Shader wants normals, but the mesh doesn't have them

Unity Engine
1

I’m getting these 2 errors:

It can be a mesh in hundred and this time, I don’t know why, Unity doesn’t highlight anything in assets.
What’s going on?

2

Well, the error is kind of self-explanatory: you’re using a shader that needs normals on a mesh that doesn’t have normals. Most built-in shaders need normals, with the exception of the particle shaders. You can check “calculate normals” when importing a mesh that doesn’t include them.

–Eric

3

Uhm… OK I guess I’ll scan all my meshes in the project and see that all have normals generated inside Unity… luckily the project is in its early stage.
Otherwise it would be a hell of a job.

But is it possible to export normals in FBX format? I asked this already but nobody answered me… I asked if FBX supports Max smoothing groups but no answer.

4

Normals and smoothing groups are two different things. I would think you’d have to specifically choose not to export normals normally, though I don’t know what Max is like.

–Eric

5

Okay, let’s asume for a second that the project is not in an early stage and has hundreds of meshes and it is a hell of a job checking each individual mesh for its normals.

Could there be a way that saves me the hours of checking?

6

Okay I found what caused the problem for me (by accident, yay!). Somewhere a font got deleted, which was still being referenced by a TextMesh which now had a missing font and a missing material.

Too bad the error message has not much to do with the actual problem. Too bad Unity can’t just tell us when there’s a missing reference.

7

I just removed some fonts which I wasn’t using, now I am getting this issue too. How do I find which meshes are the issue?

8

Please, raise a bug for Unity to improve the message. I remember discussing that issue once, but I can’t remember what was the conclusion and why it hasn’t been fixed…

My suggestion would be to write an AssetPostprocessor and check for missing normals in it…

9

Hey, are you all using NGUI when you get this? I’ve only seen this warning in projects where I use NGUI.

10

I had the same problem with NGUI. The fix is to mark the “Normals” check mark on the root UI Panel. This creates the normals for you. The warnings will go away.

11

I just had this same error after I swapped to a dynamic font (unity text mesh). I had duplicated my ascii font, then changed the duplicate to dynamic-- then swapped that font into all my text meshes.

The problem went away when i restarted unity. I guess unity need a reboot to generate the dynamic texture or something?

12

For the next ppl consulting this thread looking for answers:
I happen to have this trouble as well. it will be fixed changing the shader you are using in the material. There are UI shaders for instance, which do not require normals, since they are developed for 2d elements without 3d meshes.

A good workflow to detect which object is doing this:

1- Determine which objects in your scene are not 3d meshes.

2- Disable the entire object(s).

3- Run the scene to see if the message persist. If it does. then the object(s) with the troubled shader are still active.

4- Once you have made the message dissapear from console when running the scene, then one by one ( it can be painful) reactivate and play the scene until you find the object(s) that cause the message.

5- Proceed to change material shader for these objects.