Normal Map problems

arnon

I tried Materialize and Photoshop Normal Map features, both give me the same, wrong [Normal Map] result, so it must be me. Torso Normal lead to a seam to the Limb Normal. I checked other, working Normal Maps and noticed a big difference in the border region: While it should look like this (please disregard that it's two different models)

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I got this with extreme borders. I take the original skin, desaturate it, using white or transparent background outside the skin area, no change:

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I tried with differnt settings, I just fail in getting the detailed skin stay and make the borders disappear. What am I doing wrong?

Mattymanx

I dont use either of those programs so I cant say.

However, if you have Filterforge (free 30 day trial if you dont, no limits) then I would highly recommend trying this Normal filter - https://www.filterforge.com/filters/14802.html

There are others for FF as well, just search for Normal in the filter library and you will have other options

 

felis

I don't know how it is done, but the midlevel outside the body area should be a grey, 127, 127, 127.

Looks like you had that to white.

arnon

felis said:

I don't know how it is done, but the midlevel outside the body area should be a grey, 127, 127, 127.

Looks like you had thyat to white.

 yes, I had it either transparent or white, but not at grey. Well, I set the outside to 127 127 127 and a slightly better yet unsatisfying result:

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The "core" looks good, just the seams...

chevybabe25

In a paint program, sample the purple background color. Add a layer, then with a soft paintbrush, paint over all the seams. You can also do this to turn down values of spots that may look too strong as well.

Richard Haseltine

Please don't post textures unless they are all your own work.

richardandtracy

I have used Materialize and got the results I expected. I'm not sure if the settings can be changed for the type of normal map. If there is a setting to change from DirectX to OpenGL normals as I think DS uses OGL normal definition, that might be worth trying. I have used a bump map when I didn't have a normal map, and that worked well enough... Sorry I can't help more. Regards, Richard.

arnon

chevybabe25 said:

In a paint program, sample the purple background color. Add a layer, then with a soft paintbrush, paint over all the seams. You can also do this to turn down values of spots that may look too strong as well.

Thanks to all. This answer is a possible solution, still I don't know why the Normal plugins in Photoshop or Materialize generate these "wrong" maps. What I did: 

I changed the white region to 127 127 127 grey, Level adjusted the body texture (totally desaturated) to get somewhat close to the background grey, then brushed with Normal Map purple background colour over the hard red and green edges.

charles

Program slike PS's Normal map generator are going to produce to the single image based on a flat plane that will lead to issues when paired with the next ajoining UV map like the arms. You need to work with the entire set in a program that can handle that such as Substance Painter, or even Blender.  Unless you can isolate and work within certain regions that dont' hit the texture's UV boundary like inner face.

 

 

arnon

Yes, I am currently digging myself into Substance Painter. For the meantime, blending / softening out the seams work for Normal Maps quite good and far better than for Diffuse as those maps are more subtle.

 

edit: now I understand why so many Diffuse Maps got their seams extended over the seams, the border "skin part" is oversized and does not stop at the seam. While not necessary in Diffuse, Glossy or Specular it is important in Normal Map as the Normal Map creator routing does not see a hard boundary and interpretes that as extreme altitude difference but does not see any difference at all as the surrounding terrain is the same height, so no "cliff" is detected so no hard green or red boundaries are created, just plain and even purple.