help a noobie with normal baking in xNormal

Chronicle

Hello all, sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but I need some help fixing an issue baking a highpoly down in xNormal.  http://imgur.com/a/n3nKv to see the issue i'm talking about.  Everything seems to bake down great except the rim of the bracelet.  Is this an issue with my geometry on the high or low poly? Or can I fix this with setting in xNormal?

I'm fairly new at this so I haven't had too many successful normal bakes.  Is there anything I should keep in mind when I'm creating a high or low poly mesh to avoid these problems in the future?

Thanks in advance and again, sorry if this is the wrong place for this post.

AviKohl3D

Have you tried moving the vertices of the cage closer to the geo of the high poly model?

Scruples

Ray misses caused from a hard-edge without using a cage. Short version, make a cage for it, long version, a book could be written on the subject, so here's a sticky you should give a read.
http://polycount.com/discussion/81154/understanding-averaged-normals-and-ray-projection-who-put-waviness-in-my-normal-map#latest

Chronicle

Scruples said:

Short version, make a cage for it

Okay, so after checking out that forum post, am I correct in my thinking that a cage is basically a version of the low poly mesh with added edge loops that help straighten out normals so that more correct ray casts are made?  So like for my example i could add edge loops near the bracelet corners and it should help give better ray casting information?  I export the cage as a separate fbx correct?

Scruples

@Chronicle it needs to have the same geometry, but adjusted so it covers your highpoly.

Chronicle

@Scruples ahh okay.  So when i'm loading meshes into xNormal.  Do i load the high poly, the low poly, and then hit "use cage" and load the cage file in the same slot as the low poly mesh?

vertex_

I recommend using xNormal's cage editor for cage creation, it is easy to use and makes the process of creating a cage in your 3D software redundant.

You're going to need more geometry on that low poly cylindrical piece or else you will continue to get bad bakes. The closer your low poly geometry aligns with your high poly geometry, the cleaner your bakes will be. I would double the amount of geometry of those cylinders if your budget allows.

Chronicle

I don't think my budget allows for adding double, but i could get away with adding a few more through it to get it a little closer to the high poly version.  I'll definitely try using xNormal's cage editor if it works well.  Thanks for the help!