How to bake normal map

VisanCosmin

After i followed some tutorials on how to bake normal maps, i give up because all the tutorials i watch i, haven't learn me anything,this is why i ask for your help, i only need to know is :
1.How uv islands affects smoothing of normal map and how to unwrap the model properly
2.A good render setup for 3ds max to bake normal maps
Or if you have a good tutorial please let me know

AndreasM

Hi there, yes, normal mapping is a constant issue around here. You might find this interesting: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGszEIT4Kww"]The Fundamentals of Perfect Baking - YouTube[/ame] It does not show everything, that is important but it should give you the power to do the first steps. (Sadly, it is maya but the process should be similar).

After this, you should give this here a try to get a solid understanding about what is actually happening.

Brygelsmack

This is a great thread:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196

Read it.

riot

I would recommend you to take a look at this tutorial.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tgy0lBdJK0"]Millenia's shotgun tutorial[/ame]

While it doesn't talk really in-depth about baking, it covers the whole workflow for a game asset, from start to finish. I really learnt a lot from it, and the texturing tips are gold. Hope you find it useful!

PS: Spor la invatat!

ElleKitty

You can just as well do your baking in Max rather than xnormal. Max has a good texture unwrapper with maximum control. It can choke on (much) bigger models but then for baking you only really need to UVW lowpoly ones. And you can use all the familiar tools and interface.

1. Islands dont affect your nmap in any way; just add some padding of 2-4 when baking. Try to apply some Relax (by face) to your islands to minimise stretching.

2. A good render setup, let me quickly cover some things that I assume these tutorials didnt... First off when you project, never use the default frenzied cage. Always hit Reset (in the projection modifier) and then apply some push to it, there's a spinner just nearby. Whenever you "pack" your UVs, select them all and scale them down a bit to give room for padding (the extra added around the UVs to prevent interpolation seams). And I guess, save yourself some grief and render your maps at low resolutions all until it becomes neccessary to use higher rez ones. If there are render errors, you'll see them in lowrez bakes just as well.