Normal Map Artifacts after Substance Painter export

Development Rendering
1

Hi!

I have an issue with my normal map.

This is what it looks like with the texture input in the normal of the material:

stackLight_normalIssue002.PNG

This is what it looks like with it applied to the Base Color, just to show what the map itself looks like:

stackLight_normalIssue001.PNG

And finally, these are my settings:

stackLight_normalIssue003.PNG
stackLight_normalIssue003.PNG866×768 138 KB

So basically, what I’m after is a smooth edge but instead I’m getting a weird split halfway. I don’t think it’s related to the UV-map because the cuts/seams aren’t where the dark parts are.

stackLight_normalIssue004.PNG
stackLight_normalIssue004.PNG701×539 30.4 KB

If you see here, the cuts are where the blue lines are and the dark parts are approximately where the red line is.

Here’s what it looks like in Substance Painter:

stackLight_normalIssue005.PNG
stackLight_normalIssue005.PNG461×549 30.2 KB

Anyone’s got a clue what could be going wrong and how to fix it?

Thanks!

2
  1. Load it into a few more programs and see if the shading issue exists there. If they don’t, then we know it’s UE doing something.
  2. Try flipping the normal map channel in UE, sometimes that can cause issues.
3

I can see from the thumbnail there that your normals texture is inverted.
Flip green channel of the texture.

4

Cheers! I’ll try that. What is the reason for that issue? How do I stop them from being inverted in the future?

5

In Substance, make sure you use the DirectX normal map setting in the project settings, instead of OpenGL. There’s more information in their documentation.

6

Hmm, I did use DirectX and now that I tried flipping the green channel it just moved the problem area.

This is what it looks like before flip:

stackLight_normalIssue001.PNG

And this is what it looks like after:

stackLight_normalIssue002.PNG

7

I haven’t used Substance Painter much. Came across this tutorial about Model preparation for using Substance Painter. It may help you.

8

Hmm, I don’t know if the problem is with the model or even Substance Painter. I followed that exact tutorial when I made it and everything looks fine when I apply the texture in Maya.

9

It seems like your issue is all fixed, but I just want to add in that Substance Painter 2.5 has a very good Unreal Engine export now and I suggest using that.

10

My problem isn’t fixed because I need it in UE4, not in Maya unfortunately :confused:

It still looks wonky in UE4.

How do you do the Unreal Engine export in Substance Painter 2.5? Is it different from just picking the UE4 preset when you create the project and export the textures?

11

When exporting normal map from Substance Painter it’s 16Bit. You have to use 8Bit normal map in UE4.

12

Oh, I didn’t know that! But unfortunately I just tried both converting it to 8 bit in Photoshop and exporting it as 8 bit from Substance Painter, and none of them did any visible difference :confused:

13

Can you share the model and substance file so that we can have a look at it?

14

I’m sorry, but unfortunately I don’t think I can share the files.

Do you think it could it be related to the lightmap? I haven’t actually done anything with the lightmap yet. The second UV set on the model is named “lightmap”, but right now it’s just a copy of the texture map.

When I click “Build Lighting Only” it gets a lot more pronounced:

stackLight_normalIssueBuildLightingOnly001.PNG

15

Well then it could be a lightmap issue. To check, you can increase the lightmap resolution for this object to a high value. What is the current lightmap resolution?

16

Well, I messed around with the lightmap but it didn’t seem to make any difference. I tried with resolutions ranging from 32 to 256 without any real results.

17

If we can’t look into the asset we can’t help you see what you’re doing wrong.
It may be many different things causing the seams.

18

I know, I’m sorry I can’t share the assets and I know it’s very difficult to help without being able to get a good overview. I didn’t expect it to be such a difficult issue to solve.