Hello. I'm having a problem with my edges and am wondering by now if this is an actual problem or just a limitation. I've read this thread and others and searched for the last days, but I just can't to pinpoint what exactly my problem is. I've tried to follow the advices as close as possible regarding UVs and hard edges, cage etc.
My edges have "seams", which are mainly the actual edges of the low poly edges. But I think there is something else wrong here with the normal map. I'm using Maya 2016 and Substance Painter 2.
I know there are some other issues in there, but I'm focusing on that edge issue and it's killing me. Thanks for any advice.
@Saiodin It looks like a texture filtering issue, which unfortunately is not fixable by artists. You will always get these problems when camera is so close to the corner like that even when everything is perfectly synced.
In the screenshot below you can see a similar error even when an OS normal map is applied (OS normals totally ignore the vertex normals of the underlying low poly mesh so errors from vertex normal issues are impossible) so it would be best to just live with it and move the camera further away. You will never see these seams under normal circumstances.
First images of Earthquake are missing, shame is a perfect post to explain hard normals to my students, anyone has a pdf. or something with the post? thanks
First images of Earthquake are missing, shame is a perfect post to explain hard normals to my students, anyone has a pdf. or something with the post? thanks
Can someone help me please!, have read and reread everything, when i finally tought that i was starting to make sense of it, end up confused as fuck again.
After read almost all of the coments here, bouncing back and forth btween the topics and my tests, i did make some bakes that end up lokking no that bad i think, and i guess i understant the ''2 diffrent workflows'' for baking normals.
However iam now having problem with i think may be due to ''synced'' workflow issues, which makes me even more confuse, since earlier this week i did a test bakes with this very same model and with the same smoothingsplit/hardedges, and didn't had those shading problems, so i have absolut zero idea of what im doing wrong.
Have importet them to marmoset and skechfab, pretty much the same problems for all 4 of them, with little difference between.
1 - Hard edges/smoothing splits + cage. 2 - "1 Smoothing group" with support edges. 3 - "1 Smoothing group" 4 - "1 Smothing group" with less uv shells (did this only to see if it would have a big impact for having less uv shells, so it can be ignored)
Only the one with hard edge have some weird artifact in the blender viewport, which i don't know what is causing that either, but pretty much all of them display well in both the blender viewport and cycles render.
The shading errors in skechfab
This model is suposed to have mirrored uv, for the upper and lower part, could that be causing it?, however as i said, i did some tests before the same way, and even having the normals looking worst, they dindn't had those weird shading issues in skechfab/marmoset.
Obs: i have already flipped everything.
Also have uploaded them to download if you want to take a better look. \/
@Udjani Make sure the tangent space in Toolbag (in mesh properties), is set to the same as your baker. Or just bake in Toolbag, as it will bake with the tangent space that your mesh is set to. Mikkt is generally best if you don't know which t-space to use, as that is what Unreal and Unity use these days.
Also, make sure that the triangulation is the same in all apps.
I have a vehicle composed of multiple parts e.g shell chair and details on the inside. Just wondering if anyone knew how to make it so the uvs are scaled the same across all the objects. Im using automatic mapping for this since its for a render not a game and I wont be using photoshop. Ive pressed automatic map and changed the scale but that doesnt seem to do it. Didnt think any pictures were necessary. cheers.
I have a vehicle composed of multiple parts e.g shell chair and details on the inside. Just wondering if anyone knew how to make it so the uvs are scaled the same across all the objects. Im using automatic mapping for this since its for a render not a game and I wont be using photoshop. Ive pressed automatic map and changed the scale but that doesnt seem to do it. Didnt think any pictures were necessary. cheers.
I guess you should merge everything into 1 object, unwrap it and separate it again (if you need). By this way UVs are scaled the same across all the objects but small objects may have not enough texture resolution. I think the best way is to merge objects into groups which should have pretty equal UV areas and use UV checker texture.
Hey guys, I'm having a slight issue with unwrapping certain type of polygons.
I have a break along this line
and when I unwrap this part (simple quick planar map, quick peel) it unwraps fine. Straight line of polygons. But when I unwrap this part
it doesn't seem to do the job.
