Normal Map differences!?
polycounter
Hi all
Im visiting this forum for a long while now. I finally decided to make something that i can also post here. Im in the progress makeing a nextgen game character. But i have a problem with normal maps. Im very confused about the differents between Normal Map Shader:
The RTT Normal Map looks very good but in the XNormal Viewer or with HLSL Normal Map Shader it looks very bad.
Why are there that big differences and how will it look in a game engine like unreal engine 3?
Its the first Normal Map i did in max and some suggestions how i can make a better normal map would help me a lot.
Here are some screens of the setting i used for rendering it into the normal map texture.
wire
normal map
I used only a few parts of the character to test the normal mapping. Here is the full high poly model:
high poly full
Im visiting this forum for a long while now. I finally decided to make something that i can also post here. Im in the progress makeing a nextgen game character. But i have a problem with normal maps. Im very confused about the differents between Normal Map Shader:
The RTT Normal Map looks very good but in the XNormal Viewer or with HLSL Normal Map Shader it looks very bad.
Why are there that big differences and how will it look in a game engine like unreal engine 3?
Its the first Normal Map i did in max and some suggestions how i can make a better normal map would help me a lot.
Here are some screens of the setting i used for rendering it into the normal map texture.
wire
normal map
I used only a few parts of the character to test the normal mapping. Here is the full high poly model:
high poly full
Replies
Different shaders handle normal map display in different ways, and obviously the RTT shader is designed to handle the RTT-generated normals perfectly.
Have you tried rendering the normals in XNormal and comparing the outputs, or are you just using the max-rendered normal map to view in XNormal?
You can try to load them along with your object in the Roboblitz editor if you really want to be sure.
Yay!
But i have no idea how i can invert a channel in Photoshop?
local space normal mapping is more robust.
but like always all have their pros and cons, just tangent is really easy to break when mixing tools/engines...
there are reasons why epic, id, crytek got their own normalmap tools as well.
however the break is usually in smaller artifacts once the axis orientation thing is solved, as is now
@crazy butcher
Do you mean epic got a own tool to create a normal map? Cant find something like this in the roboblitz files but i will try to test the model in UE3 with the in max rendered normal map and compare it.
But its looking good now:
Normal test:
Normal, Specular and Occlusion Diffuse test:
The new Schematic Material Editor in UE3 is very cool.
Remember, I can change some thing if ya need!
Btw, you probably are getting too much specular because the alpha channel of the specular texture controls the shiny specular power ( and the RGB the color modulation ). If you set alpha channel to , for example, 4 of 255 you will get a greater specular highlight point. If you don't specify a specular texture then a power of 16 is used. You can play a few with the specular sliders to make the light to emit less specular intensity.
Also there are probably differencies in the shading equation, that's normal, each engine is a different world.
Hey, nice model Dav btw! I luv the stomach part.
So a function in XNormal that inverts the green channel would be great.
btw awesome tool you made! Thx a lot for your work
If you want more info about the editor go to this page:
http://www.roboblitz.com/RoboBlitzEditorWiki/index.php/Main_Page