Bad Seams on Simple Normal Map?
polycounter lvl 5
Hi folks,
Trying to bake down what should be a very simple bake, however I'm getting bad seams on the resulting object.
Result:
LowPoly:
HighPoly:
UVs:
Cage:
So far I've tried:
- Resetting the XForm
- Resetting the Normals
- Checked the smoothing groups - UVs are also separated per group
- Reimporting the object and doing the high poly again
- Exporting as obj instead of fbx - same result
Any help appreciated!
Trying to bake down what should be a very simple bake, however I'm getting bad seams on the resulting object.
Result:
LowPoly:
HighPoly:
UVs:
Cage:
So far I've tried:
- Resetting the XForm
- Resetting the Normals
- Checked the smoothing groups - UVs are also separated per group
- Reimporting the object and doing the high poly again
- Exporting as obj instead of fbx - same result
Any help appreciated!
Replies
point simple, your low poly edge is to sharp/low poly and you need to add 1 bevel in those specific locations.
If I am wrong than someone please tell me different but that is how I fixed the issue after researching it.
I'll give it another go and make the edges on the high poly a bit sharper
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73593
The edges are intended to be slightly soft - they're defining a plastic-like material.
The Normal map bake looks fine, and wherever the smoothing group changes on my low poly I've broken the UV shells, which should be correct.
Maybe try setting the mesh's tangents to 3ds Max as well, in Marmoset.
XNormal usually produces correct normal maps - they shouldn't need flipping in the Green (Y) channel for Marmoset; though they do for some renderers, such as UE4. However, I have tried this just to be certain - unfortunately it produces even more undesirable results. I've also tried combining different flips of the channels and different tangent spaces in Marmoset, and the results are always incorrect.
I can't pinpoint what the issue is, but I believe it's one with the actual lowpoly mesh. This hasn't happened with any of the other very similar sets of stairs I've created. :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciXTyOOnBZQ&list=UUyKu5CWYWHptg3EMfg3qtVQ
I think it's clearly explain how to create nice normal maps. Hope it helps:)
Aside from that, you could add control edges to the low poly just for baking, and then remove them once you have a clean map. That's quite a bid of fiddling for a simple edge, though.
Link: http://www.renderhjs.net/textools/
I'm not sure I'm correct, but I think the workflow you mention is:
1. Bake an object space map using the modified mesh (with the support loops)
2. Remove support loops, and export the 'new' low poly
3. Convert object space to tangent space using Xnormal or Handplane and using the 'new' mesh
I'm new to this and trying to learn but it's hard when people are dropping crucial parts, no offence.. Again, if I'm mistaken, please do correct me so I and others can learn.
Just to reiterate ... that is one of the best videos you'll ever see. Once you understand what's being said, you'll never have another bake issue.
My pipeline is similar to yours. The way I solve the issue you present is by setting the lowpoly to only 1 smoothing group and fixing the "shading" issues by adding edge loops, this way you can split the uv's and you won't notice any seam. I think you could delete the loops after the bakes but to be honest I didn't try it myself.
This problem was very frustating to me and really took very long to understand what was happening and I couldn't find any info that I'd understand on the internet. Also the handplane videos helped a bit on finding this solution, altho I don't find handplane necesary and now my bakes are better than ever.
The thing that's caught me off is that this wasn't an issue with any of the other three sets of stair models I'd built, and they were all built exactly the same - rebuilding the mesh from scratch also fixed the issue which does suggest to me that somewhere along the line there was an issue with it.
I created a cage in 3DS Max using the projection modifier as always, then exported it using XNormal's SBM exporter - then it uses your projection cage from 3DS Max in the bake.
No worries.
When I created the UVs they were split wherever the smoothing group changed - on simple objects I usually just use the "Flatten by Smoothing group" tool in Max's UV editor then position them from there.
Yep - this was the case with all of the other similar meshes I made.