Normal Map Trouble

rockbox

Howdy, I am having trouble with normal maps and I tried tutorials but the thing is every single time I bake out a normal map it's always distorted like the image below,ugly.


This is the normal map from xnormal:



Even at a high res normal bake like 4096 x 4096, it looks better but still ugly. what am I doing wrong?

Kon Artist

could you post some pics that show your wire frame and UV layout.

rockbox

here's a quick wire shot from the viewport:


and here's the UVs:

AlexCatMasterSupreme

It's probably because you are looking at them in the view port. Put it in a game egine or use 3 point shader.

CordellC

AlexCatMasterSupreme wrote: »

It's probably because you are looking at them in the view port. Put it in a game egine or use 3 point shader.

Doesn't change the fact that his actual map has errors.

SlyRipper

It seems that other model parts intersect each other.. that doesn't work well for normal maps.. or general bakes.. if you've used several elements/objects that you just attached to one then "explode" them.. move them away from each other and then bake the stuff. This should do the job

Also check if the cage looks ok, if the cage crosses other cage parts it doesn't work either.

rockbox

CordellC, what's the errors I made in the map?

SlyRipper, do I explode the high poly or low poly? The low poly is the only one with different elements attached.

Kon Artist

What is the anti-aliasing set to in Xnormal? Looks like you have it set to 1x. Change it to 4x.

RE: exploding bakes. You have to explode both.

rockbox

I realized the anti-aliasing option was indeed set to 1 and I cranked it up to 4 but the problem is only minimized. I also have weird triangles in a certain spot( the model is quads but I triangulated upon obj export and the normal map gives it triangles..) but I will try the exploded bake first.

SlyRipper

As Kon Artist already mentioned, it's best to explode both meshes. As alternative you could also export them seperately and bake several maps and merge them with e.g. Photoshop.

Anti-Aliasing just makes the corners a bit smoother, but this shouldn't cause the trouble, because you could render/bake them with x4 size and reduce it in Photoshop to get same results with faster progress.

rockbox

Ok I exploded the hi and low poly meshes and rendered the normal map a few times before it looked decent. For some reason though it doesn't seem to be hitting the lever but it looks ok in the render(no red) but when the actual map is applied to the mesh it looks like this:

see how one piece is mapped and nothing else is?
here's another one.


Here is the hi poly and low poly.The high poly is the orange one.

Also, notice the triangle artifacts... I dont know how to get rid of that. The smoothing groups match and its not like that in the normal map. Any idea why this is happening?

Jet_Pilot

what does your high poly look like around those bolts?
Also check to make sure smoothing groups is checked when your exporting your objs.

rockbox

What bolts? The parts that are messing up in the normal map is the lever handle and the trigger. These shots are in 3ds max, they are not exported.

rockbox

ok well how can I create the highlighted parts in a high poly model? I don't see how I can do this with floating geo as it curves and is not flat, and it looks too dark to have ever had geo inside the slot there so it doesnt look like it was modeled in the high poly..

.Wiki

You can do this of course with photoshop and a normalmap Plugin. So you dont need any highpoly for those holes. But i would prefer the highpoly way. So you just need some more supporting edge loops to create this geometry. If you want to use floating geometry onto a curved surface you need curved floating geometry too.
For example you can duplicate the geometry, then push it and put a subdivision modifier on it and then collapse it. Then you delete all geometry that you dont need and refine your floaters. So the curvature of the floater matches the curvature of the geometry below.

It maybe looks so "dark" because its just darkened with photoshop after the bake.

rockbox

Ok so I refined my highpoly, redid the lowpoly, baked the normal map and now I'm getting some more errors. the shading on the receiver looks a mess and the injection port has a strange bold line above it. And you can see the weirdness on the surface of the receiver(brightness in the middle,dark on the sides) the lowpoly had seperate smoothing groups but i hade problems so some folks said to use only one smoothing group and I think thats the problem but multiple smoothing groups cause more problems..

rockbox

If anybody can enlighten me, i'd be grateful! I've read about normal maps,smoothing groups,the actual baking method and hard/soft edges... I can't figure out why I'm having so much difficulty.

.Wiki

Make your Smoothing Groups like your UV Islands so that any UV Split is a Smoothing Split. This should work well.

rockbox

.Wiki, I did exactly what you said and split my UV islands and changed the smoothing accordingly. the map is better, but there still is the problem on the receiver where it has weird shading on the flat surface the it looks basically the same as the normal map I posted before in the face of the receiver. here's what my highpoly looks like with and without turbosmooth. The lines are denser in the problematic area but they are all flat, no angle whatsoever.

without turbosmooth:

with turbosmooth:

_DMage_

now i know your object is Tshaped, try to import it to mudbox you will se this Message:

Your object has Tshapes

This are are T-Shapes

_DMage_

Try to import the object into meshLab and decrease or increase the polycount

MeshLab-Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/meshlab/files/latest/download?source=files
____________________________
If that doesn`t help, try to AutoMap the UV in maya.

rockbox

_DMage_,
Thank you for the reply. I'm not sure what you mean by "T" shape in the images above but I'm no longer having a problem like that in the T-shape images. no it's the receiver shading and I was wondering if it could be due to the density of the loops right there on the two sides of the ejection port like in the image I posted. could this be? Because the shading is bad in those very spots. But the highpoly model has no such shading issues in the viewport.

Eric Chadwick

It sounds like your lowpoly model has bad topology.

T-shapes: http://www.digitaltutors.com/forum/showthread.php?31708-Mudbox-Import-Issues-What-is-exact-a-T-Shape

In 3ds max, add a STL Check modifier, and fix what it shows you.
http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/files/GUID-4C0D058C-4196-4D05-BE68-981E7FF68C7F.htm

rockbox

I applied a STL check to the high poly,and then when there was nothing on the receiver that was red or selected I tried it on the high poly and still nothing.
The only thing other I can think of that I did was I triangulated it when I exported as obj somewhere down the line but that was a while back.. its in quads still though.

King Mango

I am not a max user, but when I get that type of result in Maya it's usually because of hard edges. I set all my edges to soft for bakes. I think that is a smoothing group in Max?

rollin

I also think there's something with the low.. maybe the low you baked from is not like the one you're applying the map to.
- check there are no double vertices over each other (weld with threshold)
- check smoothing groups (faceted faces)
- check material ids (no submaterial hick hack)
- make sure you baked from the smoothed hp and not the unsmoothed
- try baking with / without cage (battle raymissing)
- add a default directX material to your low (nothing more, just material->directX->addToSelection) and make all 1 smoothing group.. are there any very strange shaded areas?

cupsster

I'm adding to list:
- triangulate before bake
- use cages
- use blockers if it makes sense in xNormal

rockbox

rollin,
I welded all vertices, put the low poly as one smoothing group. One material id,baked with turbosmoothed hp, baked with cage in max and without cage in xnormal and polybump. it has a default material as well.