Are normal maps being used by Rviz?
When rendering in Rviz geometries whose model contains a normal map, the quality of the resulting shading is inferior to what I would expect. With a geometry of my own (Collada 1.4 exported by Blender), I can see that Rviz is apparently ignoring the normal map, and (automatically?) performing crease-angle-smoothing. Both Blender and the Assimp viewer load correctly the normal map.
I then compared how Blender and Rviz render one of PR2's geometries, which is shown in the attached image (Blender left, Rviz right). Clearly, something seems to be off.
I didn't seem to find any tickets related to this, and grepping the rviz code for clues didn't help much. I'd appreciate if someone more knowledgeable on the topic could shed some light, and help to confirm/debunk my hypotheses.
Tested in ros diamonback and electric, Ubuntu 10.04 with up-to-date NVidia drivers.
TIA
One hunch: What is the default lighting model in Rviz?. Is it directional lighting or are there no lights at all?. If lights are "off", it makes sense that normal maps are not taken into account, as there is no way to compute how light is reflected.