hi - i’m trying to render a normal map using mental ray in maya 7. i have the normal map connected to the bump node and set to tangent space normals, but when i hit render it renders it as a bump. i’ve rendered it as a bump and it looks the same. i’m pretty sure the normal map is fine cos i when i turn on high quality rendering in the viewport it looks great.

is there something i’m not doing right? or could there be something wrong with my bump2dnode or maya 7or mental ray?

is there a way to check my bump2dnode, or install a new one?

any help would be greatly appreciated.

go to Pixero’s site…

http://www.pixero.com/downloads_mr.html

and download the JS_normalMapper for MentalRay. Works really well

if you’re working wiith normal maps a lot I would really recomned updating your version of maya, the latest versions render normal maps as standard so no messing around setting up a shader to do it

Bad news. Latest versions of maya NOT render normal maps. Just the same imitation with plain bump map.

And more, JS_NormalMapper not working with Mental Ray included with latest Maya 2008 Extension 2.

Thanks Autodesk alot.

hey - thanks for the response. :)

i actually already downloaded js_normalmapper, but was having some trouble getting it to work. I added the lines to the maya.rayrc file and placed the files in the relevant folders - though i wasn’t sure what to do with the file in the ‘max include’ folder. any ideas? 

actually, i’m kind of stuck at the moment as my graphic card seems to be fried - so now i’m trying to look into getting a new laptop. i guess normal maps will have to wait.

thanks again for your help.

‘max include’ folder contains shader definition with additional ‘gui’ section for 3DS MAX. Not used for Maya.

got you - thanks. :)

So normal maps in mental ray is a no go or was the problem resolved? If so, I would love to know how .