflections on cars, but none of them are directly normal map related.
@ArasTM Hey! I'm am only 5 years late to the party :) It seems if you want to use a 16 bit normal, your best option (though it will be compressed still) is in the texture settings, importing the normal map as an HDR texture. Be aware this is VERY performance heavy, but if you still want to brute force your way through a normal map, this will be the way.
I recommend just creating a good topology mesh with the details you want and setting it as a different material inside UE4 and using weighted normals :) Hope this is helpful for anyone dropping by.