Yes, all polygons with more than three edges are still built up by triangles, they're just calculated automatically. Different render engines calculates the directions differently and if the triangulation doesn't match up with the mesh used for baking there might be artifacts, showing up in the shading.
EDIT: As an example, Maya draws triangles differently than xNormal. So if I don't triangulate the exported mesh, the shading will not look quite right when looking at it in the Maya viewport.
I find I can get away with not having to convert my mesh to tris in my Maya scene simply by use fbx with its triangulation for both the xnormal export and the game engine export.
I find I can get away with not having to convert my mesh to tris in my Maya scene simply by use CBS with its triangulation for both the xnormal export and the game engine export.
corrected sorry mate, was typing from my phone and it autocorrected fbx.
more or less just saying because fbx has it's own triangulation method, you can just use that for both export to xnormal and export to game engine and the triangulaiton will be the same on both exports, while keeping your model in the maya scene quads.
the one issue is that if your testing the normal maps with a view-port shaders there could be issues. but in cases where you olny test in your game engine of choice, udk, or toolbag or something similar it will work perfect.
corrected sorry mate, was typing from my phone and it autocorrected fbx.
more or less just saying because fbx has it's own triangulation method, you can just use that for both export to xnormal and export to game engine and the triangulaiton will be the same on both exports, while keeping your model in the maya scene quads.
the one issue is that if your testing the normal maps with a view-port shaders there could be issues. but in cases where you olny test in your game engine of choice, udk, or toolbag or something similar it will work perfect.
This definitely works well - the only gripe is that you aren't able to see how the triangle strips are directioned in the model before exporting for baking. This can bean important issue in some cases where triangle strips needs to be flipped specifically / manually so that there are no shading errors / just to render faster in general.
Replies
http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap#Triangulating
EDIT: As an example, Maya draws triangles differently than xNormal. So if I don't triangulate the exported mesh, the shading will not look quite right when looking at it in the Maya viewport.
Interesting, what's CBS and how does it work?
corrected sorry mate, was typing from my phone and it autocorrected fbx.
more or less just saying because fbx has it's own triangulation method, you can just use that for both export to xnormal and export to game engine and the triangulaiton will be the same on both exports, while keeping your model in the maya scene quads.
the one issue is that if your testing the normal maps with a view-port shaders there could be issues. but in cases where you olny test in your game engine of choice, udk, or toolbag or something similar it will work perfect.
This definitely works well - the only gripe is that you aren't able to see how the triangle strips are directioned in the model before exporting for baking. This can bean important issue in some cases where triangle strips needs to be flipped specifically / manually so that there are no shading errors / just to render faster in general.