Anyone know how I would go about UV mapping the handle without it being distorted? I have tried a number of ways but the UV's always ended up being distorted or stretched, even after trying to scale them.
just work with 1/4 of it and uvw it.
Use symmetri and choose that new part and mirror it firstly than attach. redo this untill you've got your grenate done!
Cylindrical mapping, or simply select the edgeloops at either end of the cyldrical shape of the handle, convert to seam. You can also select one of the loops running vertically (if the grenade was standing up) and do a unfold strip from loop and simply scale it until correct. (in uvw unwrap modifier, 3ds max)
There will always be a bit of distortion if the shape is not a perfect cylinder, the key is to make it as least distorted/unnoticeable/square across the surface if using a checkerboard material as much as possible.
Anyone know how I would go about UV mapping the handle without it being distorted? I have tried a number of ways but the UV's always ended up being distorted or stretched, even after trying to scale them.
The one on the left is probably what you wanna go with. Simple cylindrical mapping There is some distortion but almost unnoticable. The one on the right is probably more true projection but it would be real pain to texture.
In photoshop, click on each "channel" individually (by default you view the RGB channel), click on the green channel, you should then just get a black and white view of your image in association of that channel, if you then do "Ctrl + I", this will invert that channel, ie black to white, white to black. Or you can go Image -> Adjustments -> Invert.
It looks like maybe you didn't specify a target/highpoly mesh during the bake. Are there ray misses? Your previous bake (with the holes on the ends) didn't have the same issue.
Whenever you need help with baking stuff it helps to post the bake, pics of the HP and LP and cage, settings etc. There are lots of things that can go wrong
You should post what the Low poly looks with the Normal Map on, we can't really know if it looks good just by looking at the map. Looking at it though, I'm wondering if your smoothing groups match your UV islands.
I think my smoothing groups are fine. The largest end piece has its own smoothing group, and its own UV island, so it shouldn't have any issues. I think my smoothing groups are fine.
This thread is getting out of control haha. When I get home, if I remember, I will PM you, just send me your 3D models and I will try to bake it in 3ds max see if it works properly. Meanwhile, you could try to look up some Normal Baking tutorials in 3DS max on Youtube, there might be something that you do wrong.
Sorry, can't help much more than that for the moment.
Dox, it's your project, I say do whatever keeps you learning. If getting the perfect bake is so frustrating that you feel like you don't want to work on your project anymore, get on to texturing and just finish the damn thing! And as long as you keep the same UVs you can try to bake again later down the line after it's textured.
Baking sucks to learn, especially when everything goes perfectly except for that ONE stupid little error you can't seem to fix. My suggestion is to look at it like an experiment. Save a separate file from your working copy and try every idea that comes to mind. See what breaks the bake and what improves. Try making everything the same smoothing group where you have issues. Try making everything different smoothing groups. Try making different cages. Try a different topology (what if you chamfer that 90 degree edge on the low poly that seems to always bake weird?), Try different UV layouts, breaking up your islands or sewing them back together in problem areas. Try baking in XNormal versus Max and seeing what works better, that way you know if it's a geometry problem or a settings problem.
When learning to bake normal maps I watched a million YouTube videos, read all of Earthquake's posts, and lurked a million other threads full of people's baking problems. But experimenting with my own bakes - even just baking some silly crap onto a default primitive when I had 20 minutes to spare - really helped me understand what was causing errors and what was going on behind the scenes in my 3d program.
I do not have Ndo2 or photoshop sadly. I have sculptris installed so I might make some scratches and dents to give it some detail.
This was literally just some textures thrown on to try and give it some colour, I still need to go and do the specular and add lots of details. I will be following Millenia's texturing tutorial
I am going to try and get the UE4 student Github bundle when I get back to school, then I will be able to continue working on this.
Im finding it hard to find tutorials on PBR workflow, I am going to attempt to make this grenade a black painted surface, with areas of paint chipped away showing metal and rust.
Replies
Use symmetri and choose that new part and mirror it firstly than attach. redo this untill you've got your grenate done!
2) Make a seam up through the remaining "pipe".
3) Ship it
There will always be a bit of distortion if the shape is not a perfect cylinder, the key is to make it as least distorted/unnoticeable/square across the surface if using a checkerboard material as much as possible.
The one on the left is probably what you wanna go with. Simple cylindrical mapping There is some distortion but almost unnoticable. The one on the right is probably more true projection but it would be real pain to texture.
I didn't realise that there were settings for the cylindrical map. Turns out they help quite a bit
UV map done, not just got to pack it:
I can't see any major distortion either:
I created a projection, checked that is was fully encapsulating the models, it looked fine.
I baked and ended up with this:
The end sections have these weird lumps in them, and it doesn't seem to be smoothing right either.
My UV's
the high poly has no indent at the bottom..
1) Are you sure there isn't some geometry that is hidden in your high or low poly mesh that could be getting picked up when you bake?
2) Could your cage not be fully encompassing both meshes? Is it possible that there's a hole in your cage?
3) Sometimes my modeling software gets weird around baking, so I'll bake in xNormal and see if I can reproduce the error in a second program.
Hope this helps.
Whisky
I don't think my normal map is working properly at all..
It doesn't seem to be having much effect on the handle either, it still has sharp edges.
I have no idea whats gone wrong, or what I have done wrong
Whenever you need help with baking stuff it helps to post the bake, pics of the HP and LP and cage, settings etc. There are lots of things that can go wrong
Low poly settings:
Settings:
3DS max projection set up:
High poly:
Low poly:
my last bake:
I think my smoothing groups are fine. The largest end piece has its own smoothing group, and its own UV island, so it shouldn't have any issues. I think my smoothing groups are fine.
It turned out like this, which is obviously wrong..
How do I make it use my unwrap UVW modifier?
Sorry, can't help much more than that for the moment.
Also, I think that your High Poly is not sharp enough, it looks a bit muddy, but it's OK.
that was intentional. Its the groove separating the metal cap from the wooden handle
Baking sucks to learn, especially when everything goes perfectly except for that ONE stupid little error you can't seem to fix. My suggestion is to look at it like an experiment. Save a separate file from your working copy and try every idea that comes to mind. See what breaks the bake and what improves. Try making everything the same smoothing group where you have issues. Try making everything different smoothing groups. Try making different cages. Try a different topology (what if you chamfer that 90 degree edge on the low poly that seems to always bake weird?), Try different UV layouts, breaking up your islands or sewing them back together in problem areas. Try baking in XNormal versus Max and seeing what works better, that way you know if it's a geometry problem or a settings problem.
When learning to bake normal maps I watched a million YouTube videos, read all of Earthquake's posts, and lurked a million other threads full of people's baking problems. But experimenting with my own bakes - even just baking some silly crap onto a default primitive when I had 20 minutes to spare - really helped me understand what was causing errors and what was going on behind the scenes in my 3d program.
Good luck, looking forward to seeing more work!
I may try and get the metal to a darker colour, but I won't spend too much time worrying about it until I have a basic spec map and stuff put onto it.
This was literally just some textures thrown on to try and give it some colour, I still need to go and do the specular and add lots of details. I will be following Millenia's texturing tutorial
Otherwise learning is going to be impposible m you pretty much need photoshop no way around it
Im finding it hard to find tutorials on PBR workflow, I am going to attempt to make this grenade a black painted surface, with areas of paint chipped away showing metal and rust.