Nice HighPoly = Ever Nice Bake Possible?

Gazu

Hi People,

im started working on a M15A4 Weapon and for now i´am happy with the HighPoly:



Here some Wires:



I must say, that the right side of the M4/15 Weapon is horrible to model, when i try to extrude the Shapes out of the main cylinder and not just stick a new Box in it. Im Working now 4 Days on that and im happy with the HighPoly.

Yesterday i made a testbake with automatic flatten mapping of the "horrible" Body Part and the bake came out like crap. Are clean UVs very important for an nice bake or is automatic mapping still good for test purposes?
Here the "uncleaned" LowPoly without Wires and Turbosmooth:


Is the bad Geometry a reason why the bake came out unclean or is it just the UV Map. Or is the Geometry Ok ?
I mean the HighPoly Informations are Clean, why the Normal cames out like crap?

Thanks,

Gazu

Stromberg90

Could you show us the bakes?

Looking at you deviant art it seems you have done this before so not sure why it gets messed up this time.
I have used automatic uv mapping for test bakes before not had much problems with that.

Also are you using the unsmoothed highpoly as your lowpoly mesh? If so that is not something you should do.

Dave Jr

Ok I'm not a Normal Map Guru, EQ or a few others might be able to give several points. But from what I can see the high poly has baked to that standard due to your sharp angles. The angle differences are all pretty much 90 degrees and this can't be read onto the normal map very well at all.

Chamfer these edges more, make them more rounded and they'll appear sharper on your normal map.

I've quickly painted over the edges with good bake results - in that you can see the highpoly result due to a less harsh angle difference, and i've also painted on the bad in which your edges are all 90 degrees and all havent baked as required.



Theres abit more info on the Wiki if you search normal maps for more info.

Gazu

Thanks!
Yeah, im using the HighPoly Mesh, unsmoothed and cleaned up as the LowPoly.
Shouldn´t I?

Here a quick testbake with quick cleanup:


I think that clean UVs are vers Important. Yesterday it came out much worse. Hm...maybe its a better Idea to Put new Boxes into the Main cylinder?

So, this will be very hard work, and i dont know if this all will be clean at the end Respect to Millenia and all other Guys who have made an M4/M15!

Pedro Amorim

First thing you should always do is a blockout man!
Block everything out first!

Dont care about turbosmooth at that stage!

Just get the proportions down right and general shape down.

Then it will be more easy to get the hipoly right. Just a matter of cleaning geo and adding control edges

keep going!

Gazu

Hi Pedro!
Thanks for your motivated Words ^^

I often switch between Low and Turbosmooth, to have a look whether everything is allright.
Ok i will try to get an cleaner LOW. I mean its clean, only the part where the other cylinder cames out of the main cylinder is a bit dirty. From their, the first Triangles started out. Maybe its better to put a new Cylinder into the main cylinder. It will be cleaner
For Game Purposes it will not be visible. Only for HighPoly Demonstration it´s not good.
So i dont know what to do ^^

Gazu

Stromberg90

Agreeing on what perna said, there are lots of tutorials about it out there.

For example, on of the best if not the best free complete game art tutorial out there: http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creating-a-next-gen-video-game-hot-rod-the-complete-workflow-part-1--cg-2103

All videos: http://hub.tutsplus.com/authors/laurens-corijn

I would be curious to see your lowpoly wireframe.

Gazu

Hi Guys!
Im at my Art School at the moment.
I will post Wires asap.

Gazu

So, i have cleaned up the LowPoly a little bit -> 573 Tris.
It looks so:


And here is a quick Bake with the OLD High Poly, and the new cleaned Up Low:


Here is the LP Checkermap:


Maybe i can make a LowPoly to HighPoly here, to get nicer bake results.
Like Pedro said. Blockout, and then cut it to a HighPoly with nice smoothing.

The RayCheck had left some small red colors that are not very important.
Dont had the time to make the cage better for now. But this was only some pixels, not more.

TrampledUnderFoot

Are you baking with a cage?

You're edges are still too sharp, thats why you don't see a lot (if any) detail on the edges.

Ive not had a problem with doing a quick flatten map and setting up a cage and doing a test bake. If you preview it in max, it should show up fine because it's synced.

Gazu

Thank you for your answer.
So i have to Chamfer the Edges, but then the Triscount is getting up.
And yes, im using Projection in Max.

TrampledUnderFoot

The edges are too tight on your high poly. The low can have the sharp angles, though you can also chamfer the ones closer to the players view to create smoother transitions, if you wish.

Gazu

Really to tight?
But what when the Real "Shape" is tight,too?

TrampledUnderFoot

Generally you need to exaggerate the edge widths on the high poly. This is so they will catch the light, and so that they actually show up on the normal map. The tighter the edge, the less information that will be baked to the normal map.

LaurentiuN

Some of uvs are cuts rong and some chunks are bigger then others...

Dave Jr

I already said all this >.<