Severe problem when baking in 3ds Max

4Echo

Hi, I've encountered an error while baking my character model that I haven't noticed on my other models.

The problem only happens in max, I tried baking in Xnormal and the problem didnt exist there (of course xnormal causes problems of it's own but I just used it to test if it was anything with the mesh).


The problem I'm speaking of: http://i.imgur.com/EGslsqB.jpg


Got any ideas what could have caused it?

noosence

Looks like it might be flipped normals? could you show the bake from xNormal as well?

Vincent_DEROZIER

Did you have a cage or does your front and rear values are correct ?

What problems did you encounter with Xnormal ? It's ten time cleaner and easier to use than 3dsmax for the baking .

katana

I agree with both of you. Check normal direction and bake in XNormal

4Echo

Thanks for the tips!

Actually it was a mixture, apparently the model had interior faces causing this.

Vincent_DEROZIER

If you don't have already try it, go in the Tools Tab of XNormal and launch "Ray Distance calculator".

Click on "Go" and when the calcul is finish click on "Copy Result" and "Close" the Ray distance Calculator.

Relaunch the "Generate Maps", if it's not better, you should have your own cage.

FancyMug

You could use xView in Max to help you see these kind of issues in the future. I usually have xView on overlapping vertices when I work.

Kid.in.the.Dark

Based off the normal you've provided I think I know the problem... you're baking a character no?
I'm guessing you're baking it in one go but it doesn't work that way when you have geometry lined up next to each other.
What you have to do is separate the arms / leg high polys etc and bake each piece individually.

Here's the technical theory behind that...

When you bake anything the polygons are facing outwards. When two legs are next to eachother or two arms are next to the body the area in between (the side facing areas that point to eachother) suffer because their projections conflict which is why your normals are picking up details of your arms on the torso.

I'm not sure whether a custom cage would fix this but from my experience I don't recall it fixing anything relevant to this issue in the past (might have to try once more just to double check) and this is the only way I've figured out how to overcome it.

Hope I'm right (Y) good luck!