Need help with Mask generators (surface wear)

capone

I've used mask generators before to make edgewear before but I'm struggling with my latest asset. It just doesn't seem consistent. i.e on the 3 cylinders on the right it's kind of working but then on the wheel on the left it's filling it out entirely. Some ideas;

- This is the first time I've used low poly as a high poly when using generators. Is that it?
- I've left most of the baking settings as default
- It's quite low poly, some cylinders are 4,6,8 sided etc. I can understand why those wouldn't work.
- I'm primarily working with MG Mask Builder and Curvature. 
- I've baked every map apart from ID

poopipe

it's curvature based so curved surfaces are going to get picked up by the mask - the tyre in particular is going to be awkward.  

The inconsistency suggests there's something weird about your UVs/Normals - check they're not flipped / overlapping within the 0-1 space .  if they are, shift all the inverted UVs outside 0-1 and rebake.  

it'd probably help if we could see the curvature map and the mask applied to the object. 

capone

Looking at my curvature, looks pretty screwed up. I have set up my smoothing groups. I do have overlaps, I tried making a version where every piece had it's own space but it still looked wrong. Perhaps that's more down to what's going on here with this map, with all the triangles. What am I missing here?

capone

Noticed my normal map looks odd too, or is it just because I'm using low poly as high poly?

poopipe

Shift the overlapped faces out of 0-1 space and bake it again.  That looks like you have a lot of projection errors

capone

Even if I arrange the UVs so that every island has their own unique space I still get the same issues, Just tried that for the second time, still the same.

capone

error post

capone

error post

capone

Trying this with a new more simple mesh. The area you see in the curvature map is the upward facing poly of the shelf. Does it make sense that in a curvature map you'd see 'inprints' of the resting boxes on it? Especially both black AND white values? 

poopipe

It does if they're within the projection distance you've set

capone

So would you decrease the Max Frontal/Rear distance?

capone

So confused  

a = no normal 'per vertex'
b = normal, 'per pixel'

Surely b is correct? When I see correct curvatures they have lighter tones towards edges,makes sense. So whilst method a fixes the glitches I don't get the white lines. Can't win.

poopipe

White is convex, black is concave, mid grey is flat

 I'd hazard a guess that method b looks wrong because your bake settings arent right.  It'll be easier to diagnose from the normal map so post that up alongside next time. 

WRT projection distances.. 
I usually start with 0.01 frontal and 0.5 rear (relative to bounding box)  and tweak values from there.