why bother with a cage?

Ruz

i was just thinking that why bother to export a cage to xnormal. Can't you just add a push modifier to the low poly in max - export - bake then remove the push in max?
i guess that some people might edit the cage further, but you could add an edit poly on top to further refine. maybe I missed something important:/

Bartalon

If you add a push modifier to your LP and export that, wouldn't you then be exporting a cage to xNormal? Or are you talking about making a cage using xNormal?

Either way, if you're going to go through the trouble of creating/modifying a cage, you may as well save it out to a file. You can re-use them if you need to go back and rearrange your UVs for whatever reason, which is a time saver compared to reapplying all the modifiers again to make a new cage.

Der Hollander

I typically just use the cage tools in xNormal if I need to use a cage, I've had nothing but trouble getting xNormal to not freak out with external cage files.

This is a bit out of my wheelhouse, but I'm not sure that Edit Poly modifiers on top of your cage are a good idea. From what I understand, cages are totally dependent on having matching vert order, so adding modifiers that edit topology seem like a good way to break your cage. You're likely better off just using the Projection modifier in Max and editing that for use in your bakes.

Ruz

well you would be making a built in cage on the low poly and since max uses modifier stack, there would be no extra effort?

just disable the push and edit poly after you have finished baking

Bartalon

Ah yes, I forget that Max has the modifier stack that allows you to turn stuff on and off.

But your initial question was "why bother exporting a cage to xNormal", aren't you doing this regardless of how you generate/store your cage? Or do you just not see the use of them?

Farfarer

The cage is there primarily to deal with smoothing splits. Although they're also useful for tweaking the direction of cast rays to reduce distortion and such in the bake, as well as limiting the ray distance so you don't catch bits of the mesh you don't want.

nyx702

Personally I like having a duplicate as a reference so I can see where/if there are any intersections.

Regardless of your current method, using xNormal's native SBM format is preferred and you need to use the projection modifier for that.

Ruz

batalon, i just figured that throwing on a push modifier and quickly exporting was maybe faster than setting up a proection modifier.

yeah i guess its easier to tweak using the projection modifier.
All it was , I was getting a few artefacts on a pair of trousers I was baking, so i just threw on a push exported the low poly and it was instant fix time.
so maybe my method is fine in that regard.

Neox

Ruz wrote: »

batalon, i just figured that throwing on a push modifier and quickly exporting was maybe faster than setting up a proection modifier.

yeah i guess its easier to tweak using the projection modifier.
All it was , I was getting a few artefacts on a pair of trousers I was baking, so i just threw on a push exported the low poly and it was instant fix time.
so maybe my method is fine in that regard.

just record a script once to apply a projection modifier with your preferred settings, after that its just a shortcut for the initial setup and therefore just as fast as the push modifier

Ruz

fair point Neox. I was just curious whether a push ,which is totally uniform would screw anything else up.
I guess not really

the whole thing stems from my retopo which I did with a very small offset, therefore my low poly was not poking through enough and causes a few issues.

I found that doing it with a larger offset made my meshes look a little balloony if you get my drift.

Geta-Ve

EDIT: this was to the OP. Apparently my response time is dismal at best... lol

99% of the time I believe that is exactly what most people do. Simply inflate their lowres mesh.

Sometimes this isn't ideal though, especially if you have alot of small tightly spaced areas, you still end up with intersecting points.

I am currently dealing with an issue like this also.

Ruz

good to know Geta-Ve, just worried in case I was doing something a bit odd:/

EarthQuake

Pushing or otherwise editing the lowpoly mesh directly may result in changing the mesh normals, which would cause smoothing errors when you remove those edits.

Using a cage will never give you that problem, as the normals of the cage are ignored when it comes to smoothing compensation based on the lowpoly mesh normals.

Ruz

cheers for that EQ, wasn't sure if that was the case
Tidal Blast - never had much luck with that, my computer doesn't seem to like it

cgilbert

Ruz wrote: »

Tidal Blast - never had much luck with that, my computer doesn't seem to like it

Would you mind e-mailing us at support@knaldtech.com with your system specs and whatever error messages or other problem descriptions you might have?

Thanks!
Chris Gilbert
- KnaldTech Team