Dear everyone!
This is my first post so a big hi to the community!
😉 I'm just beginning to explore mudbox as I'm drawn to its simplicity; however I'm having some serious problems doing a very simple and obvious task currently (ironically), and I’ve read everything I can find online but to no avail so far…
I just wanted to familiarise myself with the normal map creation workflow between max -> mudbox -> max (running on win 7 /64 bit versions) so;
1) I started off with a simple squashed sphere with custom UV's, exported it as an object using the mudbox preset in max obj exporter (see image 1)
2) I introduced some basic detail in mudbox at level 5, then exported a normal map using basic max settings using tangent space (see image 2)
3) I imported the object file back into max, applied bump map channel -> normal bump using tangent space; however regardless of different settings or process’, when I apply the normal map parts of the UV segments in max are either turned inside out - that is the normal lighting seems back to front or the normal shading information is incorrect (see image 3)
4) if I use the automatic export to max from mudbox (i.e. which uses fbx) I have the same problem except its even worse as for some reason mudbox encodes facets from the low level base mesh into the high level normal map making it look like its had its smoothing groups removed when the normal map is applied - in addition to it being inside out (see image 4)
So far I have tried everything from updating mudbox to service pack 1 and FBX exporter to the latest version (i.e. 12.1) I’ve tried flipping the UVs in max, changing all the settings - but the same result (i.e. or similar issue) every time – so I’ve run out of ideas!
The annoying thing is that if I export it in object space it works fine, so if any body has any ideas of what I’m doing wrong I would mega appreciate your help as its driving me nuts and such a primitive task too – lol…
Major thanks to the community for any help, suggestions, advice or support in advance ;0)