How to render bump maps with Arnold on Lambert and Blinn materials

[Anonymous]

I just got Maya 2017 installed and I loaded up some old projects to have a look at how Maya now behaves.  I have noticed that my Blinn and Lambert materials that have bump maps no longer render the bump map with the Arnold render.  (Worked fine with Mental Ray)

Now my question is how to I get my bump maps working again with the existing materials or do I have to give up on these materials and go to the Arnold materials?

I would prefer to keep the Lambert and Blinn materials.

[Stephen.Blair]

Hi

I think you'd have to set up the bump maps as shown here: https://support.solidangle.com/x/n4AQ

Stephen

Solid Angle Support

[Anonymous]

Hi Stephan,

Thank-you for the reply.  I was hoping not to have to use the Arnold standard shader and keep using the Blinn and Lambert for my beginning students.  They can switch to the more advanced shaders later.

Leslie Dietz

[Stephen.Blair]

Hi

You should be able to plug a Blinn or Lambert into the aiBump. I tested with a Blinn.

[Anonymous]

I am sure that I am missing something really stupid but I still cannot get the bump to work.  I used your first link to the Arnold material as reference.  I attached an image of my Hypershade network for the simple white die that I am using.  A BW image (png) is being used for the color and bump channels.  Color works fine.

I created an aibump2D1 node and attached it to the Blinn's "Bump/Normal Mapping" channel.  I then attached the BW DieFaces.png file node to the aiBump2d1 node in the Bump Map channel.  I also "checked on" the Alpha is luminescence in file node.  All other settings are default.

Can you see what it is that I am missing?  Many thanks so far.

Leslie Dietz

[Stephen.Blair]

Hi

You need to use the aiBump as the surface shader, and plug the Blinn into the Shader port of the aiBump.

The second screenshot on the page https://support.solidangle.com/x/n4AQ shows how to set up the shader tree.

Thanks

Stephen

Solid Angle Support

[Anonymous]

I tried following your example using the Arnold material shown in your link.  Using that as a guide I tried creating Blinn with a bump map.  This is the upper material network in the attached image.  When I attached the blinn material to an object it created a new shading group node.  I also tried attaching the bump node but with no success.

I followed a Digital Tutors example using the Arnold material and I was successful.  That is the lower material network in the attached image.

I did overlook one thing in the image node.  I remembered to check "Alpha is Luminance".  I forgot to change the color space to "RAW".  When I did this the Arnold material started working.

Would you be able to show me the network with the Blinn material instead of the Arnold standard material?  

Apologies for for being so dense with this, it should be straight forward.

Leslie Dietz

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Topic: How to render bump maps with Arnold on Lambert and Blinn materials
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Since your automated message only accepts one answer, the following is my answer.

(apologies for sounding sharp.)

No, I have not solved my problem.  From what I can tell Arnold will not render a bump map (or normal map) when using a Maya standard material such as a Lambert or Blinn.  I cannot get a bump map to work based on your example(https://support.solidangle.com/x/n4AQ) with an Arnold material.  When I try to assign the material to an object it creates a new Shader Group and the resultant shader network still does not work.

[Anonymous]

Do you mind showing a picture of the nodes or connections? I tried doing this and it didn't work. I attached my file. My coin is flooded out by specular indirect. I want the same specularity, but I also want the bump map of the coin face.

[Stephen.Blair]

Hi

If you're going to use Blinn, then you have to use an aiBump2d shader.

The Blinn plugs into the aiBump2d, and aiBump2d is the surface shader.

A Blinn is translated to a Standard shader by MtoA, so you may want to use a Standard instead. Then you can use the same workflow in the AE, where you hook up a Maya bump to the Standard.

[Anonymous]

Thank you! I ended up using a standard shader