Normal maps not working on custom mesh component

Development Rendering
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1

Hello,
My team is using the Creature plugin for UE4, by (http://creature.kestrelmoon.com/). This is a 2d Skeletal animation package that uses a custom mesh component to display a 2d sprite that’s animated using the creature system.

These meshes use regular UE4 materials for rendering. In 4.11, these mesh components supported Normal maps perfectly fine, but when upgrading to 4.12 Preview 3, the normal map appears to be ignored.

You can easily reproduce this using this sample project:

If you open the project in 4.11, and run PIE, you can see the dragon is rendered with normal maps. If you upgrade the project to 4.12 and run PIE, the mesh is rendered as if it has no normal map.

I notice in the release notes for 4.12, that there have been changes to the pipeline regarding normal maps, and there is one known issue, “UE-29556 Normal maps do not render on BSPs”. Perhaps this is related? Do you expect this issue to be fixed in time for the final release of 4.12?

Thanks,

2

Hi , thanks for the information.

I’m aware you can’t support the plugin itself, but I was hoping you could use it as a repro case that might expose a bug within the engine, as this is a regression from 4.11. I can’t repro it on an engine-level mesh component.

Thanks anyway,

3

Hey eyesiah,

I took a look at the bug report and it has been marked to be fixed within an upcoming preview or official release for 4.12. Unless it breaks again within that time, which can sometimes happen, it should be ready for the official 4.12 release.

Unfortunately, since this is not an Epic authored plugin or integrated in the default engine, we do not officially support the issues related to the plugin you mentioned. This responsibility lies on the writer/owner of the plugin itself.

With that said, can you reproduce this in a blank project without the plugin on a simple custom skeletal or static mesh that you have imported into the editor?

Cheers,

4

I appreciate the forward thinking and providing the test project. Unfortunately, the only way to guarantee this is an engine bug is to reproduce this with a blank project and a simple custom static mesh and normal maps.