As Ever: Stucking with Normalmap :(

Gazu

Hi Polycounters,

To have an easier switch to Max i decided to do the M37 Tutorial from YouTube.
But I really don´t get it @ Baking. I can´t bake a clean Normalmap, as ever!
So i have decided to make a lot of pictures through this little process.

Maybe someone can see the failure:

1. This is my LowPoly with applied Checkermap:


2. These are the LowPoly UVs:


3. This is the HighPoly Model (Just want the Smoothness of it, rest i want to make in nDo2) :


4. Preparing for Engines and Bake, Triangeled the LowPoly Mesh with the Connect Function:


5. Added Smoothing Groups to the LowPoly Mesh with the Auto Function (Randomly selected the seperat parts in "5" Mode and clicked Auto Smooth:


6. Overlapped the LowPoly with the HighPoly and added a Projection Modifier to the LowPoly:


7: This comes out, i know that i have to make the cage bigger on the Red marked parts, but for now they´re not important so much:


8. I export the LowPoly with this (LP and HP still overlapping, Pivot centered):


9. I exported the HP (Still overlapping) :


10. Gave a try in Toolbag (Only Happy with the Front Sight...)


11. Then i tried a Bake in xNormal, still ugly stuff...


12. The MaxBake Normal looks so:


13. The xNormal Normal so:


This NormalMaps are making me sick Q_Q
What´s wrong with them?
Here is a link to the High Poly and Low Poly i made:
http://www.file-upload.net/download-8517781/Low-and-HighPoly.rar.html

Would be very happy for all kinds of help.

With regards,
Gazu

Gazu

So i gave it another try:
I enlarged the Projection Cage, set the Renderer to Catmul, the Orientation to Up and added the global supersampler hammersley with quality 1,0 .
I set the mapsize to 2k.

I marked the parts which aren´t clean in my eyes. Or is it now clean?

.Wiki

It would be better to explode your mesh before you bake. Most of your errors come from overlapping geometry. So your cage catches details from other object parts.

Simply move each seperate part of the weapon a view units for the bake.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgYoXF6QmWw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgYoXF6QmWw[/ame]

With the exploded bake it should also work with xNormal. I would recommend using xNormal because its really fast.

Gazu

Will give it a try, thanks!

.Wiki

Ahh and dont use automatic hard edges. Good normal map bakes require hard edges at UV seams. So you will need to place them by hand or use a script. I guess there are some scripts for max that will create hard edges by uv islands but I haven´t been using max for 2 years.

Ghogiel

In the xnormal bake think you fubared the smooth groups on the export of the SBM. The normal map output really doesn't match up to what your groups are as you shown in 5. Not to mention the groups are a bit wrong looking at the UV... particularly the pump grip. there are hard edges all over that but it's only a few UV shells. That will be ray misses in the bake...

Ghogiel

.Wiki wrote: »

Ahh and dont use automatic hard edges. Good normal map bakes require hard edges at UV seams. So you will need to place them by hand or use a script. I guess there are some scripts for max that will create hard edges by uv islands but I haven´t been using max for 2 years.

textools has that

Gazu

Hi Wiki, thanks for your answers.

I don´t know what you mean with Automatic Hard Edges. I just gave the LP Auto Smoothing Groups. Never had contact with Automatic Hard Edges. Where can i adjust them? I mean this is my first bake in max.

Thank you,
Gazu

.Wiki

Smoothing groups create hard edges. You see them around each smoothing group as a shading split. So make sure those splits correspond with your uv splits.

Gazu

Have my Smoothing Groups be attached to every single UV Shell?
So for example: When the Pumpgrip is Cylindrical Mapped, then i only have to mark the "Cylindrical" Part of the Pump Grip and ad a Smoothing Group to him, as example Nr.1

So 1 UV Shell, 1 Smoothing Group?

Edit:
@Wiki: I think i understand you, just don´t know how to move on in max for this.

EarthQuake

I would remove all of those cut-outs on the lowpoly grip, you can't really see them in the silhouette from that angle (nor would you from first person view), they add a lot of unnecessary geometry, and it look like they're causing you some issues with the bake.

also read these two threads:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81154
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196

Ghogiel

Gazu wrote: »

Have my Smoothing Groups be attached to every single UV Shell?
So for example: When the Pumpgrip is Cylindrical Mapped, then i only have to mark the "Cylindrical" Part of the Pump Grip and ad a Smoothing Group to him, as example Nr.1

So 1 UV Shell, 1 Smoothing Group?

.

Often yeah, that should take care of it.