It still unwraps as a circle on my map, and I don't want that.
I don't understand. What's the difference? There's a break in the same exact spot on both of these and from a technical point of view it's basically the same shape.
Hey guys, I'm having a slight issue with unwrapping certain type of polygons.
I have a break along this line
and when I unwrap this part (simple quick planar map, quick peel) it unwraps fine. Straight line of polygons.
But when I unwrap this part
it doesn't seem to do the job.
It still unwraps as a circle on my map, and I don't want that.
I don't understand. What's the difference? There's a break in the same exact spot on both of these and from a technical point of view it's basically the same shape.
Could you help me out here? Thanks
Wrong thread, but OK: They're not the same shape in 3d space though. Some are cylinders, and that 'circle' is a flat, planar set of polygons. Any smart unwrapper would try to do the same, especially if you have these UV islands in separate smoothing groups. Automated unwrapping never does exactly what you want, so you're gonna have to split that 'circle' along the same edge that the other bits are split, weld the edges you want welded, and either straighten the loops or relax the whole thing.
Hello, i'm not sure how a good clean normal map is supposed to look like. I baked this one from a high poly mesh in Zbrush. and below it is the UV layout from the low poly. The UVs in circle are supposed to be straps. My guess is, the geometry changed when i did the high poly and that translated to the UVs? does that mean i need new UVs?
I normally always try to find out by myself what the problem is, but here I have difficulty with addressing it, I am also not sure which program is making this.
so here is my UV map, I moved object to Zbrush and modelled it and then start texturing it in 3DCoat. As I painted all and thought all is going fine, I went to Photoshop to put Unsharpen Mask on, and that's what I got
I have no idea why all edges vanished and whole map became a blob. There is probably some setting somewhere that I am not aware of. Can someone be so kind and explain that to me? Thanks in advance
@kat_sta Are you talking about the padding? Certain programs will add padding around UV shells to protect against edge and color bleed when mipping down, also to prevent unsightly seems. Basically takes the edge pixels and fills in the spaces between the UV shells with the sampled colors. My guess would be that 3D coat did it because that's wehre you painted the map.
To fix this on the export window of 3D Coat there is a checkbox to turn off padding.
@kat_sta Are you talking about the padding? Certain programs will add padding around UV shells to protect against edge and color bleed when mipping down, also to prevent unsightly seems. Basically takes the edge pixels and fills in the spaces between the UV shells with the sampled colors. My guess would be that 3D coat did it because that's wehre you painted the map.
To fix this on the export window of 3D Coat there is a checkbox to turn off padding.
Thank you so much, I didn't know about such a thing as padding! Thanks again
This is probably a very simple question but I'm a bit unsure on how to handle simple board-like geometry.
if you model a wooden plank that's only a few centimeters thick, do you guys usually make a highpoly model for it so you can bake out the edges... or is it not worth your time?
What is the prop being used for? If a hero asset of some sort definitely model out each board of the box do some highpoly sculpting on it. If it's for a background set piece of such that will not be seen too close not necessary IMO. Make sure to do a good job texturing (add nails, scratches, some edge wear and the like). A little more info on what you want to do with the box/boards and we can give you more info.
The thing you see in the picture is just a drawer in a dresser so definitely not a hero prop. but imagine it is a hero object, you would rather sculpt than just chamfer the edges in a highpoly smoothed version of it?
If its just a drawer i would just make a box delete the top face and then shell it real quick with a custom front face. If this was a hero prop drawer I probably wouldn't sculpt it unless the front face had some fanciful design on it. Just standard hard surface modeling and would probably include the geo of the joints since those are a cool detail and then just bake it down to the lowpoly shelled box.
Those with nice chamfers would look nice. All in all though it wouldn't take too long to throw together chamfers on the outer edges and bake it down so go ahead and do it since it will make it look better regardless. Its remarkable how just having some kind of edge chamfers brings up the quality of a model.
If you plan on destroying the drawer then sculpting may come into play. I originally thought the box was some kind of wooden crate made of different planks nailed together.
