Normal Map issues

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone!

This is really my first time working with Mudbox, doing it for a school project. Everything works fine in Mudbox, but as soon as I bring it into Maya it completely freaks out. I can't figure out what's causing these issues--I've played around with all of the settings, and nothing seems to change this noise that displays on my Maya model. My professor recommended smooth Uv's but that didn't do anything. Any idea as to what could cause this? I've tried with meshes that weren't unwrapped and with ones that were--nothing changed. Nothing I've done seems to have changed it. I know my video card isn't amazing (Radeon 9550), could that be the cause of it? I'm at my wits end trying to figure this out. Thanks in advance!

In mudbox..
<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v218/jackofspades/?action=view&current=mudbox.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/jackofspades/mudbox.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

The normal map..
<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v218/jackofspades/?action=view&current=normal.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/jackofspades/normal.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

In Maya...
<a href="http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v218/jackofspades/?action=view&current=leatherskin.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/jackofspades/leatherskin.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

[Anonymous]

I think you have problems with your geometry. Can you post a wireframe view of your model.

When you import your model into mudbox pay careful attention as to how the geometry is being reorganized after each subdivision. Turn off smoothing and make sure everything looks nice and even.

In the menu bar, at Mesh>Subdivide Selection there is a little box at the corner that when pressed opens up a dialog box for controlling your subdivision. Turn off smooth positions and turn on smooth UVs for the first couple of subdivisions, then take them back the way the were. This will keep your high res model more faithful to the low res.

[Anonymous]

well your maya image looks like a displacement but your saying your using normal maps so I don't quite understand. if its displacement map it looks like you don't have enough fidelity in your map, use a higher bit depth or bake with a smaller ray distance. just don't use such a small ray distance that it clips... but just before it clips will give you the highest fidelity. the normal map looks as it should, based on the mudbox mesh you posted. so its a maya setting in that case.

[Anonymous]

Hey guys,

I have read about a million posts and forums and threads along with countless google searches and what not and have not come across an answer, I know that there are a good many of people that churn out high detailed characters with both mudbox and zbrush, but for the life of me, I cannot get the normal maps to work right. It seems that everyone has all these problems from zbrush that normal maps simply do not load right in maya. After all the work in zbrush I only spent a small amount of time scuplting in mudbox and still cannot get it to work. Ill show my issues.

They are attached.

First screen shot is of the model in mudbox

Second screen shot is of the normal map

third screen shot is of the maya render in "bump" setting of bump map

fourth screen shot is of the maya render in "tangent" setting of bump map

fifth is a shot of my UV.s.


Please help.....I cannot get the normals to translate right.....should I go to MAX?

[Anonymous]

seems to be the same problem as fish.....thats why i posted here thanks