Let's start with the UVs.
On the bottom left of the UV Editor you will see... what you see in the picture bellow

Make sure the icon on the left is pressed (if you don't do that the UVs will collaps in a single line), select the UVs that you weant to offset and then enter the value 1 in the U or V area. Press enter. The value will reset back to 0.0 and the UVs will offset by 1 left or down... depending on the axis you've chosen. This is just to m ake sure that the UVs are exacly where they should. Another method would be moveing them by hand... but you could miss a few pixels this way
For your second problem... I can't tell what it is wrong with it. Tell me more about what I'm seeing there

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I should have thought of this earlier... Here are the files I've use for this tutorial:
http://www.andrei313.com/ga/nm_dice.rar
The textures have been resized to 256 so that the file will be smaller.
You can see how everything is made and also test if you can display normal maps in the viewport. The problem is that it is saved as a max file and will only work with 3dsmax8. I'll try to see how I can make this work with other versions as well.

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Already thanks for your help, but could you tell me more about the cage, dous it has to be higher then your model or ... I looked up what the cage is but i dont know if i do something wrong with the model i have made here.

EDIT: does the lowpoly and the ighpoly has to be on the same place so then overlap eatchother ?

here is my cage



and this is how my normal looks when redered



I am a beginner with max so it can be i have made a stupid thing i did ont know

The cage HAS TO be bigger then the highpoly model. And yes, the low and high poly MUST be in the same place.
Here is how normal maps works:
Let's take a simple example with a plane and a bump. The lowpoly is a plane, the high poly is a plane with a bump in it. When you make the cage you have to be sure that it is bigger then the highpoly. Here is why:
When the normal map is generated, 3dsmax "measures" the distance between the lowpoly and the highpoly model and it builds a map that represents that difference. In our planes, on the edge, the highpoly and the lowpoly are the same.... they are different just where the bump is. So at the edge the normla map will be the neutral color. In the bump area the distance between the lowpoly and the highpoly is marked on the map by a change of color. The vertex in the moddle of the lowpoly is lower then the one on the highpoly, because it is on the bump. The cage tells the program where to look, and it looks inside the cage. If the cage is smaller in some areas then the highpoly model is the verteces that are outside the cage won't be take into account... this is when you will see red spots on the image that is displayed in the rendering window.

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Here is another way you can look at this:
When people disguise as other people they put on their face a mask that has variations in depth. Some people have bigger noses, others holes in their cheeks... and so on. If you put that mask on a table, just like you would unwrap a head you will get a plane that has bumps and holes in it. If you take a picture from above with shadows in the holes and highlights on the bumps and then desaturate it you will have a bump map. The bump map isn't a normal map but it is exacly the same thing. All you need is the nVidia plugin
I don't know how to say this better. At first I didn't understood as well... but after testing a lot of things I got it.
Hope you figure this out to. I hope this helps... If you still have questions post them here. I'll be happy to help again. And who knows... maybe someone else can put this better then I can

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I'll be away from the computer this weekend... I have to go away linke in... 15 minutes From the viewport screen that you've posted... I would say that you don't really know what you are trying to do And the normal map looks a little strange... I've attached a map that would be better. Can you send me the max file so I can take a look at it and see what is wrong ?



EDIT: I would need the file just before you hit Render in the Render to texture window.

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Thanks for the fast replys
http://rapidshare.de/files/30041069/...ure_3dsmax.max

Well i just wanted to show the normalmap that i get when i render, and like you see its very bad and not the way i wanted.

I hope you can help me

when i render my normal map it shows a shaded view yet it has saved a normal map... odd... any thoughts?



eagle4

I took a look at your file You're doing it fine... the problem is that you are asking too much from the normal map.
The normal map can't make what a displacement map can do. Take a look from the Top viewport... that is what the normal map is rendered from. If you look from the Top viewport at your model you will see that you can't tell it has any detail on it. If you extrude polys from the highpoly and leave it just like that from the top viewport it will look just like before. You should scale the top polys down... or use bevel, not extrude.
You should also consider that the normal map is just a map... a picture. This map has the power of changeing just the way the light is reflected from a surface... it doesn't affect the geometry in any way. If you look from the side at your highpoly you'll see that there is a very big extrusion there... The normal map can't make something like that from a plane. Even the best normal map with small details on it will look flat if you look at it from the side.
In my tutorial I extruded some faces but in the end I added a smooth modifier, and with that the geometry relaxed and from a top view you can tell that there are holes in there.
Just too see how this works, and also see if you're doing this the right way... try puting just a text on a plane. Make the normal map and play with an omni light in the viewport to see how it looks and what a normal map can do... also add a bump... to have something generated from a highpoly too.
Good luck! I hope you can figure this out. If you still have qestions.... you know where to ask

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If you're talking about the window that appears when the normal map is generated... I covered that. It's just a window that can help you find any areas where the cage intersects with the normal map... and I guess... it also shows the progress
If you're talking about something else... you'll have to be more specific then that

I would also like to add that there was a small problem with the tutorial. Short_Fuse helped me with this. Thanks.
It is fixed now. I said that all the faces of the cube need to have the same smoothing group. In my example every face has it's own smoothing group (the default). I'll have to do some more test before I can say what is the relation between smoothing groups and normal maps. Sorry for this

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