Smoothing group normal map error

OneMotel

Hello guys, I need help on this normal map error. Every time I bake the normal it create some weird gradient which I believe it caused by the triangulation, usually I separate the UV map depends on its smoothing group to avoid this error but I don't think I have to separate this one.

Please ignore the rest of the other errors, I know how to fix them but not this one, btw it's a FN F2000 body stock

Butthair

Popping the edge to support some of the hi poly is going to cause that. Either put it back to where it was, flush with the surface, to prevent that smoothing issue or model an extra loop and end it close to where you want it neat the transition of the hi poly bulge. Or blur it out in photoshop, sample from the area around and go over it with a low opacity soft brush.

Noors

No ! It should work, the issue is that your shader and the renderer you used for generating the normal map (max?) aren't using the same algorithm aka the'yre not synced.
How did you generate the map, what is your target engine ?
You might want to look at http://www.handplane3d.com/

OneMotel

@Butthair hmm.. adding more extra loop might work, thanks for the suggestion.

@Noors Yes I used max for baking and for the engine, nothing in particular actually, I usually used Xoliul Shader for realtime rendering.

Hey I tried handplane and it just make it even more weird, perhaps I missed a step.

Ghogiel

Yeah that shouldn't really cause such an issue since the bump you made is rather shallow and not actually extreme in any sense.

I want to say it's a triangulation issue, where for some reason the invisible edges are flipped. Which can make errors like that if edges get flipped. Try triangulating the LP and rebake, then apply that map to the triangulated version. I don't think that's going to solve it for you though, just and outside shot.

Norman3D

Have you turned Qualified Normals ON in 3dsMax?
It's turned off by default and can only be activated by editing a INI file.
Noors is right, there is no need for support loops. This should work right away.

Neox

which 3dsmax version are you using? xoliul only supports up to 2012 as autodesk messed with the tangents in later versions.
That said, not sure about versions 2013+, but below the max renderer isn't synced with the viewport to preview the normalmaps. Yeah awesome, right?
So you have no chance to make it look good inside max, unless you use a shader such as the 3point shader that comes with a plugin to synch the viewport to the baker - not sure if xoliul can read the 3point Quality Normals.

But you should not need any extra loops in that case, if your baker is synched with your target renderer/engine it will look great.

OneMotel

Norman3D wrote: »

Have you turned Qualified Normals ON in 3dsMax?
It's turned off by default and can only be activated by editing a INI file.
Noors is right, there is no need for support loops. This should work right away.

I turned that on then rebake and it works like a charm. Thanks! but then again I found out that I could just one-smoothing-group whole things without worrying to separate the UV that depends on its smoothing-group but it create a lot of crazy gradient on its normal map which actually kind of good and bad.

Neox wrote: »

which 3dsmax version are you using? xoliul only supports up to 2012 as autodesk messed with the tangents in later versions.
That said, not sure about versions 2013+, but below the max renderer isn't synced with the viewport to preview the normalmaps. Yeah awesome, right?
So you have no chance to make it look good inside max, unless you use a shader such as the 3point shader that comes with a plugin to synch the viewport to the baker - not sure if xoliul can read the 3point Quality Normals.

But you should not need any extra loops in that case, if your baker is synched with your target renderer/engine it will look great.

I do have 2 different max version, 2012 and 2014. I keep 2012 for real-time rendering with Xoliul and baking, 2014 for modeling because I found it more lag-free when handling a very high poly than 2012 and its updated Nitrous looks great for quick and dirty HP rendering



So I guess I'll rebake it using 2012 with Qualified Normals on but of course with separated UV map to avoid those crazy gradients galore

Thanks again for the help guys... you all have been a great help