Normal Map Seam Removal

cgxev

Hi there,

I'm working on a doom inspired character and I always have trouble getting a normal map without noticeable seams, but it is inevitable I guess.

Here are some images:



Yesterday I learned on the forums that aligning the islands along the same axis reduces the seams showing through, unfortunately, this isn't always optimal for pixel density. Is there anyone willing to share how they remove seams? I can remove them in Blender using the clone tool or the smear brush, but I always wondered if there is some way more efficient.

Some Specs:

Quixel 2.3.1 & Blender 2.78, normal maps were created using xNormal.

Cheers guys!

kanga

I don't know what program you are using to bake your textures, but just about any program allows you to alter your overlap distance on your UV islands. It looks like you are baking without overlap. Search the web with the name of your baking app and you should find the info.

Cheers

cgxev

kanga said:

I don't know what program you are using to bake your textures, but just about any program allows you to alter your overlap distance on your UV islands. It looks like you are baking without overlap. Search the web with the name of your baking app and you should find the info.

Cheers

I'm using xNormal, I read that it's best to use a cage? A mesh that completely encapsulates the high poly one.  

Thanez

Try not to paint in your normal maps. Spend that time instead on learning to bake properly so you won't have to in future. 
Visible seams on the normal map as you show in your first picture due to UV rotation isn't an issue when you bake normals because tangent normals are relative to UV space, meaning it looks weird and wrong when you apply the normal map as a diffuse texture, but the rendering application will take the rotation of the UV island into account when rendering the normal map as a normal map.
UV rotation can become an issue if you plan on overlaying detail normals across those islands (especially distinct patterns like cloth). For this reason I try and avoid rotating islands.

To me it looks like a part of your highpoly isn't being baked because you're either not using a cage, or the cage is faulty in design.

I would need to see your highpoly, cage and lowpoly setup to be sure though.

cgxev

Thanez said:

Try not to paint in your normal maps. Spend that time instead on learning to bake properly so you won't have to in future. 
Visible seams on the normal map as you show in your first picture due to UV rotation isn't an issue when you bake normals because tangent normals are relative to UV space, meaning it looks weird and wrong when you apply the normal map as a diffuse texture, but the rendering application will take the rotation of the UV island into account when rendering the normal map as a normal map.
UV rotation can become an issue if you plan on overlaying detail normals across those islands (especially distinct patterns like cloth). For this reason I try and avoid rotating islands.

To me it looks like a part of your highpoly isn't being baked because you're either not using a cage, or the cage is faulty in design.

I would need to see your highpoly, cage and lowpoly setup to be sure though.

Hi Thanez, thank you for the detailed explanation. I just tried the cage method in xNormal but it still gives me seams. The cage was really quickly setup, perhaps I should tweak it a bit further? I'm going to try and tweak the cage so it fits better on the high poly. My Islands are rotated to fit the space better. Would you recommend redoing the uv's and try aligning them?

Obscura

In what renderer are you trying to display the normalmap, when its applied on your mesh?

Looking at the normalmap itself and seeing seams makes sense because its a "tangent space" normal map. UV rotation will change the coloration of the details, but this is how its intended to work, so don't worry about that. You would rarely get the same color across seams, if you have details going across them.

One thing I can see is that you don't use dilation, that can cause seams at distance, but it manly shouldn't be the source of your issue. I'm thinking you are trying to display it with wrong tangent space. If it was baked in Xnormal, the mesh tangent space in display renderer should be set to mikk tangent space. You can do this in Unreal, Toolbag, and Substances.

ActionDawg

Does your cage have completely averaged normals? It is either that, or what Obscura said.

cgxev

Obscura said:

In what renderer are you trying to display the normalmap, when its applied on your mesh?

Looking at the normalmap itself and seeing seams makes sense because its a "tangent space" normal map. UV rotation will change the coloration of the details, but this is how its intended to work, so don't worry about that. You would rarely get the same color across seams, if you have details going across them.

One thing I can see is that you don't use dilation, that can cause seams at distance, but it manly shouldn't be the source of your issue. I'm thinking you are trying to display it with wrong tangent space. If it was baked in Xnormal, the mesh tangent space in display renderer should be set to mikk tangent space. You can do this in Unreal, Toolbag, and Substances.

Thanks for the reply Obscura.
I'm trying to display it in DDO, but when rendering with the Blender Cycles render engine the seams are not noticeable, just very slightly. I'll try your tangent space settings.

cgxev

somedoggy said:

Does your cage have completely averaged normals? It is either that, or what Obscura said.

Thanks for the reply man.
 How do I create averaged normals on my cage?

cgxev

Obscura said:

In what renderer are you trying to display the normalmap, when its applied on your mesh?

Looking at the normalmap itself and seeing seams makes sense because its a "tangent space" normal map. UV rotation will change the coloration of the details, but this is how its intended to work, so don't worry about that. You would rarely get the same color across seams, if you have details going across them.

One thing I can see is that you don't use dilation, that can cause seams at distance, but it manly shouldn't be the source of your issue. I'm thinking you are trying to display it with wrong tangent space. If it was baked in Xnormal, the mesh tangent space in display renderer should be set to mikk tangent space. You can do this in Unreal, Toolbag, and Substances.

Just with a normal map plus a cage and I checked in the plugin settings and it says Mikk Tspace, which is Tangent space probably. What is dilation exactly? cheers

cgxev

I did use an ID and ambient occlusion map, would it have to do something with that?

ActionDawg

I don't use Blender, but found this:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/meshes/editing/smoothing.html
Averaged normals being an equivalent term to smoothed normals. Basically this controls for the discontinuities in the picture that @Thanez shared.
Dilation is edge padding:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Edge_padding

Your ID map and AO shouldn't be causing issues.

Take a thorough look at this page. It should have all the answers to the line of questioning you're going down.
https://www.marmoset.co/posts/toolbag-baking-tutorial/

Noors

Isn't there  a seam in your diffuse map ?

cgxev

somedoggy said:

I don't use Blender, but found this:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/meshes/editing/smoothing.html
Averaged normals being an equivalent term to smoothed normals. Basically this controls for the discontinuities in the picture that @Thanez shared.
Dilation is edge padding:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Edge_padding

Your ID map and AO shouldn't be causing issues.

Take a thorough look at this page. It should have all the answers to the line of questioning you're going down.
https://www.marmoset.co/posts/toolbag-baking-tutorial/

Hey man, thanks for the help. I think I fixed it with the cage. But the problems start to appear when I'm in dDo and start creating the Albedo. Do you have experience with the Quixel Suite? Is it something that I can fix?

cgxev

Noors said:

Isn't there  a seam in your diffuse map ?

This happens when I add a material in dDo, it does create seams. Isn't it an issue with dDo? Or the texture? Or is it my normal map?

Obscura

 

cgxev

Obscura said:

 

Whatsupp man?

ActionDawg

At this point you have a good start on resources for baking, and have gotten a working bake with no seams. As far as Quixel or other texture painting software goes there are a plethora of easy to reach resources both in the Polycount wiki, the Quixel website, and elsewhere online. Please make the attempt to learn from what is available first. Everything you'd ever need, from professional artists, is a search engine result away.

cgxev

somedoggy said:

At this point you have a good start on resources for baking, and have gotten a working bake with no seams. As far as Quixel or other texture painting software goes there are a plethora of easy to reach resources both in the Polycount wiki, the Quixel website, and elsewhere online. Please make the attempt to learn from what is available first. Everything you'd ever need, from professional artists, is a search engine result away.

The reason I created this thread was of a dDo issue but some admin said I should move it here. My normal map was fine all this time. I appreciate your information and will find the dDo issues.