MODO - baking normal map issue
polycounter lvl 8
Hi fellas,
I have question regarding baking normal map in MODO.
I try to bake normal map from high poly mesh that in catmull-clark subdiv mode. But normal map appears to be baked from original mesh instead(without subdiv mode). Only way to produce desired result is to freeze high poly before baking, than it's appear as it need to be. I'm using bake item with distance offset. Low poly mesh have single smoothing group(all edges are soft).
Is there a way to bake normal map from mesh with catmull-clark subdiv mode enabled?
Screenshots:
UV's
I have question regarding baking normal map in MODO.
I try to bake normal map from high poly mesh that in catmull-clark subdiv mode. But normal map appears to be baked from original mesh instead(without subdiv mode). Only way to produce desired result is to freeze high poly before baking, than it's appear as it need to be. I'm using bake item with distance offset. Low poly mesh have single smoothing group(all edges are soft).
Is there a way to bake normal map from mesh with catmull-clark subdiv mode enabled?
Screenshots:
UV's
Replies
But now I'm having baking artifacts on "hard edges" that I dunno where they came from. I checked high and low poly for inappropriate maps(vertex normals), cleaned both meshes with mesh cleanup, manually check edges and vertices for duplicating, check UV's for overlapping, no luck so far.
What vertex normal approach are you using? Area Weighted/Angle Weighted, both (full), or none? It could be that the normals got locked when there was additional geometry and it just needs a recalc.
Also, @Farfarer you're a legend for that vertex normal toolkit, so glad they made it native in Modo but I still prefer using your one sitting above the viewport, it is a permanent place in my modo installs. If you're in London, shout for a beer.
I'm using single smoothing group for low poly mesh, but I've used it with area weighting on and I believe it causes those artifacts on edges. When I turned it off and rebake normal map result appear to be nice and clean.
I wonder is there inside MODO way to increase quality of normal map baking, maybe tweaking parameters in render properties? The fact is that I've made test with simple 6-side cube and high poly version of it and compared it to Marmoset baker. Result was that MODO have lower quality bake than Marmoset Toolbag 3.
@mickeyvpn
That first screenshot in your latest post is showing the issue. You need to correct the vertex normals on that lower boundary edge. They're pointing below the high poly source mesh causing ray misses.
Yep, I've noticed that too after your first advise. Those areas where vertex normals had wrong direction produced artifacts. Made a gif for clarifying.
Extract this to your user configs directory and it'll give you back that button and UI, only it'll use the internal versions of the commands.