Community
Arnold for Maya Forum
Rendering with Arnold in Maya using the MtoA plug-in.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Need MaxToA Normal Material testers

6 REPLIES 6
Reply
Message 1 of 7
derek.mallard
329 Views, 6 Replies

Need MaxToA Normal Material testers

Alright, it's time for me to get to the bottom of this. I'm getting dark edges around my objects when using the Arnold Normal Material. But the normal textures aren't what's causing the problem, I'll explain this in a lot of detail.


This is what I use for the "Bump Map" in the physical material.


5619-map-1.png

I put my normal textures in the "Input".


So here I have a white background to expose the dark edges around the red sphere, it's using the Arnold Normal material with a flat normal texture.

Now, let's expose the dark edges by pulling on one of the vertices! (But currently, my character models already have exposed dark edges when using the normal bump)


The farther you move the camera to the right or the more you pull the vertex out, the more space the dark edge will cover up.


5641-2.png


This is without the Normal material.


5642-3.png

I need some people to try and please replicate this. So I'll upload this scene.

Scene Test.zip

Tags (1)
Labels (1)
6 REPLIES 6
Message 2 of 7
madsd
in reply to: derek.mallard

I had a look at it.
Several things spring to my attention.


- The bitmap is not in linear space, you need to set gamma to 1.0.

- You dont need 3 light filters, on all lamps 1 is enough, and it goes on the sky dome as it has no directional values, you have plopped it on 3 target lights.

- You have modelled that spike "incorrectly" there are broken normals since lack of topology.

What you want to do is extrude a face to a square, then collapse the 4 vertices at the end or something of that nature, your actual mesh normals needs to be not-broken as well.

It is impossible for me to recreate your case, but I can do as explained above and make it work.

You can also just pipe an OSL vector with values 0.5 0.5 1.0 to the normal as that is a linear space normal map.


Dont use the Arnold normal map, use the max legacy normal map, it performs much better, in viewport it shows correctly realtime, the Arnold map does not, and its baking it out constantly so you will have a lot of slow downs.


5588-qwe.png


5589-qweqweqwe.png

5590-qwe.png



Attached last image working construct as max 2020 file.
My file works as expected, so you just need to change workflow on a couple of accounts and you are good to go.

Summa summarum:
If you see black, it means your geomerty has double curve over flat area, meaning some faces will try to exsists on several dimensions where it cannot, so you need to fix all topology on your meshes that has these black plots and areas.

See your mesh and compare it to mine that works.
5652-qqq.png

Message 3 of 7
derek.mallard
in reply to: madsd

I gonna try the things you told me and get back to you later but, what you said about me "modeling that spike incorrectly". I didn't model anything (I'm no 3D modeler...I just created a sphere from the "standard primitives", and just pulled one of the vertices to show the black edge.

Please understand that I'm just a videogame character poser and I have nothing to do with modeling hahaha. 😄

(Also forgot that I had 3 light filters, I just cloned the one light hehe.)

Message 4 of 7

@Mads Drøschler I've seen your file, but it seems like I have to fix the topology for every single model created by other people that I've downloaded (And models ripped from video games) just so I can get rid of the black edge problem, and like I said, I'm no 3D modeler.


So I may have to just deal with this. (Also, for using the legacy normal bump. Is it better just for the viewport performance, or both rendering and the for the viewport? Because, I don't really use the high quality setting just to see the normal details in real time. I would just look at my scene in active shade.)

Message 5 of 7
madsd
in reply to: derek.mallard

No need to worry if it's not convenient.
There is a different way to clean them up via auto-smooth groups.


Go to Polygon level on the mesh, select all polygons and hit auto smooth.

5653-qweqwe.png

Message 6 of 7
derek.mallard
in reply to: madsd

Well yeah I usually do that with most models that hasn't been smoothed yet but it doesn't help mostly.

Message 7 of 7
madsd
in reply to: derek.mallard

It helps on the sphere you pulled a vertex on, ( see my render its completly red, no blacks )

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report