Answered: dDo Curvature Maps - Why are mine so bad?
polycounter lvl 10
I like that DDO/3DO lets you choose to bake curvature maps in the app instead of loading one from an external program, but I've begun to notice that they are truly terrible and unusable. What gives?
I've loaded my mesh into 3DO, exported from Maya 2016 with no hard edges as an OBJ and a normal map baked from Knald. These results are slightly enhanced with Photoshop levels to make it clearer. There are horizontal and vertical lines from 3DO's batches and tons off edges from the geo as well as discontinuities in the curvature. This shows up in the 3DO AO bakes as well.
The Knald bake is from high to low not just a normal map conversion.
Side by side results
source files:
LOW_pants.obj
pants_normal.tiff
I've loaded my mesh into 3DO, exported from Maya 2016 with no hard edges as an OBJ and a normal map baked from Knald. These results are slightly enhanced with Photoshop levels to make it clearer. There are horizontal and vertical lines from 3DO's batches and tons off edges from the geo as well as discontinuities in the curvature. This shows up in the 3DO AO bakes as well.
The Knald bake is from high to low not just a normal map conversion.
Side by side results
source files:
LOW_pants.obj
pants_normal.tiff
Replies
I'm not entirely sure what the issue is with this particular mesh. I took it into Max, reset transforms, reset normals, etc - I still get the same result. Fortunately for you, however: you don't need to use 3DO's curvature baker for this mesh. Baked high-to-low normals can avoid using the Bake Map in 3DO feature since all of the curvature data can be derived from the normal map. Here's what your curvature appears like using the Full Curves DynaMask preset:
For now, I would recommend avoiding 3DO baking for this particular mesh. Potentially look into your *.OBJ settings if you can adjust them in Maya.