Normals pinching on a flat surface?

DirtyBlueFL

I'm modeling an axe, and in several places where the body curves, my normals are pinching/rippling in a seemingly simple curve. Blurring and smudging the normals in PS seem to only pronounce the change in normal shading.

I can't really spread out the topology much, because all the edges and verts are responsible for holding the shape of the object. Any ideas as to what it may be? I've never really had this issue in past models.

Quack!

What does the model look like with the normal map applied in your target engine?

Also, never blur/smudge/clone out errors of a normal map bake in photoshop. It's better to figure out how to remove those errors from your low-poly-high-poly-baking workflow rather then put a band-aid on it.

DirtyBlueFL

Quack! said:

Also, never blur/smudge/clone out errors of a normal map bake in photoshop. It's better to figure out how to remove those errors from your low-poly-high-poly-baking workflow rather then put a band-aid on it.

Thanks. I've had some people in my game production class show me a blurring technique but it's never actually been all that great in game. Right now, all I've done is put the model with the normals into 3DO, and it's just as bad as in Maya. When I apply a material to it, the errors aren't as noticeable, but when I'm looking for them, I see them.

In the end, this is just going into my Artstation, so toolbag 2, or even just 3DO's renderer, is the final destination.

BucketOfNuggets

Is this a high poly?

If it is low, soften the edges.

ZacD

Skewed normals are going to show up if you arent using a synced work flow. If it was sync'd, that wouldn't be an issue at all. Either you'll need to learn how to use a synced workflow, or how to control the vertex normals. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciXTyOOnBZQ

huffer

If your low poly has shading artifacts (without normal map applied), those artifacts will be visible on the normal map, as the map will take them into account to compensate shading - they're good, you don't want to blur them or remove them. If it's a synced workflow, it'll look flawless, if it's not, there's nothing you can do, but edit low poly / vertex normals to get rid of the shading artifacts.

DirtyBlueFL

It's the low poly; all edges are softened.

I am using Quixel, so can I just create my materials and export them with the corresponding settings to conform to a synced workflow? It'll just look bad while creating it in 3DO, but once I plug it all in with Toolbag 2, it should be good?

I've made my UV splits so that there is no visible seam (image related)
Is this the problem? I never even thought to check the vertex normals and transfer them before. I'll try that out as well - thanks.

DirtyBlueFL

Not sure what I am looking for in the face / vertex normals. Face normals are at a 90* angle, and vertex normals seem to flow with the angle of the edge where faces meet.

musashidan

Synced is definitely the way to go and eliminates a lot of the old hacks. I don't think Quixel uses mikktt hough?

Also, as mentioned, painting on your normal map as if it were a regular bitmap is not a good habit to pick up as the tangent data is encoded in the texture and should not be treated otherwise. It's a VERY hacks patch up job that isn'the really resolving the problem at all.

Neox

are you baking in maya? how do they look in viewort 2.0? if you don't bake in maya, thats your reason.

beefaroni

Triangulate before baking?

DirtyBlueFL

Baking in xnormal. 
I've decided to just make a high poly and retopo. Seems to be smoother. A higher poly count though, but at least not I have the curvature that I wanted from the beginning, rather than faking it with a normal and having an odd silhouette

DirtyBlueFL

Retopo with edge flow moving with the direction of the edges on the flat face, is solving the issue.