baking normals has no effect?

merwynl

Hi,

I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of normals and baking down textures. I created a simple cube with 2 subdivisions and a .05 bevel and I smoothed it with 2 division.

Ii noticed however that once i baked down the normals, the shading changes but I don't get that same rounded corners? does this have anything to do with the black seams along the edges or is my polycount too low on my low level mesh?

Farfarer

It's only a surface effect - it won't actually change the geometry of the low poly model. It just defines what direction the surface points in.

So the shading change is all you get.

Obscura

hi.you mean the blackness at the outer edges?this is because as you said, your model is "too low".try to chamfer your edges at the low, if you want better result.but dont go overboard. the another solution is that you can increase the sharpness at your highpoly a little.this will give you better result too, but its not always functional.
http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=normal_edge_thickness.jpg

merwynl

thanks guys. might try with a different model and compare the results. still not sure why the black seams appear though i read it has something to do with uv's

Obscura

nothing to do with the uvs...its because your normalmap have angle information there, and it looks like this, with this lowpoly mesh.if you would chamfer the edges at the low, it would reduce that "artifact"