Here is the uv for an object. Someone help me get it into shape or lead me in a direction after various failed attempts! This is after planar then cut and unfold. looks like a stomach and would rather it have more of a uniform checker pattern. Thank you.
@TannedBatman Are you trying to get just that outside piece as a squarish island? If so the easiest thing to do is this: -Select the island -Hit Unitize under the Polygons menu in the top menu bar -Select all the edges then deselect your seam as well as the top and bottom seams in the viewport -Then Move and Sew UV's (or stitch together can't remember the nomenclature of that) That should give a square result -Then relax just slightly to ease some of the stretching that you will get due to the nonlinear shapes in your mesh.
Thank you alot. One problem is its a perfect rectangle and yet there seems to be some stretching on the edges which shows up really bad in substance painter.
So the stretching occurs because as you can see those polygons are not perfectly square on your model. Therefore when you make them perfectly square on your UV layout it will stretch the texture. If you don't want stretching the most accurate layout would be closer to what you had before.
To alleviate some of the stretching run the Smooth tool a little bit over that rectangle. Granted this will kill your perfect rectangle but will result in less stretching across your mesh. Think of UV's as the wrapper of an easter bunny chocolate, not as a projection mapped onto an object.
Hi - back in the world of Normal baking. I came across this thread whilst researching for a car model. There lots of process here but to break it down - would I ( In Maya ):
- For any hard edges on the model make them hard 'Harden edges' option - Split the UV seams on those hard edges ( is this to stop gradients ? ) - For any smooth soft edges use 'Soften Edges' - Use the Tangent space options in the normal map ( seems obv but checking - its a car ) - Would anyone recommend breaking UV seams one hard edges with supporting edges?
In the advanced section we have some settings - in the Match Using do I select 'Geometry Normals' or 'Surface Normals'
Ive used the simple smooth everything and bake but i'm needing to add supporting edges at the door shuts seams. The seams seem ( lol ) to work but if there is a better workflow. I assume I don't need to actually break the edges. I don't think the openGl renderer supports hard edges - but i'll check.
Not a car modeler, but aren't most cars today completely geometry only using normal maps for decals or to add texture? Doesn't seem like baking a unique normal map for a car is common anymore.
@sputman for car modelling dont worry about normal map baking. These days car modelling is more about clean even topology, terminating edge loops in areas that dont affect shading and adding as many tris as possible on curved areas while maintaining curvature and smooth shading. Roughly I would say for ~100k tris or even more as long as you can show results like this that get you hired in industry.
Interesting modeling technique, Hawk. Looks like a lot of spline work? Also are you cutting the panels straight from the body shape after the fact, not just modeling them in? Man, so much has changed since I worked in the industry. I'm just getting back into it recently and have gone down this deep rabbit hole of trying to perfect my meshes for normal baking. I was like most here in 2012, cranked out normal maps and called it a day with little understanding of how to make them properly lol.
I was a Car Artist on Forza Motorsports too, though it doesn't look like we worked on the same projects. I was there for FM5 and the launch of the Xbox 1.
"Less extreme gradients which means you will get better, more accurate results when doing LOD meshes that share the same texture, as the normal map doesn’t need to rely so heavily on the exact mesh normals. You may need to have a separate normal map baked for LOD meshes otherwise, which uses up more VRAM."
Excuse me what u mean? about the VRAM I have to create a new and separated normal map in order to avoid tbe VRAM increases? (cause I know that u can rebake the normal map from the LOD0 to the LOD1)
So I understand that, if you rebake the LOD0 normal to the others LODs (LOD1,2.3.) you´ll don´t have problems with the VRAM is what I understood true or false?
I'm currently making an anime style character for a game, and i'm a bit confused regarding normal maps. So, do i even need normal maps when creating an anime character that will be toon shaded? Because, as it seems to me, all of the small details on these types of models are hand painted, and not made with normal maps. So my workflow would for texturing would be: Retopologize Model -> UV Unwrap -> Handpaint the Textures
Or am i misunderstanding something fundamental?
I'm mainly referencing to character models used in Genshin Impact and some of these:
Usually anime characters use custom normals modeled into the character to control shading. Tiny details might need normal maps to really pop, but not everywhere.
