Normal Map Projection Error

daniellooartist

My cage covers the model pretty well. Why is the mesh picking up multiple parts of the HP source? I feel like I did everything right but clearly I'm missing something. I reread EQ's thread multiple times and It's still not working as intended.

I am also using the latest version of xNormal

Reference: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196

SuperFranky

Are you sure you're importing the cage to Xnormal? If not, it will use Ray Projection automatically instead.

daniellooartist

Thank you for your response. Yes, I browsed my external cage.

Dan Powell

A few things to check:

- Check that you're exporting the high and low poly mesh from the same position in the world. Usually I export both from 0,0,0

- Go through the objects and check that your Normals are the right way around (I.E. that no polygons are flipped upside down.)

- Check that you've not overlapped the wrong UVs by mistake, or offset them incorrectly. When you offset UVs for baking it should be by 1.

- Check your cage for errors - is it overlapping the wrong objects?

- Reload your high poly and low poly back intp XNormal - just to make sure it's baking the right files. Ensure 'use cage' is checked.

Bartalon

I took a look at your most recent file. Your cage does not come out far enough to encapsulate the high poly. In this instance, the rays are being cast starting inside the high poly and their nearest successful hit on a front-facing polygon is probably the ear phone portion of your mesh.

Below: grey = high poly, red = cage



You just need to extend your cage out further in the areas to cover your high poly and that problem will resolve.

daniellooartist

Odd. I checked that part and it flickered quite a bit. After zooming in the cage looked fine. I made the cage by applying a z transform of 0.05. Is zyransform unreliable?

Bartalon

The z transform value is completely arbitrary and varies widely depending on your model/mesh complexity, etc. There is no one value that will work for all models. Just drag it out manually until your HP is visually covered up. Also don't be afraid to get in and tweak tight spots manually (by adding additional Transform Component nodes to individual components).