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KrisLW35's avatar
KrisLW35
9 years ago

Rugs and Normal Maps

@SimGuruModSquad , what's the deal with rugs? Despite that most EA rugs have normal maps, it would seem that, uh, the rug shader doesn't even support normal maps. I can only assume this is a bug, or that someone at EA likes wasting a lot of time to make all of those useless normal maps?

Could it be something specifically with my game, or with the modding tools I'm using? I've tried taking a rug and changing the shader to phong, and the normal map then shows up fine. (But that then makes the rug unplacable.) Likewise, if I take a different object (chair, sculpture, whatever) changing the shader to rug removes the normal map. Change shader back to phong and the normal map comes back. :|
  • tastytourist's avatar
    tastytourist
    9 years ago
    The rug shader got changed at some point I believe .. maybe the normal maps fell overboard?
  • tastytourist's avatar
    tastytourist
    9 years ago
    "_orangemittens_;14498495" wrote:
    the rug normal has never functioned correctly.


    The thread you link to is from May 2015. The rug shader change that I meant was in September 2015.

    Rugs definitely had working bumpmaps when I made this (November 2014) and this (May 2015) -- both have custom bumpmaps that I tested in game. The change in Sept 2015 is what I suspect disabled them.
  • SimGuruModSquad's avatar
    SimGuruModSquad
    9 years ago
    Hey all, thanks for reporting this. Confirmed that there is a problem here, looks like the issue primarily impacts indoor lighting. We are investigating further.

    -SGMS
  • KrisLW35's avatar
    KrisLW35
    9 years ago
    I'm glad to know that I'm at least not going (further) insane. I hope that the rug shader will be updated/fixed to make use of normal maps at some point. (I have a corded rug mesh that is 7k+ polys, not having a normal map is simply out of the question :# ) Due to a long series of events pertaining to rugs being the absolute worst in basically every aspect, I ended up making my rug from a statue with a disabled footprint for now. :/
  • orangemittens1's avatar
    orangemittens1
    9 years ago
    I'll take your word on it but the pictures you posted for it don't illustrate a working bump...the rugs look flat with some shading on the diffuse image just like the EA ones look.

    We have posts at Studio forums going back to spring of 2015 discussing the fact that the rug shader doesn't allow the bump to function. At that time, in response to THIS POST, I tested this with EA's Kindermade rug and posted a picture of the result HERE. As you can see from the picture there is no difference in the rug's in-game appearance if it has a custom bump or not. I also tested by putting a plain grey diffuse image on the rug to see if the bump showed on the rug in the game and it did not.

    This problem definitely pre-dates the September 2015 rug shader change.

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