Make sure you rendered tangent space map (it will be mostly blue). I don't think Maya's bump node supports world space normals, because you only have a choice of bump and tangent space normals. So when you apply your normal map to your model by plugging it into a bump node, how does the model look in viewport when you turn…
Just use Mental Ray for rendering normal maps. It handles it natively with no problems - just hook the map up to the bump node, make sure it's set to tangent and you're done. I don't know why people go to such trouble downloading plugins for the Maya renderer, it just works in MR!
You can DL a Maya "Normal Bump" node from highend3d.com , that will let you render normal maps with Software render. I think this is the one I used (sorry, reformatted and don't have a copy to make sure): http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/shaders/NormalBump2D-for-Maya7-0-3738.html also try:…