What is worng with Arnold normal maps in this file?

[Anonymous]

This is the Arnold rendering result compared with the viewport result of a low poly mesh baked into a highres mesh

The 3ds Max file and the normal map are enclosed here:

Life Raft 01.zip

While the viewport render is ok, (not perfect but quite good), the Arnold is very bad!

Can anyone please check what is wrong with this model, baking, texture? Or everything is ok and this is really a weakness on Arnold rendering engine?

Thank you.

Cheers,

José Varela

[nwoolridge]

I have not experienced issues with normal maps and Arnold. In any case, it looks like this file is a better candidate for the round edges shader (https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AFMUG/Round+Corners), rather than a normal map. Round edges would likely give a much better result without the need for a texture map.

[CiroCardoso3v]

I had a look at your model. I think you need to bake the normals again. First, you don't have an Unwrapp on your high model and for that reason, your normal map is incomplete. Here is a render done with Corona, and we can see the same issues.