Normal Map Seams between UV Shells

Panzerdraco

Having an issue baking a tangent normal map.

The below image is a normal map baked from 3DS Max and rendered in Marmoset.
1. The lowpoly's smoothing groups are split by UV shell.
2. I am using a projection cage.
3. Gamma correction is disabled.
4. Marmoset's tangent space is set to the appropriate program match.



Additionally, here's another bake done using xNormal, using the same input models and projected cage. You can see the issue is almost identical.



Any ideas what could be causing that seam?

Mossbros

a bit of a shot in the dark, but are your uv's rotated at all ?

like instead of this :-

You have this :-

Panzerdraco

That would be a negative!

Panzerdraco

Additionally, here's a photo of my baking settings.

Mossbros

been messing around trying to find out what's up since 2am lol, got started and remembered when I had the same issue in Xnormal.

Several things it could be, in no particular order.
1. lowpoly normals/sg haven't exported with the obj (this one I've had issues with previously as maya can sometimes forget things.)
2.padding issue (unlikely)
3.mesh scale in xnormal crank it up to 20 on all the meshes
4. the tangent gods are angry with the lack of your sacrifices.

I'm sure Lee Devonald see's people post the same problem daily and it's something pretty simple to fix in all honesty, but my brain is chugging at the moment to remember.

alifarsangi

u might try this. reset xform on ur mesh.

Panzerdraco

http://panzerdraco.net/FTP/NovasurgeTest.zip
If it helps, I've uploaded my HP, LP and cage for you guys to play with.

Panzerdraco

Mossbros:
1. Checked to make sure that this wasn't the case. Not the issue.
2. Tried baking with more padding, still an issue.
3. This made no difference.
4. I'm considering this as a possibility.

alifarsangi:
Didn't make a difference.

huffer

That's how hard edges will look like baked, and zoomed in...the only fix I've found is baking in Maya, which gets them much better but still not 100 percent. Here's what I found.

Panzerdraco

huffer wrote: »

That's how hard edges will look like baked, and zoomed in...the only fix I've found is baking in Maya, which gets them much better but still not 100 percent. Here's what I found.

Wow, this is some great info. I'll try the map dilation in PS first.

cupsster

Bleed the edges for sure! A lot of artefacts at edges is caused from not bleed pixels around islands. Use "Solidify C" from flaming pearls. Free photoshop plugin package. There are A and B presets but for me best works C preset.

Panzerdraco

cupsster wrote: »

Bleed the edges for sure! A lot of artefacts at edges is caused from not bleed pixels around islands. Use "Solidify C" from flaming pearls. Free photoshop plugin package. There are A and B presets but for me best works C preset.

So I tried both this and the xNormal dilation plugin. Both of them seem to be working fine but the seam remains.

ghaztehschmexeh

You won't notice this when your model is viewed from a normal distance and textured. If it's meant to be seen from this distance then you should probably just use more geometry. Otherwise, you won't notice.

Here is an example

Panzerdraco

If it's not possible to fix this, then I can accept that answer.
Thanks for the help, guys.

Dan Powell

Have you tried resetting the normals on both the low and high poly inside 3DS Max?

Apply a "Normals" modifier once, and check the "Unify" normals button.

Then do the same again once more, to flip them back out again.

I don't know why this worked, but I've had very similar results to this before and I did an array of things to try and "quickfix" it, and resetting the normals like above was one of them.

I also tried resetting the X-Form, but someone else has already suggested that.

Panzerdraco

Dan Powell wrote: »

Have you tried resetting the normals on both the low and high poly inside 3DS Max?

Apply a "Normals" modifier once, and check the "Unify" normals button.

Then do the same again once more, to flip them back out again.

I don't know why this worked, but I've had very similar results to this before and I did an array of things to try and "quickfix" it, and resetting the normals like above was one of them.

I also tried resetting the X-Form, but someone else has already suggested that.

I assume this is what you mean? Trying this now.

EDIT: Made no difference.

ActionDawg

This may just be due to the limit of what the normals can provide. If you consider that the orientations between normals of two separated faces is going to be discretized to a range of values that can be stored in a 8 bit per channel texture then it makes sense to see small seams where the values can't quite match up. This coupled with the resolution of the pixels themselves have minimal artifacts like this.

Prime8

somedoggy wrote: »

This may just be due to the limit of what the normals can provide. If you consider that the orientations between normals of two separated faces is going to be discretized to a range of values that can be stored in a 8 bit per channel texture then it makes sense to see small seams where the values can't quite match up. This coupled with the resolution of the pixels themselves have minimal artifacts like this.

I thought the same.
You could increase the texture size and see if it reduces the artifacts, for testing.

Could be caused by split edges on the cage as well.

Did you test your baking process with a simple model before? Simple cube with round edges works for that.