YANBI - Yet Another NOrmal Baking Issue

xXm0RpH3usXx

Hi there...

I am a little emberrassed whith uploading such crappy images and showing them around, but i need to get my lazy ass off the chair and produce some art for my portfolio!
Hence i humbly ask someone to take my hand and lead me...

I did read about baking and thought i did everything right, but it looks horrible >.<

Could you explain me what i am doing wrong? I know this model isnt beautifull.
I know its not really creative. But it alrady served its purpose in a few spots (learning highpoly to lowpoly workflow)

I have tried both XNormal and baking right in 3dsmax (with the help of RTTAssisst), xnormal does a better job, but still doesnt look good...
If i failed to upload the right stuff and you need some additional info or something please dont be mean, i'll try to deliver everything thats crucial.












thx in advance for any tips or links or whatever!

Edit: I think the issue on the maxbake is that its rendering the lowpoly aswell, but i read that its automativcally hidden by RTTAssisst...

Fingus

I don't know much about baking normals in Max, but it seems like your mesh is getting cut off. Probably because your search envelope is too small. The reason xNormal is not giving you that issue is because the default search distance is long enough to cover it all. But xNormal is not that good at baking hard surface normals.

Ace-Angel

Hero piece? Are you using a cage? Also, explode your mesh for all of your maps. After that, bake an extra AO map from your lowpoly only (the high poly AO bake should be the exploded one).

xXm0RpH3usXx

I rechecked my cages (yes, i am using them) and made them bigger to be sure that it fits.
Nothing got better.

Oh and there is no AO yet, just a plain white with a normal map applied in max viewport...
(Render in Vray doesnt look much better though)

Also compared the normal map with the lowpoly / highpoly models and if u look at this comparison u can see a pattern.
But shouldnt the lowpoly not interfere?



also, linking to yourself here :P
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1385962&postcount=117

I did check "hide faces"!

(edit: it seems as if the bolts are going inwards on the normal map, ,too)

SpeCter

It really looks like the lowpoly is rendered too.

xXm0RpH3usXx

Although i see how the script applies the the edit poly modifier at runtime i added one before just to be sure and hid all faces.
Didnt change anything...

Ace-Angel

That's very odd, if I had time on my hands, I would take a personal look at the mesh to see why's it doing that.

Did you try instead splitting up your model into different smooth groups and use rays instead? Does it give the same bake or does it change? It's seems like you know what you're doing, so I doubt it's user fault in this case.

Try running a XView check on your mesh and resetting xForm. It's still baffling.

PS: Almost forgot to mention, did you try baking with Max the traditional way without using RTTAssist? I remember, on a certain PC, RTTAssist gave me issues with cages...

xXm0RpH3usXx

Well, i do think its my fault.. i mean, doesnt seem as if a lot of other people have same issues...
I probably did something basic really wrong.

I am using max since a few years already, but the frist three years i made lowpoly models for warcraft3 (diffuse only), then paused 2 years because i thought my life would go in another direction and now am working in a company where we render CAD Data.
Nothing has remotely to do with baking, so this is new to me.

I tried baking traditionally with vray, set the options to raytrace (in the projections options).
I did not set smoothing groups, because (especially on the wing) i wouldnt want to hav hard edges, but rather a smooth curve.
The result isnt much better:


Loaded the model into Max 2012 (i'm using 2009 normally) and used the xview. In every setting it said "not applicable" which i think means it didnt find any errors?
I reset the xforms before i started this thread.

Here is the max2009 scene, if anyone has a little time left...
The lowpoly models are hidden (the faces) so to select them use "h"
(for link see post below)

almighty_gir

first of all, you've got at least one UV island that falls outside of the bounding box. fix that then come back.

xXm0RpH3usXx

my bad, thanks for pointing that out, still the same problems persist...
here is an updated link:
http://www.morph3us.net/uploads/ship01_05_polycount.rar

Internet Friend

xXm0RpH3usXx wrote: »

my bad, thanks for pointing that out, still the same problems persist...
here is an updated link:
http://www.morph3us.net/uploads/ship01_05_polycount.rar

When in doubt export it out; the FBX exporter complains about a number of problems with your mesh. Letting it automatically turn edges and re-importing the files to a new scene, switching back to Max Scanline Renderer and attaching the LP objects for a quick standard RTT bake worked as expected. I also un-hid the faces as that's not necessary:



A lot of the problems in the bake are coming from the model, though. The LP fits the HP poorly in spots, around the wing especially. This means you have to push the cage way out to capture all the detail, leading to errors elsewhere. The UVs could make better use of the available space, and contain waviness that needs to be flattened out. The cockpit could stand to be exploded away from the fuselage, as well as the turbine vent from the inside of the turbine. Finally, depending on your final map size the rivets may be too small to bake out cleanly.

EarthQuake's stickied thread on normals is a must-read.

xXm0RpH3usXx

the only error occurring next to material and texture export fails was that Shape01 and Shape02 where needed to be converted to poly meshes...

But i dont have those shapes in the scene?

Yes, I definatly need to remake those unwraps...

There is a sticky by earthquake about "how u model dem shapes", not normals?

Okay, thanks alot guys, probably gonna throw this away and start all over again, messed up in a lot of places i want to make better this time!

But good to know it wasnt the baking process but my modeling

Internet Friend

I mean this thread.