Normal maps aren't explicitly needed or not needed for any particular type or style of asset. I would think of it this way:
Do you have detail that will affect shading?
If yes, do you have the triangle budget to control it directly with geometry?
If yes, you probably don't need a normal map. If not, you probably do need a normal map.
For something cartoon style, normal maps can be helpful to add small, dynamic details that affect shading but would otherwise be too expensive or cumbersome to model in. For instance, if you want individual strands or small clumps of hair to influence the shading, it may not be practical to model those.
You can paint finer details in the albedo map and such, but these are no longe dynamic effects and will not update if the asset moves through different lighting environments.
It's important to differentiate between hand-painted assets with static lighting, and NPR (non-photorealistic) cartoon-style rendering with dynamic lighting. There's a wide range of potential art styles between the two. There is no singular "anime" art style either, there are many styles in that genre.
I have some details that i want to be affected by lighting, for example the cuts in the cloth in the mesh below.
As you can see i applied a normal map on this mesh, but how do i now achieve this flat look that's characteristic for anime characters? I dont really get how both things, normal map and the flat look of anime characters, work together. Do i now just paint on this mesh, with the normal map applied?
For reference, this is a similar piece of mesh used in the Demon Slayer Game:
Hi! Im stuck and cannot progress further on my project. I need to bake 128 sided cyllinder. My lowpoly has 32. I tried adding support loops scaling highpoly so it completely encapsulates the lowpoly, cages, different software but i cannot get rid of waviness at the bottom. What can i do? Is it even possible? My colleagues are sending in perfect bakes and im just stuck .___.
It's hard to tell what's going on for sure, but if there's a slight bulge in the center and you use subdivision with one central pole, you can get subdivision artifacts like that, you can try to use multiple loops and make sure the middle circle is completely flat or use a geo/cube sphere for a starting point and avoid having a central pole. It could also be a vertex normals issue or an issue with the normal map, but can't tell without seeing that. Might just need to use hard edges and UV splits better.
It's hard to tell what's going on for sure, but if there's a slight bulge in the center and you use subdivision with one central pole, you can get subdivision artifacts like that, you can try to use multiple loops and make sure the middle circle is completely flat or use a geo/cube sphere for a starting point and avoid having a central pole. It could also be a vertex normals issue or an issue with the normal map, but can't tell without seeing that. Might just need to use hard edges and UV splits better.
Here are my UVs:
Crazy idea. What if i bake 2 normal maps. One with traditional marmoset workflow and keep it as is. The second one would be bevel shader in blender. And then ill have to somehow replace problem areas from marmoset bake and replace it with good bevels from bevel shader.
The problem is i dont know how to combine them.
Here is the model in question:
Everything in the middle is baking fine. Both ends are terrible probably because of extreme geo difference.
Here is direct comparison of both bakes. Left one is from marmoset and it looks smoother but you can see silhouette of HP on the edges. It is also causes waviness.
The one on the right is a bevel shader from blender. It looks less smooth but does not have waves.
Honestly idk anymore what is better what do you guys think
nevermind the first part. I just created a copy and subdivided it in simple mode, creased all the hard edges and baked it out as a LP and then i replaced subdivided model with regular one. The waves are gone.
but im still wondering if its possible to combine 2 normal maps and picking the best parts out of them and combining them into one
Replies
I'm having a problem with my edges and am wondering by now if this is an actual problem or just a limitation. I've read this thread and others and searched for the last days, but I just can't to pinpoint what exactly my problem is. I've tried to follow the advices as close as possible regarding UVs and hard edges, cage etc.
My edges have "seams", which are mainly the actual edges of the low poly edges. But I think there is something else wrong here with the normal map. I'm using Maya 2016 and Substance Painter 2.
I know there are some other issues in there, but I'm focusing on that edge issue and it's killing me.
Thanks for any advice.
In the screenshot below you can see a similar error even when an OS normal map is applied (OS normals totally ignore the vertex normals of the underlying low poly mesh so errors from vertex normal issues are impossible) so it would be best to just live with it and move the camera further away. You will never see these seams under normal circumstances.
