VRay Blend Normal Maps Does Not Work

[peepo]

Hi

I've add a VRayBlendNormalMaps to the Shader tree for my material, set to Normal. Even if I add just one normal map, the rendered output gets darker, with two maps added, even darker still, without the surface of the mesh changing. It's like it's applying it as a colour overlay, not a normal map.

Any help appreciated!
Thank you.

[vladimir.nedev]

Sorry, I can't reproduce this darkening behavior you are seeing.
Note that you have to connect the normal maps to VRayBlendNormalMaps using the Schematic.

I would advise against using the VRayBlendNormalMaps texture.
It is something I wrote as a plug-in example a long time ago, and then someone wanted to use it in V-Ray for Modo, so I added it to the UI.

You can use just normal blending in the shader tree with the Overlay blend mode.
This will allow you to blend more than 2 normals maps.
This might also be supported in the future in V-Ray GPU, while VRayBlendNormalMaps won't be.

Unfortunately, we don't support the Norma map blend mode, that Modo has in its recent versions.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[peepo]

Hi Vladimir

Thanks for the reply - no worries. It does really seem to be applying the normal maps at all. I have been using the method here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8jvroWSCBU&t=46s

which is better than using overlay, but requires a bit of work in Photoshop, but does give really nice results.

Thanks for letting us know - hopefully something that will be fixed in a future release? It's a nice feature to have.

[vladimir.nedev]

which is better than using overlay, but requires a bit of work in Photoshop, but does give really nice results.

It's best to do it in Photoshop - combining them in Photoshop means the renderer doesn't have to do the blending each time you render.

Thanks for letting us know - hopefully something that will be fixed in a future release? It's a nice feature to have.

You mean support for the Norma map blend mode ? I can't say.

Greetings,
Vladimir Nedev

[peepo]

Thanks Vladimir - have created an action, so should be pretty straightforward from now on