Maya to Zbrush Normals Problem

# 1 25-01-2014 , 05:48 AM

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Join Date: Jan 2014

Posts: 4

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone here can help because this is driving me insane. I've made this model in Zbrush and am importing it into maya, the problem is I can't get the normal maps to display properly. It looks like they're reversed but selecting all the faces and reversing the normals does nothing.

The normal map is set to tangent space normals in maya, which is what it was exported as in Zbrush. I have no clue as to what is causing it at this point. Here's the front and the back:

user added image

Anyone seen anything like this before? Sorry if I've missed anything, it's almost 6am so I need to go and faint now user added image

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# 2 25-01-2014 , 08:06 AM

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Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Northampton

Posts: 249

it looks like your normals could be locked! Select polygons in the select menu. Go to normals>unlock normals. Then set to face. You may need to do a soft edge also.

See how that goes.

It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion

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# 3 25-01-2014 , 02:31 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2014

Posts: 4

it looks like your normals could be locked! Select polygons in the select menu. Go to normals>unlock normals. Then set to face. You may need to do a soft edge also.

See how that goes.

Originally Posted by Stephen

Didn't work unfortunately, here's the result after a set to face, if it sheds any more light on anything:

user added image

Tried inverting the green channel on the normal map in photoshop as well, didn't help either. I tried a render with a light pointing at it and it stayed dark.

It's a weird one :/

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# 4 25-01-2014 , 02:39 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2014

Posts: 4

I fixed it, it was me being an idiot -_-

In Zbrush, after you create the normal map - when you go to export maps you have to select tangent map while exporting it as well... which I hadn't done.

Thanks for the help though Stephen user added image

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# 5 25-01-2014 , 02:41 PM

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Join Date: Apr 2005

Location: UK

Posts: 595

i think your normals might be facing the wrong way, select the faces, and in the normals menue select reverse normals from the drop down menu, i'm not sure what you used to bake out the normal map, but if you did it in a third party softwaye like xnormal, topogun or even zbrush then you will need to export out the low poly model out again (having reversed the normals) and rebake the normal map again,

hope this helps

Last edited by jali; 25-01-2014 at 02:45 PM.

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# 6 25-01-2014 , 05:26 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2014

Posts: 4

i think your normals might be facing the wrong way, select the faces, and in the normals menue select reverse normals from the drop down menu, i'm not sure what you used to bake out the normal map, but if you did it in a third party softwaye like xnormal, topogun or even zbrush then you will need to export out the low poly model out again (having reversed the normals) and rebake the normal map again,

hope this helps

Originally Posted by jali

Thankyou, but I already fixed it, it was a problem with the way I exported the normal map from Zbrush.