Hope that helps
Happy to help
you getting incorrect shading on the out edges on both of the hard edge models
areas in red should be like areas in green
After read almost all of the coments here, bouncing back and forth btween the topics and my tests, i did make some bakes that end up lokking no that bad i think, and i guess i understant the ''2 diffrent workflows'' for baking normals.
However iam now having problem with i think may be due to ''synced'' workflow issues, which makes me even more confuse, since earlier this week i did a test bakes with this very same model and with the same smoothingsplit/hardedges, and didn't had those shading problems, so i have absolut zero idea of what im doing wrong.
Have importet them to marmoset and skechfab, pretty much the same problems for all 4 of them, with little difference between.
1 - Hard edges/smoothing splits + cage.
2 - "1 Smoothing group" with support edges.
3 - "1 Smoothing group"
4 - "1 Smothing group" with less uv shells (did this only to see if it would have a big impact for having less uv shells, so it can be ignored)
Only the one with hard edge have some weird artifact in the blender viewport, which i don't know what is causing that either, but pretty much all of them display well in both the blender viewport and cycles render.
The shading errors in skechfab
This model is suposed to have mirrored uv, for the upper and lower part, could that be causing it?, however as i said, i did some tests before the same way, and even having the normals looking worst, they dindn't had those weird shading issues in skechfab/marmoset.
Obs: i have already flipped everything.
Also have uploaded them to download if you want to take a better look. \/
Also, make sure that the triangulation is the same in all apps.
anyone can help me pls? it's important thank you
I have a break along this line
and when I unwrap this part (simple quick planar map, quick peel) it unwraps fine. Straight line of polygons.
But when I unwrap this part
it doesn't seem to do the job.
It still unwraps as a circle on my map, and I don't want that.
I don't understand. What's the difference? There's a break in the same exact spot on both of these and from a technical point of view it's basically the same shape.
Could you help me out here? Thanks
Automated unwrapping never does exactly what you want, so you're gonna have to split that 'circle' along the same edge that the other bits are split, weld the edges you want welded, and either straighten the loops or relax the whole thing.
My guess is, the geometry changed when i did the high poly and that translated to the UVs? does that mean i need new UVs?
To fix this on the export window of 3D Coat there is a checkbox to turn off padding.
if you model a wooden plank that's only a few centimeters thick, do you guys usually make a highpoly model for it so you can bake out the edges... or is it not worth your time?
What is the prop being used for? If a hero asset of some sort definitely model out each board of the box do some highpoly sculpting on it. If it's for a background set piece of such that will not be seen too close not necessary IMO. Make sure to do a good job texturing (add nails, scratches, some edge wear and the like). A little more info on what you want to do with the box/boards and we can give you more info.
The thing you see in the picture is just a drawer in a dresser so definitely not a hero prop.
but imagine it is a hero object, you would rather sculpt than just chamfer the edges in a highpoly smoothed version of it?
thanks for the reply
Those with nice chamfers would look nice. All in all though it wouldn't take too long to throw together chamfers on the outer edges and bake it down so go ahead and do it since it will make it look better regardless. Its remarkable how just having some kind of edge chamfers brings up the quality of a model.
If you plan on destroying the drawer then sculpting may come into play. I originally thought the box was some kind of wooden crate made of different planks nailed together.
is there some sort of relax function in maya?
Are you trying to get just that outside piece as a squarish island? If so the easiest thing to do is this:
-Select the island
-Hit Unitize under the Polygons menu in the top menu bar
-Select all the edges then deselect your seam as well as the top and bottom seams in the viewport
-Then Move and Sew UV's (or stitch together can't remember the nomenclature of that)
That should give a square result
-Then relax just slightly to ease some of the stretching that you will get due to the nonlinear shapes in your mesh.
To alleviate some of the stretching run the Smooth tool a little bit over that rectangle. Granted this will kill your perfect rectangle but will result in less stretching across your mesh. Think of UV's as the wrapper of an easter bunny chocolate, not as a projection mapped onto an object.
