Normal Map comes out like poop

Crows

So, I did the high poly sculpt, exported that as an OBJ, made my low poly and UV'd it, also exporting it as a .OBJ

When I put everything in xnormal, this comes out:



If it's any help, the high and low poly look like this:



halp plz

WarrenM

Show your UVs.

Crows

Purty simple stuff

SanderDL

How does it look on the model? It does seem like a few of your highpoly details might not line up with your lowpoly well.

Crows

I had to optimize the low poly because Dota has a 400 poly limit for the particular hero this sword goes on. When I took the low poly from zbrush, the thing had about 538 polys, so i had to cut some edges quite a bit. Is that what's screwing me up?

Noors

Probably. If you edit the geometry, you change your vertex normals, and the normal map isn't good anymore. You have to generate one again with the 400 tris model.

Crows

Another high poly?

AshuraDX

No, just rebake the normal map with the edited model
also recheck your uv maps and makue sure to break up all hard edges
if you have mirrored pieces make sure to move the mirrored pieces out of UV boundaries when baking this

Quack!

1. Break your uv islands on hard edges of about 75 degrees or greater. (exceptions do exist)
2. Set your smoothing groups by uv Islands (use a script)
3. Force triangulate your model before you bake.
4. Never modify your low poly model after you bake. If you do, rebake your normal map.
5. Always view your normal map on the model in a game engine, rarely look at the normal map texture and assume errors.

Crows

How do I force triangulate? is it in the export to .obj?

Quack!

In max, add a Turn To Poly modifier on the top of your stack.

Check the box "Limit Polygon Size" and set the "Max Size" to 3. Export that.

This is called non destructive triangulation and will prevent you from making the triangulation permanent.

We do this because the .obj export will compute how the triangles are arranged differently then other programs and this will de-sync your baked normal map and give you errors.

AdvisableRobin

Edit: Damn you, Quack. Too fast.

Also make sure you are using a cage, xNormal has the option to create a cage mesh within the program.

Crows

Thanks a lot for the help guys! Unfortunately it appears even worse than before




I got frustrated for a while and tried to re do the proccess of unwrapping and exporting a bunch of times, but I'm afraid I might have effed something up...

AdvisableRobin

Make sure your lowpoly is still located in the same place as the high poly.

Quack!

Along with what Robin said I would also turn off pixel padding for now until you get the bake to be in the right position.

Crows

By same place you mean same folder? I doubt thats it tho

ZippZopp

Crows wrote: »

By same place you mean same folder? I doubt thats it tho

No, the same location in your 3d program. If they aren't exactly aligned it won't bake properly

Crows

Thanks so much guys! Seems like I could solve the problem just fine. 'Pparently in one of my frustration frenzy's I moved the model all around the workspace not knowing it'd fuck the bake up. I turned off pixel padding in the end since it just made things more confusing for me heh, thanks Quack for that.

tach

Quack! wrote: »

In max, add a Turn To Poly modifier on the top of your stack.

Check the box "Limit Polygon Size" and set the "Max Size" to 3. Export that.

This is called non destructive triangulation and will prevent you from making the triangulation permanent.

We do this because the .obj export will compute how the triangles are arranged differently then other programs and this will de-sync your baked normal map and give you errors.

Any tips on how to do that in Maya?