The one thing to be aware of is you MUST split the UV seam every hard edge you want on your low poly. Some hard edges you might want to add to deal with extreme shading on tht low poly, and they might always make sense UV wise to put a split there in your UV, but you have to do it anyway or you'll get bad seams in normal map.

Gazu

@EarthQuake:
Yeah, i know this Threads. They are very good but my german brain actually don´t understand some of the informations that you are giving us there. So it´s heavy for me to understand all this. Maybe i need to read them instinctively and more concentrated.

@Ghogiel:
Is there an Video Tutorial of this? As i said i understand you but i don´t know how to do this now in max. Where to go, what to do?
Im switching from Maya to Max so sorry for that

Xoliul

Yes, Just get textools man, it does it for you in 1 click. Smoothing groups from UV islands, that's what the function is called.

Gazu

I got TexTools and i used the function yesterday.
But the Smoothing Groups looks funny.

You mean this function, or?


Must i select my whole triangulated LowPoly Mesh and then only Click this one i show in the picture? Is this the right way for that?

Xoliul

Yes. And it should be the only way you do it. Anything else will cause problems. If you need more hard edges (because of extreme smoothing) either split your UV's or add bevels to fix the smoothing.

Gazu

Ok i have made this:


Not super Clean but i didn´t bake it exploded, like Wiki told me.
Now i will move each part far away from each other and bake it "exploded."

Maybe the bake then will be Clean

Gazu

Thanks Guys!
I think that this will work great!

But now Max Crashes and i must start from begin.. -.-"!
Max loves to crash...Maya not :P

Neox

max has autobackups, did you check those?

Gazu

I dont know where to find this option.
But im saving manually after i tweaked the cage of every seperate part now ^^
Just to be sure ^^

Neox

unless you turned it off, it will be on by default

when max starts and you hit open, you are in the scenes folder, go one layer up, there should be your autobackups

Gazu

Enough gebaked. I think this is clean
Just checked that when the Cage is to big, round Shapes get Blobby or Wavy.
So i made the Cage of the pumpgrip smaller and tweaked him manually.
I think it´s fine now.

One question: Why the normal looks in 512x512 so soft and in 2k not?
I mean in 512 its tooo soft.

Anyway, thank you guys for all!
I learned baking Normals with Max, yeah!

What do you guys think, is it a clean map now or is there a lot to tweak?
And when yes, what should i do to get it perfect ?
I mean this Weapon is only an exercise for me, to get into max and to become faster. It´s not an portfolio piece, for this purpose it´s to simple :P ^^

PS: Thanks Airborne for this Tip!

.Wiki

In 512 it looks softer because of the texture filtering. If you would disable it you would have a fully pixelated 8bit like Normalmap. But because it gets filtered it interpolates and so it looks softer.

Gazu

Hey Wiki, thanks!

Is there a clean Way to move all parts back to place after baking ? ^^
I mean i have explode the Weapon for baking like you told me. And at the moment i just manually moved the parts back in place. Is there a clean and quick way?

Next time i only will move the parts on one axis...

Obscura

When I did explode bakes, I placed a keyframe to the 0th frame, and there the places was in their place. then I went to the 1st frame, moved the pieces further from each other, and placed a keyframe to the 1st frame too. So then I could switch between the "together mesh" and the exploded mesh with just pulling the timeline slider. I think this works fine. Later you can delete the keyframes.

Gazu

Good Idea
Is it the same as in Maya? Right Click on the Timeline and then Set Keyframe?

Obscura

I don't know how it works in Maya, but I think the "autokey" button is very easy to use. On the 0th frame, you just click to icon that has a key shape on it (set keys), and this will store all the positions/rotations etc. then when you went to the 1st frame, enable the autokey button, move the pieces further, and when you are done, disable the autokey button, and you are done. While the autokey is enabled, its storing all the transformations.

- I just want to pay your attention to that you can't get correct ao bake with exploded mesh, because the pieces are far from each other, so you won't get shadows at some places where they should be.

.Wiki

For the exploded bake I create a copy of the Object and use only this for the bake. I have one assembled and one disassembled mesh.

Gazu

Great Ideas!
For my Mesh it´s to late now ^^
But thats not important. I have the FBX Files of the High and Low which are pretty good.

I will keep that in mind for my next explode Bake ^^

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Gazu

Hi Guys!
Just want to tell you what comes out of this whole process:


Thanks again!
Learned a lot!

Xoliul

hey nice work, looking at your previous stuff, you are definitely improving!

Gazu

Thanks dude!