BAKING PROBLEM!

David Wakelin

Can't seem to bake properly

I understand I make a high res and a low poly retop, but baking the detail on just never seems to happen accurately or decently. Ive followed videos, Ive followed help and trawled through the wiki but never get a good result;

Any ideas?

PROBLEM:

David Wakelin

ive updated with my current settings for baking

throttlekitty

What are you showing in the left of the second picture, a bake or the two meshes overlapped? Freeze transforms maybe? Looks like only that nubbin poking out is getting baked.

David Wakelin

throttlekitty wrote: »

What are you showing in the left of the second picture, a bake or the two meshes overlapped? Freeze transforms maybe? Looks like only that nubbin poking out is getting baked.

Its literally a test.

I just made a square; slightly beveled top, and a center slightly pulled out - onto a low res square. Its not overlapped; i just want a better result of a bake; its not being baked properly; or rigid, not smooth and doesnt look like the higher res.

Cheers Perna, it was a bump on the last image; forgot to change to Tangent.

Any idea how to improve this bake guys.

BARDLER

I am not sure what you mean by "doesn't look like the higher res."

Do you mean the silhouette doesn't look like the highpoly? Normal maps do not deform the geometry of your object so you have to be aware of that when modeling. The extrusions coming off your cube wont show up in the side view, only on the straight on view.

David Wakelin

It contains the Silouhette. Thats not the problem, its the actual baking - I seem to have hardened edges around the square in the middle.

I also seem to have no curve or bevel on the outter shape as in the higher poly.

leleuxart

David Wakelin wrote: »

I also seem to have no curve or bevel on the outter shape as in the higher poly.

That is what Bardler was saying. That curvature in the high poly is a modification of the silhouette. In order to get a curve in the low poly, you'll have to actually have the curve in the low poly. Normal Maps only tell the engine how to light certain parts of the model, which gives off the bumpiness/small details. And like Bardler said, Normal maps are really only effective if you're looking at the model straightforward.

David Wakelin

leleuxart wrote: »

That is what Bardler was saying. That curvature in the high poly is a modification of the silhouette. In order to get a curve in the low poly, you'll have to actually have the curve in the low poly. Normal Maps only tell the engine how to light certain parts of the model, which gives off the bumpiness/small details. And like Bardler said, Normal maps are really only effective if you're looking at the model straightforward.

Ah great - thanks

Then any idea whats happening to the middle of the low poly?

GeeDave

I've never used Maya for this, but does it have a projection cage? I think you're right to question why no other (glaringly obvious) information was coming through in your normal map, I did a quick test to make sure I was sane and sure enough, you should be seeing some sort of "smoothed" corners.

Obviously not going to change the silhouette, but I'm pretty sure you know a normal map doesn't do this anyway. See example:



In Max, to get the error you're getting I think I'd have to set the projection cage up wrongly, in the above example the cage sits above both the high and the low (ever so slightly, of course)

Internet Friend

That's what I was going to say. It's been a while since I've used Maya, but open the Advanced Options and make sure Search Method is set to "Search inside then outside envelope". It looks like you have it set to "Closest to envelope" which is code for "Outside envelope only" from looking at the help file quickly.

What you really want to do for anything more complicated than a cube is set it to "Inside Only" and set up your envelope properly, though.

David Wakelin

SORTED IT !!!!!!!!!!1

Thank you everyone for this help; I learnt alot during these practices, as I've never really managed to normal map properly - it was GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Kudos To Internet Friend for the Settings, Perna for the quick and informative replies and to GeeDave for point out my major problems - and even testing my theory.

THANK YOU!

David Wakelin

Ok Perna,

Guys if anyone has this problem;

1. Ensure that your High Poly and Low poly match the silohuette as close as possible - don't expect a curve however slight that maybe; if you havent got any extra topology or a slight curve there on your low poly to help define that. - the shape DOES not change in a normal, only the light that bounces off it (this should be obv but you never know who reads this)


2. Ensure your settings for the baking are correct; make sure your targ mesh is your low poly/source is the high (again fairly obv) and make sure the advanced settings option is set to "Inside Only" and Set the Envelop to JUST cover the model.

I hope my points are correct; I'm sure they are - as thats what worked for me, but again I'm new to this!
What you really want to do for anything more complicated than a cube is set it to "Inside Only" and set up your envelope properly, though.

EarthQuake

You don't need uvs on your high poly mesh and having or not having uvs there or how the high is uved shouldn't effect your bakes in any way.

David Wakelin

ahhhh - well I just automatic mapped both of them; but again - Cheers

You learn something new every day haha.

So ideally I just need my low poly UVED? It doesnt matter how its laid out; or uved in anyway just aslong as they don't overlap I'm guessing?

EarthQuake

Yes, and your uvs can be overlapped/mirrored, but you need to make sure to offset the mirrored bits 1 unit exactly before baking. You don't need to move them back if you did it exactly 1 unit. The baker will only "pay attention" to what is in the 0-1 uv range.

The only situation where your highpoly needs uvs is if it has some sort of texture applied that you want to bake down as well, but even then the uvs do not need to match.

Kon Artist

I'm baking stuff in Maya right now. As far as I understand it, you should only have hard edges where your geo changing ~90 degrees and it's a boarder edge on your UV map.

If your edge isn't a UV edge it should always be soft. Having hard edges where you shouldn't will result in nasty seams. Having soft edges in the wrong place will result in lighting problems when rendered.

Snader

Why are you not using a lowpoly model more like this, though?



Right now you're just using a cube with some unneccesary loops, and it doesn't match the highpoly at all.