Normal Map Issues

[Avindair]

Hey, everyone --

I'm having an issue with normal maps in KSP.  When I create my normals and apply them to the mesh in Unity, everything looks fine.  Unfortunately, when I write out the file as an MDM file, the bumped object in KSP looks like a small dog had been chewing on it after a particularly frustrating day.  I've tweaked what I can in Unity, but at this point I'm just plain frustrated.

Attached is a shot of the object in the Unity editor, in game, and the normal map. 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Avindair

http://imgur.com/gallery/WwyZk/new

Edited February 12, 2016 by Avindair
Image link didn't work.

[Shadowmage]

1.) Make sure it is correctly marked as a normal map in Unity (looks like it is from the Unity Screenshot, but never hurts to check).

2.) For the texture, in unity, click on the texture and update the 'maxSize' to 2048x (if your texture is larger than 1024 that is).

3.) Don't compress it to MBM (it is a deprecated format)... use PNG, and then manually compress it to DDS when you are done texturing stuff (KSP-DDS converters exist and are not too hard to find; and produce acceptable quality).

4.) Disable 'create from grayscale' -- what this does is re-create the normal map from an input gray-scale texture;  you -already- have a normal map, and do not need to have it create it for you (this is likely what is causing your problem).
 

[Avindair]

Thanks for the tips!  Fortunately, the file is 2048, so no problem there.  Will dump MDM, go to PNG, and use the KSP-DDS converters.

Here goes nothing!

Thanks again!

[Avindair]

Quick update: 

Turns out the problem was as simple as my missing the "create from grayscale" checkbox in Unity.  Unchecked, re-wrote, normals are no longer bad 3D print quality.

Thanks, folks!

Now to figure out how to do the damned airlocks...(the tutorials I'm reading are...um...not clear.)

http://imgur.com/gallery/IXPuK/new

[Porkjet]

Your Red channel is inverted too. Try inverting it again, should look better