Hmmm... I said the mists were beginning to clear, but they've closed in again! In very simple terms, when you're rendering a given pixel the renderer will convert the normal of the point on the appropriate face to camera-space coordinates, correct?

So it makes sense that somewhere the blue channel/Z component of the normal map gets its sign changed to fit the camera-space left-handed system.

But where? Specifically, where in the Shader Mixer network? I still can't answer this given the results of the four simple networks already posted in this thread, i.e.:

Zv = Zc ...renders correctly

Zv = √(Zc*Zc) … renders completely black

Zv = -Zc ...renders mostly black

Zv = -√(Zc*Zc) … renders correctly

(Zv is the input to the Point brick, and Zc the ouput of the XYZ Components brick)

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The 3Dcheapskate* occasionally posts sensible stuff. Usually by accident.
And it usually uses Poser 11, with units set to inches. Except when it's using Poser 6 or PP2014, or when its units are set to PNU.

*also available in ShareCG, DAZ, and HiveWire3D flavours (the DeviantArt and CGBytes flavour have been discontinued).