Maya - supporting edges to make high poly result in nasty bakes

DirtyBlueFL

Hello everyone.

I am working on what will eventually become a fuel-cell. I am modeling in Maya, and baking in xNormal. I have Zbrush, and I am moderately OK with it, but I am a complete amature with the polygonal modeling mode - I'd rather just use Maya, but I am starting to think I need to learn it in Zbrush as well.

Anyways, my problem is that I have to make edge loops to protect parts of my model's details in order to smooth the mesh to make a high poly to bake from. Some of these edge-holding loops become so dense, that they translate into my normals and AO. My smoothing angle is set to 90*, but I have gone through and made edges hard / soft where visually appropriate, and made my UV islands as such. My process is...

-Create the low poly model
-Duplicate, explode, and duplicate
-Add edge loops to support details
-Smooth the mesh
-Duplicate the low poly exploded and create a cage
-Export high, low, and cage as OBJ
-Bake in xNormal

The images below are the result of my supporting loops which are needed to protect the notch on the side closest to the camera. I am aware that I can delete edges and bake with ngons in some programs, but xNormal demands tris or quads, meaning my loops have to stay... unless I am not understanding it correctly.

-To what degree could creasing edges, rather than making supporting loops, help me?
-What about deleting the edges everywhere I don't need, and just using mesh > cleanup to get rid of the ngons but make some funky topology?
I really want to make something awesome that i've sketched up, but I decided to start small to learn the basics. If I can't figure out smoothing like this, then there's no way I can finish my portfolio piece I have planned.

DirtyBlueFL

Crease tool is looking like it's the answer. I am getting much cleaner results, and I didn't even know this thing existed until about an hour ago. I'll have to tweak the values on various parts but It's going well. I think I am just going to remodel the entire thing though, because the quad modeling of a cylinder's end point seems to be playing games with my normals

Scruples

Ngon's don't play nice with normal maps or game engines but you can freeze the normals and triangulate them before export/bake so that's not a problem. Finding places to end a loop with a triangle or diverting it using a pole is an art of its own read this thread, (as much of it as you can stomach) and you'll get the idea.
http://polycount.com/discussion/56014/how-the-f-do-i-model-this-reply-for-help-with-specific-shapes/p1

DirtyBlueFL

I've seen some people say that ngons on 2d surfaces when just doing renders for clients are almost a necessity when time constraints require fast renders. But I am working on a game design degree so I don't see how that will apply to me. I find it hard to even make an ngon with all the tools wanting to produce quad results. The only thing that does it seems to be bevel

Bartalon

Ngons are fine in your high poly model as long as it visually subdivides the way you want it to.  You want to avoid ngons on the model you intend to import into your game engine (the low poly).

If when you smooth your mesh you have pinching on what should be a rounded surface, you just need to start with a more complex base shape.  The support loops are so close together that it throws off the averaging that happens between the evenly spaced polygons which make up a rounded surface.  So instead of starting with a 16 sided cylinder, maybe start with 32 or 64 sides.