MODO - baking normal map issue

mickeyvpn

Hi fellas,

I have question regarding baking normal map in MODO.

I try to bake normal map from high poly mesh that in catmull-clark subdiv mode. But normal map appears to be baked from original mesh instead(without subdiv mode). Only way to produce desired result is to freeze high poly before baking, than it's appear as it need to be. I'm using bake item with distance offset. Low poly mesh have single smoothing group(all edges are soft).

Is there a way to bake normal map from mesh with catmull-clark subdiv mode enabled?

Screenshots:

UV's

Farfarer

Check if your high poly mesh has a vertex normal map applied to it. If so, delete it.

mickeyvpn

@Farfarer my high poly mesh have only weight maps, no uv or vertex normal.

Farfarer

My only other guess would be that your high poly mesh has it's render subdivision level set to 0 (you probably want at least 2 if not 3 or 4).

mickeyvpn

Woooha @Farfarer thank you! It was as simple as that.

But now I'm having baking artifacts on "hard edges" that I dunno where they came from. I checked high and low poly for inappropriate maps(vertex normals), cleaned both meshes with mesh cleanup, manually check edges and vertices for duplicating, check UV's for overlapping, no luck so far.

Axi5

Your vertex normals could be pointing further down, preventing it from capturing right infront of it.

What vertex normal approach are you using? Area Weighted/Angle Weighted, both (full), or none? It could be that the normals got locked when there was additional geometry and it just needs a recalc.

Also, @Farfarer you're a legend for that vertex normal toolkit, so glad they made it native in Modo but I still prefer using your one sitting above the viewport, it is a permanent place in my modo installs. If you're in London, shout for a beer.

Bek

@Axi5 You can add the integrated one to the UI in any layout using the form editor; no need to keep the old install. (Go to game tools layout, open form editor, click Find FOrm, click on VNTK button, duplicate it in form editor, and drag it up to modo Modes Tails group)

mickeyvpn

Hi @Axi5 and thank you for pointing to me a vertex normal stuff!

I'm using single smoothing group for low poly mesh, but I've used it with area weighting on and I believe it causes those artifacts on edges. When I turned it off and rebake normal map result appear to be nice and clean.

I wonder is there inside MODO way to increase quality of normal map baking, maybe tweaking parameters in render properties? The fact is that I've made test with simple 6-side cube and high poly version of it and compared it to Marmoset baker. Result was that MODO have lower quality bake than Marmoset Toolbag 3.

Screenshots:

Axi5

Bek said:

@Axi5 You can add the integrated one to the UI in any layout using the form editor; no need to keep the old install. (Go to game tools layout, open form editor, click Find FOrm, click on VNTK button, duplicate it in form editor, and drag it up to modo Modes Tails group)

I thought so but hadn't checked. Cheers for the tip!

@mickeyvpn
That first screenshot in your latest post is showing the issue. You need to correct the vertex normals on that lower boundary edge. They're pointing below the high poly source mesh causing ray misses.

mickeyvpn

@Axi5

Yep, I've noticed that too after your first advise. Those areas where vertex normals had wrong direction produced artifacts.  Made a gif for clarifying.

Farfarer

Axi5 said:

Your vertex normals could be pointing further down, preventing it from capturing right infront of it.

What vertex normal approach are you using? Area Weighted/Angle Weighted, both (full), or none? It could be that the normals got locked when there was additional geometry and it just needs a recalc.

Also, @Farfarer you're a legend for that vertex normal toolkit, so glad they made it native in Modo but I still prefer using your one sitting above the viewport, it is a permanent place in my modo installs. If you're in London, shout for a beer.

http://farfarer.com/temp/vnormKitToggle.zip

Extract this to your user configs directory and it'll give you back that button and UI, only it'll use the internal versions of the commands.

Axi5

Farfarer said:

Axi5 said:

Your vertex normals could be pointing further down, preventing it from capturing right infront of it.

What vertex normal approach are you using? Area Weighted/Angle Weighted, both (full), or none? It could be that the normals got locked when there was additional geometry and it just needs a recalc.

Also, @Farfarer you're a legend for that vertex normal toolkit, so glad they made it native in Modo but I still prefer using your one sitting above the viewport, it is a permanent place in my modo installs. If you're in London, shout for a beer.

http://farfarer.com/temp/vnormKitToggle.zip

Extract this to your user configs directory and it'll give you back that button and UI, only it'll use the internal versions of the commands.

Damn that's great, cheers! You got a patreon or something?

igi

mickeyvpn said:

@Axi5

Yep, I've noticed that too after your first advise. Those areas where vertex normals had wrong direction produced artifacts.  Made a gif for clarifying.

You would still need extra geometry on extreme angles on your models to support shading when using weighted normals. Or you could split normals of that edges. But it seems you're using one smoothing group synced workflow approach which is more open to problems about vertex normals.