FBX Averaged normals Issue !!

[RedEy3]

Hi All,

I'm exporting my character model from Maya to UDK using the FBX exporter,the problem is that the model has some averaged normals that are not going through to UDK :S My character is split into torso and head I've averaged the normals along the split to get rid of the hard edge? any suggestions on how to fix this?

I've got the 'smoothing groups' checked on export, and have 'split non matching triangles' checked on import.

Thanks

Redey3

[HypnoticShark]

There is an option called Explicit Normals while importing the mesh, make sure it is checked. Its under one of the advanced tabs.

[Chosker]

sorry to bring this semi-old thread back, but I'm having the same problem. thing is, there's no option to import with Explicit Normals when importing a Skeletal Mesh, the option is only available for Static Meshes

[Spoof]

For skeletal meshes it's named "Import Tangents".

[Chosker]

well I tried all the export and import settings: with export tangents and binormals and without it, with import override tangents and without it. tried all possible combinations I think.
I'm exporting from max via FBX and it certainly is better when compared to the results ActorX produces, but it's not yet seamless.
here's how it looks: (left is max)
normalseams.jpg

also I'm getting this very weird thing when using FBX (just trying it instead of ActorX because of the normals thing), you can see the arm is being warped into the origin and it happens with every other body part it's like any bones that are not being used by that mesh are being positioned into 0,0,0
but it doesn't happen if I export-import using ActorX

[Spoof]

I haven't noticed the warped bone issue using Blender. Is there a UV seam where the arm joins the torso?

[Chosker]

there's more than a UV seam, the torso and the arm actually use their own texture
I'm thinking it might be related to the normalmap. in max it works fine but the normalmap compression settings might be messing it up. I'll do some tests.

and also since the head is the main component in the Pawn and the rest of the body parts use the head as the parent anim component, now that the head is only being imported with the bones whose weight > 0 in the head, my mesh is broken in-game :/

oh thanks for your help Spoof

[Chosker]

after some more tests I found that it's not a problem with my normalmap.
and no matter what I do (ActorX, FBX with any settings), the vertex normals are imported all the same (as if they weren't averaged). after reading old threads it seems UDK just doesn't support explicit normals on Skinned Meshes. the one setting that seems to be supposed to do something (Override Tangents) does nothing at all.

I guess it's going to be something like: the mesh has seams -> fix them via an altered normalmap.
thing is this is really tricky. even after generating my normalmap baking them against a joined and unseamed model, the split model with normalmap has seams :/