Questions about baking normals in Maya, Xnormal, Marmoset workflow.
polycounter lvl 6
Hi,
I'm learning to bake normal map for hard surface and very confused
.
I'm using Maya and my problem is when I soften hard edges, my normal will have perfect edges but shading errors on faces. When I harden edges I will get a nice shading but ugly edges except edges that have a UV seam.
I only know two ways to solve this issue are bevels/chamfers edges and splitting UVs. I hate both! because they make the model less efficient and time consuming.
So is there any other solutions to fix this issue without beveling and splitting UV shells? or is there any Maya scripts that can splitting your UV shells by smoothing groups?
I also have tried Handplane3D, the shading looks fine in Maya but weird in Marmoset. Maybe I didn't do it properly.
I'm learning to bake normal map for hard surface and very confused
.I'm using Maya and my problem is when I soften hard edges, my normal will have perfect edges but shading errors on faces. When I harden edges I will get a nice shading but ugly edges except edges that have a UV seam.
I only know two ways to solve this issue are bevels/chamfers edges and splitting UVs. I hate both! because they make the model less efficient and time consuming.
So is there any other solutions to fix this issue without beveling and splitting UV shells? or is there any Maya scripts that can splitting your UV shells by smoothing groups?
I also have tried Handplane3D, the shading looks fine in Maya but weird in Marmoset. Maybe I didn't do it properly.
Replies
Start with this thread, it is a very good overview of edge hardening and baking methods.
Andy Davis gave a great talk which covers some hard rules of baking normal maps and some of big no-no's to look out for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OONQzKcWeMY
Learning to bake normal maps correctly is a challenge for everyone, but if you stick with it and dedicate yourself to learning it I'm sure you'll be able to master it.