Please help with normal mapping
(Maya 2017)
After baking normal map on to low poly, there are dotted lines along the triangles, and also there is a problem where the triangles and cylinder-shapes join together. There are three areas along the cylinder where the groups of triangle are, which can be seen below.
On my high poly, the triangles and the cylinder-shape are separate meshes combined together as one. There is no back-faces or side-faces on the triangles where it connects to the cylinders, which can be seen in the images below.
The image below shows my baking settings in Maya 2017. Also, I soften the whole cylinder part of the low poly model.
I’m assuming that I doing something wrong with the high poly. I’m kind of new with normal mapping. This is I attempting to learn how to create normal maps with separate high poly meshes. Please help.
Replies
I'm not familiar with normal map baking in maya but I'd put money on you needing to increase your sampling quality way beyond 1x1. Maybe 4x4 or 8x8 will do.
Axi5 thanks for helping me out!!!! I changed the settings to high (8x8), and from distance the dotted lines appear to be gone. . .
but when I zoom in, I still slightly see them; they seem to be smaller. I wondering if that is normal. (?) And, where the triangles connect to the cylinder-shape seems to be fine. (?)
However, the group of triangles further up the cylinder is still having the same problem where the triangles connect to the cylinder-shape.
Also, I came across another problem that I did not notice the first time when I had the settings at preview (1x1). At the end of the cylinder, the texture is messed up. Below are a few images at different angles as well as some wireframe images.
Here are some images of the high poly near the end of the cylinder.
I would greatly appreciate anything to help me resolve this!
In mayas transfer texture tool there is a dropdown that allows you view the cage.
You can edit it after it is visible. By edit i mean, move the verteces around. You cant add or remove vertices.
The vert count/order needs to be exactly the same.
On another note, I would never recommend manually moving ANY points of your projection cage. You should still use the transfer texture dropdown to view the cage, but only to make sure it looks evenly distributed across your mesh.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge no one really uses Maya/Max as a main baking tool in a pipeline. Most use xNormal, Marmoset Toolbag 3, or Substance Painter to bake maps, as they allow people to view/edit their cages while they work. I would recommend these rather than Maya. It's quicker, more dynamic, and ultimately causes less cleanup in the end. Marmoset even allows you to paint out skewed details in your bake after your bake results are in.
But hey, only if your situation allows it. MT3 and Substance do cost money, so if you were to switch, use xNormal.
Hope I helped at least a little. Cheers!
There is a reason most bakers allow you to import a custom cage.
With an automatically generated cage the mesh gets pushed out evenly.
With a cage you make yourself, you can change how much it gets pushed out, where you need it.
For example around parts of your model that are a bit complex, like the fingers for example, you could push them out less, so the baker will not try to bake part of the other fingers. (this is what is happening with the TC on that part with the artifacts.)
Also when it comes to waviness and you know what you are doing, you can modify the cage to alleviate it.
Sometimes... actually most of the times a evenly pushed out cage simply will not generate the results you are looking for, unless your mesh is really basic.
With a custom cage, you save yourself the headache of needing to rebake stuff multiple times as well, if you ever need to go revisit it.
You have already done the work of calibrating your cage so it fits the high poly and low poly as perfect as possible.
Thanks fatihG_ and Zalek4 for your help!! I was using the envelope (the cage) in Maya all along, and when I changed the settings of the size of the envelope, I noticed that where all the torus/cylinders shapes meet with the base-cylinder, the edges of the envelope were overlapping each other; I didn’t bother changing/fixing it, because there was really only one area (the base of the handle) with a problem.
After hearing from you guys, I went back to where the envelope was over lapping; however, I didn’t bother moving anything around again, because it was just too much of a mess. Instead, I change the envelop size back to 0.1 (?default?) and then selected the envelope and scaled it in the X & Y axis until it covered both the meshes (low and high). No more over lapping, but the problem still exists with normal mapping.
I did do a bunch of other stuff. I changed the UVs in different ways. I did both hard and soft edge and still nothing resolved.
I was hoping I could upload my Maya file and let someone give it a try, but I don't no how to do that on polycount if that's even possible.I have uploaded my Maya file to Google drive.
Here is the link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hvYJmjxZeHD1tGKp9AYY1IdS0VvrA2zk
Hopefully, someone can solve it. I appreciate all the help.