Normal Maps... What am i doing wrong?

Alberio83

Hello Everyone! i have been modeling for a few years now, but i have just recently gotten into Texturing. I'm using Maya 2015 and Xnormal. i have a Sifi Barrel Model i have been wanting to test Normals on and i think i must be missing something. Here is my models Highpoly, 2 lowpoly versions to test with, and a cage. i know the cage only works with one of the low poly meshes.

I have uploaded a picture of my meshes, my uv's for the lowpoly, and the result of my normals. if someone can help me pinpoint my issue i would be one happy person!

Thanks for taking your time to read my thread!

asyrvachev

Alberio,

you need to have more sides on your low poly to get rid of the waviness.
Also, the model and its normal map would benefit if the shape of your low poly is closer to high poly — add more geometry to your low poly. Don't forget too harden edges at UV seams.

See these threads too.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81154
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65790
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67479
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=999702

Alberio83

asyrvachev wrote: »

Alberio,

you need to have more sides on your low poly to get rid of the waviness.
Also, the model and its normal map would benefit if the shape of your low poly is closer to high poly — add more geometry to your low poly. Don't forget too harden edges at UV seams.

See these threads too.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81154
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65790
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67479
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=999702

Thanks for your quick reply! i will try your suggestions and read up on the links. will post my results

gnoop

Actually you can bake perfectly wave-less normal map on whatever few sides you want. You just need to adjust ray tracing direction with a cage . Or just edit normals to remove the skew when possible (with regular tracing(baking) along the normals)

in a word there are a number of ways

In some cases you can insert an extra loop before baking and remove it after. If you set ray tracing direction straight perpendicular without a skew there would be no difference.

But more geometry would still look nicer.

m4dcow

gnoop wrote: »

In some cases you can insert an extra loop before baking and remove it after. If you set ray tracing direction straight perpendicular without a skew there would be no difference.

To help with skewing, but you need to make certain your vertex normals stay the same.