About the Decisive Importance of Baking 16 Bit Normal Map in Modo when working with Quixel Suite or for any PBR oriented Workflow

So I’ve dig a bit more on the workflow to make good PBR ready Assets to be used in Unity or any tool as MarmosetToolbag. QuixelSuite 2 have came out since a few days at that time.

As far as i remember, I’ve got plenty of bugs and issue trying to use correctly Normalmap. and in those issue, their is one that have kick my head for a long time. And now as I’ve fixed it, i must share it.

Keep in mind that, this nDo Project was made in 8 Bit. Not in 16 Bit, that could explain those errors by loading an 8 bit file into a 16 bit project…Ughhh)

So here you could see 2 different maps that I’ve imported into the nDo PSD file project. You may not see any difference, but there is.

One was made by overlaying independently an 8Bit & a 16Bit NormalMap baked into Modo using the simple BakingUI Script on a simple mesh. Notice that I’m using a Cage MorphMap during the baking to prevent any RayTracing missed error.

As you might see here with a magnified view in the 3Do viewer, there is some weird Artefact that appear on the 8 Bit instead of in the 16 Bit.

Even if we are working in 8 Bit in that nDo Project, flat areas in the model got too many artifact and that’s really annoying. especially for HardSurface Model.

So, to conclude:

Take in mind, that you Should Bake all your Normalmaps in 16 Bit ANYTIME (PNG or TIF file format), even if you want to produce 8 Bit Normalmap at the end of you process.