MODO rounded edge normals

Spoon

I thought it was super smart to simply put the rounded edge value on a low poly object, and bake it.
The problem is, I get seams at the hard edges (no cage).
Is there a way to circumvent this? :O

Son Kim

It should be straight forward.

1. Assign proper hard/soft edges on your low res mesh. Vertex Normal toolkit FTW!
2. Set desire round edge shader property
3. Bake an Object Space(OS) normal map in Modo with bake distance of 0(zero).
4. Use Xnormal(or Handplane) to convert the OS normal to tangent space.
5. Now you can go back to the same low res mesh, apply a single smoothing(or just smooth all the edges), export that out to your game engine. It should shade just fine, no seams.

I tried it on a cube, with a cross UV...the result is no seams.

Spoon

Thanks a lot! Then I just need to figure out how to bake object space normals!

Tzur_H

Spoon wrote: »

Then I just need to figure out how to bake object space normals!

Go to the shading tree, add layer > render outputs > geometry > shading normal

Then you need to make sure in render output properties of shading normal you got 'remap pixel values' * on *. Bake, and save your map in a linear color space.

Son Kim

I forgot to mention "remap pixel values" thanks Tzur_H for covering that. Though it only apples to Modo 801, for earlier version that's not needed.

Also depend on your target engine, you might need to use handplane to convert it to tangent space normal map. Xnormal is sync with UE4.

Spoon

Thanks guys, that is what I have read as well. But I must be doing something wrong.

I gave the entire object material "BAKE", and after applying the shading normal output and setting it to "remap pixel values", I right click on the "pillar_top_normal" and click "bake to file".

I cannot click and bake on the shading normal output itself. Is that normal?
Always gives me a tangent space.

Son Kim

Seem like you are on Modo 801, why don't use the Baking UI Kit? baking in Modo is so convoluted without it. it should be in your account under register content.

https://vimeo.com/93285046

Without seeing the scene file, its hard to pinpoint whats wrong,maybe try to bake a simple cube with round edge shader on your end?Also try Render>Bake to Render Outputs.

Spoon

Haha, I had no idea that baking kit existed! I bought MODO on steam, and then later payed for it to be upgraded to the full 801, so I totally missed that kit!
Ah, this makes so much more sense now!
Thanks a ton, Son Kim!

A small question, though. When I set up the bake in the "To outputs" tab, and click "Preview Render at Proxy res" I get a nice object space nrm map showing. When I then happily click BAKE, I just get a white map. I tried to cheat by then setting the image with to twice the size I need, so I could bake the proxy instead, but then it becomes white again! Is it normal to get problems with a 2k map bake? Or am I, yet again, missing something obvious?

EDIT: Only bakes at 512 become successfull. Others go white
EDIT 2: Restart seemed to fix it :O

EDIT 3: Or not. Sometimes, when it is done baking/rendering, it switches from the output I want, to either diffuse (the white map) or a 128,128,256 normal map. Why is that? :O