xnormal problems

b0lly

Hi gang!
I'm having issues with xnormal. I've been googling but have'nt been able to find a similar problem.
I'm making a piece of robotics thats gonna be attached to a skull. The skull is done but I'm having issues with baking the normals for the mech-part in xnormal. The image below displays a part of the mech that I'm doing some test baking with without having to include the entire mesh. When I bake the entire mesh the artifacts look the same on all the parts. I've tried ray distance calculator (didn't help) and I've tried making a custom cage (didn't help either). Does anyone recognize these type of artifacts? 

When I bake in Maya these type of artifacts DON'T show up. Sadly my computer is too old and the mech to big/heavy so my comp crashes when I try to bake it in maya lol. 

Thanks in advance for any help!

AlecMoody

It looks like a combination of a projection issue and padding. A few things. I would suggest doing all your projection evaluation with object space output (it makes it easier to see) and always evaluate the bake as a texture on the model- Not just looking at the texture sheet. The only thing that is really concerning there is how patchy the padding looks.

What do your cage or ray offset settings look like and have you adjusted them?

b0lly

Yeah, I tried different values of edge padding and the artifacts just grew and shrunk with the values. Good point about looking at the textures on the model - I did this but didn't attach a pic of it. It looked super weird in renders as well. 
The cage and ray settings have varied soo much since I've tried this over and over and over all day. I know that that information isn't helpful at all lol, I'm sorry. I actually ended up splitting the mesh in 4 parts and baking them one part each in Maya and I got a desired result.

Even though I got a good normal map in the end after A LOT of hassle, tweaking and testing, I would still love to understand what caused these type of weird edges on the texture for future reference. I sent my meshes to 2 different friends who got the exact same result as me, both in xnormal (artifacts) and maya (no artifacts).

AlecMoody

b0lly said:

Yeah, I tried different values of edge padding and the artifacts just grew and shrunk with the values. Good point about looking at the textures on the model -

I was not suggesting you try different edge padding values. Edge padding should be set at a high number like 64 pixels and left alone.

Try adjusting your raycast distances.  This video might help you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l59_R7RENxE