BumpMap strength in 1.1 shaders

[InsaneDruid]

So I am fiddling with a slight overhaul of my proton fairings (better UV mapping, some detail changes in the textures etc) and noticed that the bumpmaps give a lot less effect with the new shaders that come with the unity5 part tools than with the legacy shaders.

Here is a screenshot: see the difference in bump strenght in the areas marked with the green and pink arrows. Only difference here: the part marked in green is using the "new" KSP bumped spec shader (you can see the settings of it on the right side of the screen) and the part marked in pink is using the KSP legacy bumped spec shader. Notice how little (barely anything) effect the bumpmap on the part with the green arrow has despite the fact that the material preview window for that particular material in the lower right corner of the screen looks absolutely OK.

So I tried increasing the effect of the bumpmap through modifying the bumpmap itself with stronger contrasts, but then artefacts appear (very dark accented edges) while the majority of the features is still not visible correctly. You can see it in this screenshot, marked with a red arrow. Also note: the matrial preview window looks ok again, just with stronger bumpmapping through the new bumpmap.

 

So: just using the legacy shaders for now? Any suggestions?

 

Edited May 5, 2016 by InsaneDruid

[martinezfg11]

I thought the shaders in SquadCore were broken.

[nli2work]

you don't want to just run contrast adjust on normal maps. don't use "Generate from Grayscale" on a normal map to increase the strength. Duplicate the normal map, and set the top layer to Overlay in PS (or equivalent in your editor), drop the opacity on the overlay layer till you have the bump strength you want.

as for the shaders they appear to work fine, SquadCore or Legacy (from PartTools1.1 pack). Legacy Shaders from PartTools 0.23 works as expected too, though overall a little darker. 

Edited May 5, 2016 by nli2work

[InsaneDruid]

I use Shadermap to generate bumps from height maps (that are made in PS). The height maps themself are also not just anything overlayd, but multiple layers of smart objects, each tweaked witrh layer styles.

[nli2work]

I dunno, I don't get the same differences with normal maps between the 3 shader sets from 0.23; 1.1 SquadCore or 1.1 Legacy... I'd drop it in game and see what happens. If it looks good in game that's all that matters.

Edited May 5, 2016 by nli2work

[InsaneDruid]

DOOOH!

 

After fiddling and fiddling and trying and checking in-game I noticed: I had not set anything for tangents on the models when I switched to Unity5. After a calculation the render view is 1:1 with the material preview.

[riocrokite]

On 5/6/2016 at 0:24 AM, InsaneDruid said:

DOOOH!

 

After fiddling and fiddling and trying and checking in-game I noticed: I had not set anything for tangents on the models when I switched to Unity5. After a calculation the render view is 1:1 with the material preview.

I wonder what settings should be used for those?

import normals, calculate tangents, smoothing angle=60, split tangents?

[InsaneDruid]

Import Normals, Calculate tangents, Split tangents on.

You could tick the checkbox in blenders FBX-exporter (under "geometry") to include tangents in the fbx, and then use "import" in unity though, should be the same. Smoothing angle is only active if normals are calculated in unity (which you should avoid, as you have way better control over them in your 3d modelling software (sharp vs smoothed edges etc).

[nli2work]

Import Tangents is important if you baked normals in your 3d App from a hi-res model. If you used a converter from GIMP or photoshop, importing tangents is not as important, calculating from Normals would work just as well.

Edited May 11, 2016 by nli2work