Problem with inverse Normals

Hello everybody.

Making a metal floor I have a little problem. Attached you can see a metalplate which has knops on the surface.
Every knop has a dark border around the top. And this is the problem. In the Normal map it will show a little gap instead
of staying high. I have tried some different ways to avoid it. But nothing worked. I have also tried to work with different
technics like displacement or bump maps. And also here I was not successfull. Maybe one of you has an idea.

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What is the problem?

Are you trying to convert this image into a normal map using a normal map converter?

If so - you are likely to run into problems like this. This issue is that the normal map converter tries to interpret light and dark in an image and translate this into height/angle.

Unfortunately this doesnt really work well as you are finding out.

What you would be best doing in this case is modelling one of the dots, then bake the geometry out as a normal map.

baking it
which soft are u using ?

can’t read mind help us help you !

happy cl

Thanks for the quick response. Yeah moony I know what you think about. And I thought that there is an other way with less efforts. In this case I will have to create my own map out of a mesh and bake it.

@ RickyBlender: Just watch the proposed video and you’ll understand.

Don’t need to bake to get a quick normal map. Keeping things simple, could model a simple button with tapered sides against a flat background, use normal matcap display in the viewport, and then capture those. That image could then be repeated over a larger surface.

That sort of thing should be very easy to produce procedurally; tile up and modulo the 2D coordinate (add some offset to stay positive), then use a remapped sphere gradient (2D input) centered in each tile. You could either use it directly as a bump or save as an image which you convert to a normal map if desired.

Here is an example for procedural approach:


JA12 - That is just brilliant, need to try that one out. How come I never thought of that rather than miserably failing trying to “bake out” some simple stuff like this. If image texture is what you’re going for, then yeah, this would be my method.

I have decided to solve it with a normal map out of a mesh. The solutions from Ja12 and CarlG will be tested today.
Just to give me a wider range of possibilities. Thank you guys for your help.

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