Maya 2016 Blinn shader not working as expected in Viewport 2.0

[sscheffers]

Hi,

In Maya 2016, a Blinn shader with a tangentspace normalmap does not display correctly in Viewport 2.0 anymore !

This used to work fine in Maya 2015!

Could you comment if this is a known bug, if not what's the reason for the change?

Lot's of modelers still prefer to use the Blinn shader to assess the quality of normalmapped objects over the DX11 shader, because it has this really nice contrast, so flaws in the normalmaps are easier to detect.

If I switch to Legacy High Quality Viewport the normalmap displays correctly,

but without the nice anti-aliasing and there's too much darkening towards the edges, plus it's called Legacy for a reason, so I assume it will be phased out completely in the near future, but I still want to be able to preview normalmaps

on an object with a blinn shader.

Kind regards

Stefan Scheffers

[3dMastermind]

Hi Stefan.

This seems to work well on my normal map test with a transparent Blin when viewed in VP2 and DX11.

[_sebastian_f]

@3dMastermind: where was he talking about transparency?

@stefan: check your file node of the normal map. in 2016 there is color management enabled by default (which was not the case in 2015!). in case of your nrml map the color space should be raw instead of sRgb. in case your viewport doesn´t update correctly (which seems to happen quite frequently in 2016) try typing "ogs -reset" in the mel command line.

[3dMastermind]

I may have mistaken "tangentspace" for "transparency" 🙂

Perhaps this may also help:

"Note:

By default, Autodesk® 3ds Max® uses a left-handed tangent space. Therefore, when you are incorporating normal maps from 3ds Max, you should make sure to select the Left Handed option in the Attribute Editor of the polygon mesh. Alternatively, you can also go to Windows > Settings/Preferences > Preferences > Modeling > Polygon Tangent Space and set the Default co-ordinate system to Left handed so that all new meshes use left-handed maps by default."

from here:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2016/ENU//?guid=GUID-169FEA8E-0289-4B12-A181-D7C79FC98BC2

[sscheffers]

Yes. It looks like it's the colormanagement. When I turn it off the Blinn tangentspace normalmaps display correctly.

Thanks !