strange normalMap behavior in Max

[Cthulhu]

well, in fact, the metalbump shader IS somewhat strange ;) we tried it several times but never got any reliable results.
Unfortunatly, i don't know of any alternatives, we are now using kaldera from mankua, so we can at least render the normalmaps.
what i remember is that the metalbump shader needs the normalmap in the correct format and space, but don't know which one it was..

andre


ps: gruß an ralf ;)

[florian]

thanks. I will test some different settings. I wish discreet would test their tools. There is deffinatly something wrong. Normal map is normal map, so why isn't it displayed correct?
I'm a little bit angry at those max presentation guys showing off the new and "great" tools... (that don't work!) ...aaarrargh!...I'm ok.

By the way, thanks for your great, usefull, free and most importend WORKING tools offered on your site.

[robinb]

Actually a normal map isn't a normal map. Nvidia and ATI store normal maps in different formats. Ati ones are stored with the green channel inverted (the up and down axis). Max only knows about the Nvidia format. You can fix this by taking the map into Photoshop, selecting the green channel and inverting it. I assume most game engines know which format your card uses and changes the shader to match it. But max doesn't. Hopefully this is fixed in Max7.

In addition the map could be either in world space (only usuable for static models that don't change orientation), object space (quite unusual, again for static models, but they can be oriented however you like), or most commonly in tangent space (outwards from the surface). These work on deformable objects like characters. And they're easily recognised as they're mostly blue.

Eric Chadwick has collected a lot of really good information on normal maps and max. Have a search. I'm sure he'll pop in with a link before too much longer. ;)

[florian]

I just wonderd, because i have used nvidias tool to create them?
Inverting the green channel in photoshop looks like my solution. Thanks for that

[robinb]

Yeah it doesn't matter which tool you use to generate them, it's all about which card you've got in the machine that views them. Although I imagine if you've got an Nvidia card in your machine and used the ATI tool then they'd come out wrong as well. My brain hurts now.

[florian]

Strange. But finally everything makes sense. Yep i own a radeon. But...ok, now i'm also getting a headache.
Looks like some silly business step of nvidia. There's no other reason to break up with industry standards. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. ;)

thanks for your help

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