There are also some tools within Maya to show stretching like this.
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/Maya-Modeling/files/GUID-637CCCB0-3513-4DFD-A8D5-EB1AB5CCEB9D-htm.html
Above is a link to the tool for checking UV distortion.
^
I
I
That's what I mean by the Easter bunny thing.
- For any hard edges on the model make them hard 'Harden edges' option
- Split the UV seams on those hard edges ( is this to stop gradients ? )
- For any smooth soft edges use 'Soften Edges'
- Use the Tangent space options in the normal map ( seems obv but checking - its a car )
- Would anyone recommend breaking UV seams one hard edges with supporting edges?
In the advanced section we have some settings
- in the Match Using do I select 'Geometry Normals' or 'Surface Normals'
Ive used the simple smooth everything and bake but i'm needing to add supporting edges at the door shuts seams. The seams seem ( lol ) to work but if there is a better workflow. I assume I don't need to actually break the edges. I don't think the openGl renderer supports hard edges - but i'll check.
Thanks in advance
Steve
https://www.artstation.com/art3d7
Interesting modeling technique, Hawk. Looks like a lot of spline work? Also are you cutting the panels straight from the body shape after the fact, not just modeling them in? Man, so much has changed since I worked in the industry. I'm just getting back into it recently and have gone down this deep rabbit hole of trying to perfect my meshes for normal baking. I was like most here in 2012, cranked out normal maps and called it a day with little understanding of how to make them properly lol.
I was a Car Artist on Forza Motorsports too, though it doesn't look like we worked on the same projects. I was there for FM5 and the launch of the Xbox 1.
Excuse me what u mean? about the VRAM I have to create a new and separated normal map in order to avoid tbe VRAM increases? (cause I know that u can rebake the normal map from the LOD0 to the LOD1)
So I understand that, if you rebake the LOD0 normal to the others LODs (LOD1,2.3.) you´ll don´t have problems with the VRAM is what I understood true or false?
Cheers
hope u guys can help me 😊
It's just that
more textures = more ressources = not good
less textures = less ressources = good
All LODs using the same normalmap (just downresed) = good.
Each LOD requiring a specifically baked normalmap = not good, and a needlessly convoluted and time-wasting creation pipeline.
Quite self-explanatory :)
Hello peeps.
I'm currently making an anime style character for a game, and i'm a bit confused regarding normal maps. So, do i even need normal maps when creating an anime character that will be toon shaded? Because, as it seems to me, all of the small details on these types of models are hand painted, and not made with normal maps. So my workflow would for texturing would be: Retopologize Model -> UV Unwrap -> Handpaint the Textures
Or am i misunderstanding something fundamental?
I'm mainly referencing to character models used in Genshin Impact and some of these:
Usually anime characters use custom normals modeled into the character to control shading. Tiny details might need normal maps to really pop, but not everywhere.
Normal maps aren't explicitly needed or not needed for any particular type or style of asset. I would think of it this way:
For something cartoon style, normal maps can be helpful to add small, dynamic details that affect shading but would otherwise be too expensive or cumbersome to model in. For instance, if you want individual strands or small clumps of hair to influence the shading, it may not be practical to model those.
You can paint finer details in the albedo map and such, but these are no longe dynamic effects and will not update if the asset moves through different lighting environments.
It's important to differentiate between hand-painted assets with static lighting, and NPR (non-photorealistic) cartoon-style rendering with dynamic lighting. There's a wide range of potential art styles between the two. There is no singular "anime" art style either, there are many styles in that genre.
Aight thank you very much for the answers.
I have some details that i want to be affected by lighting, for example the cuts in the cloth in the mesh below.
As you can see i applied a normal map on this mesh, but how do i now achieve this flat look that's characteristic for anime characters? I dont really get how both things, normal map and the flat look of anime characters, work together. Do i now just paint on this mesh, with the normal map applied?
For reference, this is a similar piece of mesh used in the Demon Slayer Game:
Thanks for any advice!
Definitely watch this talk, it's inspired how most anime and cell shading art styles in games are done today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhGjCzxJV3E
Thank you, very insightful video!