Hello, I recently started working in UE5 and imported some textures from Substance Painter. The textures are 8-bit Targas, which from what I have learned is the correct file setting, but the normal map looks washed out in the editor. I have sRGB unchecked. The diffuse and ARM textures look correct, just the normal is wrong. I tried importing the file as a png and it was still washed out. I tried 16-bit and it was still washed out. I even checked if TGAs exported from Marmoset would work, but they didnt. At this point I’m wondering if this is a viewport bug and the normals are actually working fine when applied in engine, but it is honestly difficult to determine.
Hi @Bonedead!
Let’s see if we can solve it together…
Can you share more screenshots from Marmoset? Because it could be an smoothing group problem before baking it. You can compare the same asset in unreal and marmoset to see if there are problems.
Here are screenshots from the game of one of the assets. All the normal maps I’ve added look washed out in the texture preview. From the asset comparison, it looks like they seem to be working correctly in game, but with rocks it’s kinda hard to tell. I might have to make a test that has more obvious normals.
Hey sorry for the delay. Got super busy with work and had to set this aside. So I do use the flipped normal option already when baking in marmoset. The normal map does not look washed out when opened in photoshop, so I don’t think it’s a baking issue. The shots below show the same normal map opened in photoshop and in unreal 5.
I just discovered something. If I switch the “Availability” setting in the Texture editor under “Texture” to CPU from GPU, the map looks normal in the preview. It makes it look worse in the viewport though.
After watching some more UE5 videos I think this may just be a display bug. I think the normals are working correctly, even though they display oddly in the content browser and texture editor. I watched a video from Unreal Fest and the normal maps look washed out in his content browser as well.
I feel inclined to agree that it’s a display bug. Forcing the texture to use SRGB via the Encoding Override setting in the texture also makes it look more correct in the editor and preview (though it’s still not exact), it greatly messes up how your materials look in game. As much as it’s bothering me that the normal maps don’t look as they should in preview mode, I’m finding that I get the most accurate results by leaving them alone.
