Confused about Normal Maps In MAX and MAYA Please Help :(
polycounter lvl 12
Hello, thanks for reading 
I am having odd issues with normal casting, I have done it before and I am confused about why things are looking so weird now...
I was working on a weapon and when I started Normal Mapping I ran into artifacts in Maya...When I used existing HP geo to create some of my Low Poly items, It worked before but all of a sudden black artifacts everywhere...When I redid the Geo from Scratch it was okay but I got smaller harder to see artifacts where I have triangles...
So I went onto Max to learn to normal cast in there, went through tutorials from 3D Motive and just tried it on a simple Road Cone...Weird artifacts everywhere...I'm starting to think I have no idea wtf is going or what I'm doing lol...
Been trying to figure it out for 2 days now, figured I'd ask for help...
also if anyone knows what the difference is between Smooth normals and Smoothing groups...and why in 3D motive tutorial did the dude say to have every UV island to have their own smoothing group...
Here are some pictures of my problems
If anyone could help I'd appreciate it...Thank you
I am having odd issues with normal casting, I have done it before and I am confused about why things are looking so weird now...
I was working on a weapon and when I started Normal Mapping I ran into artifacts in Maya...When I used existing HP geo to create some of my Low Poly items, It worked before but all of a sudden black artifacts everywhere...When I redid the Geo from Scratch it was okay but I got smaller harder to see artifacts where I have triangles...
So I went onto Max to learn to normal cast in there, went through tutorials from 3D Motive and just tried it on a simple Road Cone...Weird artifacts everywhere...I'm starting to think I have no idea wtf is going or what I'm doing lol...
Been trying to figure it out for 2 days now, figured I'd ask for help...
also if anyone knows what the difference is between Smooth normals and Smoothing groups...and why in 3D motive tutorial did the dude say to have every UV island to have their own smoothing group...
Here are some pictures of my problems
If anyone could help I'd appreciate it
...Thank you