LowPoly Topology

bilelcg

Hello guys ,ihave some questions about lowPoly topology , here is a low mesh that i made to bake nhighpoly one on it ..
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=33jkbqv&s=6

heres is the mesh from the back :
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2h2mkgy&s=6

this is how it looks when i smooth edges to prepare the mesh for baking normalmap:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=xgbnnl&s=6

Now the questions : :poly121:

1- does that affect the preview of the mesh inside the game or the normal map will hide those artifacts ?...
2- if yes how can i fix it ? ,whats the best way/tips to make low poly topology ready for baking normalmap ?
3- one last question is ther a way to improve the final result my normal map to make it more believable :shifty: ?

Pola

Did you try baking it and seeing for yourself? Usually the shading issues won't show, if they do you can tweak the vertex normals so that for a flat plane they all face along the same direction. Assuming you baked a normal map already for your 3rd question, what about it are you having trouble with to make it more believable?

bilelcg

yes i did try baking it and iv got some black areas as i expected...
and for the 3d question i mean is ther a way to maximize the quality of the normalmap ....?

bilelcg

her is how it looks after baking :
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=p0qo3&s=6

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http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2ik39rd&s=6

is that caused by the lack of geometry or somthingelse ...im confused

throttlekitty

It's a combo of your geometry and having soft edges on the 90 degree angles. The general idea is to have hard edges/uv splits. Also, you seem to have a lot of extra geometry along the edges, is this intentional?

From the stickies in this section:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81154

bilelcg

well you mean the bevel around the edges ? i made them to help the normal map show corectly ,are they unnecessary ?...

i think im splitting Uvs the wrong way ....is ther a proper methode to split the uvs to get a clean normalmap ?

throttlekitty

I was referring to the low poly model, Is there a reason you have crazy wires going to and fro?

Regarding UVs, seriously, give that thread a read. As for the hard edge/UV split at 90 degrees, using a plain cube as an example, you'd have each face as its own shell, slightly separated from each other to give some pixel room between them.

bilelcg

ok ill check that thread
well for those crazy wires , i was trying to connect everything together to get clean geometry ...
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=dxd54w&s=6
is that unnecessairy ?

throttlekitty

For a low poly yes. The extra verts along the sides aren't adding to the model's form or function. Here's a quick mockup for how I'd do it:

bilelcg

aha.....thank you kitty you helped me a lot

bilelcg

here is how it looks when i applyed your methode :
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=27zj8xt&s=6

is those strange shading spots normal ?

throttlekitty

No, that indicates that you have either:
1) Edges along the sides or back, but still attached to the large face in the front.
2) Stray vertices along the edges.
Behind the scenes, Maya is triangulating the model for shading, which is why you are seeing this.

Maya will let you delete an edge without deleting the vertices if you press the delete key. You can Shift+RMB>Drag lower left to delete edges AND leftover vertices to avoid this.

bilelcg

can you do a litle modification to the mesh so i can understand how it should be done
http://www.4shared.com/file/SBO_eC8Q/Trash_Test.html?
Thank you !

throttlekitty

No problem, but it looks like I need to sign up for that service to download the file. Do you have another place you could upload it?

edit: i would suggest www.dropbox.com

Kurt Russell Fan Club

You can download that file just by entering a fake email and blah as the password. It'll say it sent off the confirmation but you can download straight away.

I had a quick look - the smoothing you're getting is because of a few reasons. You've got verts all along the edges of that big plane and you have 90-degree corners with soft edges, so the triangulation is all visible. If you want to use soft edges then chamfer the edge, otherwise just use hard edges. Use this logic for all the edges you've got dodgy smoothing on.

bilelcg

i deleted the edges with the delete Edge/vert tool ,its weird that the verts still ther ..
im gonna check it again...and for the 90 degree soft edges your right i forgot about it ..thank you kurt
her is a dropbox link Kity https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1ma6ux5multp7u5/Tbz5WyDbEk

throttlekitty

answering the pm here. Here's a much lower poly version of what you've done as an example. (i kind of goofed pushing out the center beams, so they're bowed, whoops.)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/13576177/Temp/Trash_C_tkLow.obj

You deleted the edges along the back, but not the ones that wrap around completing the loop - they need to end up somewhere, else shading like this happens. (select that big face in the back and do Mesh>triangulate to see how it would look in a game engine.

bilelcg

yea it was a pain in the a** trying to figur out how the center beams will be higher than the others without using a lot of geometry O_o
i think your idea of making them bowed is not bad .....
thank you again

bilelcg

here is the result :
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=kb5e9h&s=6

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Uvs:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=r29w90&s=6