Normal Map Distortion - Straight Grooves

Dan Powell

Hi all,

Trying to bake down this server box asset, but getting a bit of weird waviness on the grooved parts of the server, within my Normal map. 

Technical Info:
- Baking inside of XNormal
- Using a Cage, and exported via XNormal's object exporter
- Have tried tessellating the low poly mesh for baking but this actually made the distortion worse; will post images on request. 

Low Poly w/ Normal:



Low Poly /w Normal + Wireframe



High Poly Object inside 3DS Max



Any tips on how to debug this is appreciated. I've had a good look through the various threads here, and I'm assuming that the amount of geometry being used here is sufficient, as well as using a cage, and attempting tessellation as a solution. 

Cheers.

Dan Powell

Just a screenshot of the UVs, as this isn't a UV issue.




I can upload the meshes, XNormal and 3DS Files on request, too.

Cheers.

Scruples

Try increasing the samples in Xnormal or rendering at a higher resolution and downsampling.

cptSwing

Looking at your checker texture, density seems to be different over the corner part. Try fixing that maybe. Probably a case of cutting in some geometry at the problematic area though.

Dan Powell

Cheers both. I did a test bake after with slightly more geometry, and at double the resolution, and it resolved the issue to a decent level.