Normal Map Artifact (Maya bake)

uge_sl

Hey guys,

I was wondering if you have seen this before. I am modeling a mechanical object and doing a high to low bake in maya. When the spec is strong enough i am getting these artifacts. The surface is completely flat and the issue is definitely coming from the normal map since if i fill it with flat color the issue is gone.

thank you in advance!

-Eugene

MethodJ

IME experience baking normals in maya can be very fussy. Your surface may be planar, but if it has edges, maya will average together the normals-directions from your planar face and the face it is connected to, creating non-uniform projections that can be unpredictable and also super-annoying. When I have issues like this I usually break my objects apart by extracting faces.

Also, check out this thread. They specifically talk about waviness in normal maps.

edit: also, you could try baking in another program, like xnormal.

EarthQuake

This is a bit-depth/color precision issue. If you can bake at 16 bits per channel, and resave out of photoshop at 8bpc you'll get better results.

Though honestly, these sort of issues tend to disappear when you texture your asset and view it from a reasonable distance.

uge_sl

Thank you for the response! How can i bake a 16 bit normal out of maya? I wasnt able to find the setting to change it.