I have made a simple wall with a bump map in 3ds max
And the Lightmap UV seems alright
However, this is what I get in Unreal Engine
The front wall is terribly light… the side wall is terribly dark and weird.
I tried changing Lights directions, rebuilding light… no luck.
What’s going on?
Something even more strange is that, when I double-click the asset, the preview looks (almost) perfect!
https://forums.unrealengine.com/blob:https://imgur.com/e59fea1d-026a-472d-a54c-3f25c8a612df
And also… why would darker zones of the map create this “milky” effect on the texture?
I’d say your textures are ■■■■ how does your normal map look like?
Not a normal map, a bump map
https://i.imgur.com/zba6yDs.jpg
Then why the asset-preview shows a better result and exactly what I’m looking for?
How is your material setup? Because bump maps aren’t supported by default
I apply the material/texture in 3ds max and then import the whole object in UE
Mhm… I would like to know more about this…
You’ll have to setup the material within UE4, there’s no bump map slot for textures in UE4. You’ll want to convert the bump map to a normal map, you can do that within the UE4 material editor.
You’ll have to setup the material within UE4, there’s no bump map slot for textures in UE4. You’ll want to convert the bump map to a normal map, you can do that within the UE4 material editor.
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What is the problem, the bump map not being supported by the engine or the fact that I need to set it inside the engine itself and not in 3ds max?
Can I just apply a Normal Map instead of a bump map inside of 3ds max directly? Can I do “everything” inside the software and use the engine just to import the model?
You can just use a normal map instead of the bump map you have there and it’ll work (make sure that the normal map in UE4 is set to use Normal Map compression) if the normal map file name has “_normal” at the end of the file then it’ll usually detect that it’s a normal map and apply the correct compression.
Games don’t use bump maps because it takes extra calculations to determine the effect, whereas normal maps contain all of the info needed so they’re faster to render.
Maybe with Unreal Studio, but generally no. There’s no universal material format that lets you take models and materials from one application to another without explicit and custom support for it. The glTF file format kinda supports that do everything outside of UE4 idea, but its still kinda new and not fully supported, but if you want to try it out, How to export 3DS MAX scene as glTF | Babylon.js Documentation
I have solution for you that worked for me: you will have to convert the bump map to a normal map in “Substance Painter”. I’ve tried other software (Crazybump, Photoshop, Unreal,) but none of them worked quite like Substance painter. It’s almost a 1:1 conversion, and the normal maps it generates look exactly like the original bumps.
1.Create a plane in 3Ds Max (that is perfectly square, because your textures should be powers of two anyway)
2.Export the plane as an .fbx file
3.Open up Substance and create a new project with the plane as the mesh
I hope this helps 
You’ll have to setup the material within UE4, there’s no bump map slot for textures in UE4. You’ll want to convert the bump map to a normal map, you can do that within the UE4 material editor.
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I’ve tried that and it gives terrible results. I don’t recommend it. UE4 is not good for bump map conversion
It’s actually that bump maps are used as additives to Normal Maps.
there are a few good tutorials on how to implement them, but the end result is pretty much less performant than just making a proper Normal map with all the bits and pieces.
It can come in handy if you want to make more complex materials where you shift the Bump Map around while the normal map stays the same - if that is the look you need to go for.
But in the end the display of the grayscale bump is not as good as that of the normal - even if it does add a layer of complexity to the overall result.
since no one has posted it yet, I’ll share my material’s normal with bump configuration.
Nobody uses bump maps these days unless you’re using some sort of displacement shader. Make a proper normal map instead of a bump map.
I posted a tutorial on the first page of theis topic for converting bump maps to normal maps which should work.
Please refer to my tutorial on page 1
Hi, and thank you very very much for the dedicated time.
Unfortunately I don’t have Substance Painter. I have seen many convertes online though!
Okay, but it’s relatively inexpensive for what it can do. (about $150 US)
What do you use for texture painting?
I’m not a 3D Artist, I’m a programmer.
I only use 3ds max and photoshop which I own for years
There are several methods to work around it.
