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Arnold for 3ds Max
Rendering with Arnold in 3ds Max using the MaxtoA plug-in.
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Normal maps and object edges

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Message 1 of 4
tneveu
861 Views, 3 Replies

Normal maps and object edges

Hi all,

So, I've been beating my head against this one for a while now. I have the following items which I created using high poly to low poly techniques. I'm much more familiar with game pipelines than rendering in maya.

621-normalmap-issues.jpg

I get that substance painter renders things differently.. and i've gone thru everything i can find to export from one to the other but these are not even close. One of the most jarring issue (well.. there seem to be a lot of issues) is a lack of any edge definition. Any edge definition seems to be coming from the geometry only.. everything looks rounded and blobby.

I'm using an aiNormalmap node with the material input set to tangent.. I've tried just about every combination and these are the best results I get.

622-normalmap-mat.png

Should it be in the normal slot? Is there a step i missed somehow? Or is this simply the wrong workflow when rendering with Arnold?

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Message 2 of 4
Mike_Farnsworth
in reply to: tneveu

Your normal map data should be plugged into the 'Input', not 'Tangent'. The main input to the normal map shader is the normal map itself, and the tangent and normal parameters are used to define a custom tangent space. Imagine you had generated a tangent vector map out of Mudbox or something like that, you could plug that into the 'Tangent' input.

Under normal circumstances, you shouldn't need to do that, however.

Message 3 of 4
tneveu
in reply to: tneveu

Hmm.. honestly that was the first thing I tried.. but I must have had another setting wrong along the way so I figured it must not be right. Now i just feel stupid.. haha

624-normals-ok.jpg

Message 4 of 4
Mike_Farnsworth
in reply to: tneveu

No that's great! It's not immediately obvious from those parameter names what plugs into what.

Another thing to try, given the nature of your model, is to use linear subdivision (instead of Catmull-Clark). It might improve the result, as your harder edges look a bit soft.

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