Normal Map Seam

Benton

Hi guys,

I know this is probably a really simple problem, with a really simple solution, but I am stuck. This is like my second bake I have ever done with xNormal.





I know if you have hard edges you need to split the UV there, with padding, but I don't have any hard edges. That's really all I can think of, it's not mirrored or anything. Could adding hard edges to the seam help at all? It was baked in xNormal, low poly came from Blender. Could it be a Blender problem, should I try exporting it through Maya? Sorry if this is a really stupid question, but im kinda stumped.

Bartalon

Try setting all your UV seams to hard edges, that should help out a lot.

EarthQuake

What are you previewing the mesh in? You may need to invert the green channel of your normal map.

passerby

ya think the Y(green) needs to be flipped, that or harden the edges around UV shells

Benton

I made the seams hard edges, and I inverted the green channel in the normal map, and the seams are still there. Not as bad, and the seams are gone in some places, but its still pretty bad.


Now, I had to split the edges in Blender because it does not support smoothing groups, but it's the same thing right? I don't know, is there anything else I need to do? I rebaked it with the split edges mesh.

C86G

EarthQuake wrote: »

What are you previewing the mesh in?

?

Benton

C86G wrote: »

?

Oh, was using 3D Coat and Shadermap 2. Results are the same in both.

Onnimra

Could you post a wireframe of the lp? Did you try to modify the UVs entirely?
Then try also "resetting" the UVs by Normals>Set to face and then set the UV borders as hard edges and the other edges as "soft".

Benton

Kimahiri wrote: »

Could you post a wireframe of the lp? Did you try to modify the UVs entirely?
Then try also "resetting" the UVs by Normals>Set to face and then set the UV borders as hard edges and the other edges as "soft".

I reset the edges, and ran the UV Seams to Hard Edges script. Everything looks good in Maya.




(I know the topology is pretty bad)

Still getting some seam issues though.

Benton

Shameless Bump #1

Eric Chadwick

I would guess that 3D Coat uses a different tangent basis than Xnormal? To get a seamless display in 3D Coat, try baking in 3D Coat instead. Not guaranteed to work tho, depends whether the 3D Coat shader was written correctly.

Benton

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

I would guess that 3D Coat uses a different tangent basis than Xnormal? To get a seamless display in 3D Coat, try baking in 3D Coat instead. Not guaranteed to work tho, depends whether the 3D Coat shader was written correctly.

Right, but the seam is the same both in Shadermap 2 and in 3D Coat. I think I might just have to add more geo.

Eric Chadwick

Doesn't matter if the seam is the same in both apps. What I'm saying is your baker (Xnormal) is not synched with your renderer (3D-Coat, Shadermap, whatever). I bet both renderers are not synched to Xnormal's output.

Try displaying the Xnormal-baked map in Xnormal's viewer.

Benton

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Doesn't matter if the seam is the same in both apps. What I'm saying is your baker (Xnormal) is not synched with your renderer (3D-Coat, Shadermap, whatever). I bet both renderers are not synched to Xnormal's output.

Try displaying the Xnormal-baked map in Xnormal's viewer.

Interestingly enough, the seams in the Xnormal viewer are worse. I wonder if I should just redo the UV map with different seams, or add more geo, or redo the topology, or all of that.

Edit: Redoing the UV map solved the issue. Moral of this thread, spend time making a good UV map haha. Thanks for the help though guys, I bet you shake your heads at threads like this but I have learnt a lot!

Eric Chadwick

What part of re-doing the UV solved it? I bet it wasn't the UVs, but something else in your process that changed this time around.

Benton

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

What part of re-doing the UV solved it? I bet it wasn't the UVs, but something else in your process that changed this time around.

Possibly. The only think I changed really was the UV, I made it much better and actually previewed how it looked on the model. The last UV I did, I did it really fast without seeing if it worked OK, then baked, and when the bake came out mostly OK (except for the seams) I figured it was fine. Although there could be some other problem that was lurking.

ProjectEagleeye wrote:

Unfortunatley you can dump Blender when it comes to smoothing groups as the common exporters to game engines such as .fbx or .psk for UDK do not interpret the EdgeSplit modifier correctly.

I would really be interested how you solved the problem by adjusting the UV.

Yeah I know Blender is pretty bad for smoothing groups. I am slowly making the switch to Maya, but Blender for me is still way faster for UVing. I just brought the OBJ into Maya and did the smoothing groups there.

I would be interested in how I solved it too haha. But I think having a totally new and better UV set helped.