Modo Normalmap depths baking issue with Rounded Edge Shader
polycounter lvl 2
Hi,
I recently tried to bake a normalmap based on a "Highpoly" which is actually the same mesh but with Rounded Edge materials. I created the sample mesh with MOP Booleans by W. Vaughan (http://pushingpoints.com/v2/the-pushing-points-mop-booleans-kit-for-modo/). Instead of fixing all the Ngons with nice loops etc. to get a proper smoothing result, I simply triangulated the merged mesh's Ngons by hand and applied the Rounded Edge material to it.
The baking of the Rounded Edges worked quite well with the following settings in the Baking Wizard:
Cage on (=Lowpoly Relative Morph map, 1cm Push)
Highpoly with another Relative Morph Map (pushed it 5mm)
Besides these Settings I also tried to push the Cage and the Highpoly less, I tried to not push it at all without any cage (distance = 0mm).
However, while the edges of the Normalmap got nice and smooth, Modo seems to have issues with baking the additional depth information from the highpoly. On the bolt I added a slot on top, as well as some bevel on top of the box (see screenshot).
As you can see, there seems to be some misscalculation regarding the depth of the normal map. The bevel on top of the box seems to be quite flat and blury while the slot on top of the bolt is barely visible. When you take a look on the baked endresult (from the Baking Wizard, Texture Output = Normal) you see better what I mean:
As explained, the round edges work well, I have no issues on that specifically, the endresult looks nice in terms of that. But I couldn't figure out which setting I'm missing to get the depth calculated right. Does it have something to do with the Rounded Edge material?
Really hope someone can help me out on this, this could be a very efficient workflow for hardsurface assets.
You may wonder why I didn't post this in the official Modo forum. The reason why is because I didn't make good experiences with looking for solutions there on very specific problems (the forum is quite helpful for issues like e.g. "where can I find the function XY" though, so no shame on it).
Cheers,
Basti
I recently tried to bake a normalmap based on a "Highpoly" which is actually the same mesh but with Rounded Edge materials. I created the sample mesh with MOP Booleans by W. Vaughan (http://pushingpoints.com/v2/the-pushing-points-mop-booleans-kit-for-modo/). Instead of fixing all the Ngons with nice loops etc. to get a proper smoothing result, I simply triangulated the merged mesh's Ngons by hand and applied the Rounded Edge material to it.
The baking of the Rounded Edges worked quite well with the following settings in the Baking Wizard:
Cage on (=Lowpoly Relative Morph map, 1cm Push)
Highpoly with another Relative Morph Map (pushed it 5mm)
Besides these Settings I also tried to push the Cage and the Highpoly less, I tried to not push it at all without any cage (distance = 0mm).
However, while the edges of the Normalmap got nice and smooth, Modo seems to have issues with baking the additional depth information from the highpoly. On the bolt I added a slot on top, as well as some bevel on top of the box (see screenshot).
As you can see, there seems to be some misscalculation regarding the depth of the normal map. The bevel on top of the box seems to be quite flat and blury while the slot on top of the bolt is barely visible. When you take a look on the baked endresult (from the Baking Wizard, Texture Output = Normal) you see better what I mean:
As explained, the round edges work well, I have no issues on that specifically, the endresult looks nice in terms of that. But I couldn't figure out which setting I'm missing to get the depth calculated right. Does it have something to do with the Rounded Edge material?
Really hope someone can help me out on this, this could be a very efficient workflow for hardsurface assets.
You may wonder why I didn't post this in the official Modo forum. The reason why is because I didn't make good experiences with looking for solutions there on very specific problems (the forum is quite helpful for issues like e.g. "where can I find the function XY" though, so no shame on it).
Cheers,
Basti
Replies
If you wish to get "deeper" normal map you also need to taper the angles more.
thanks a lot for your answer. I should have added that I'm aware of the fact that normal maps do not really include the actual depth of a model - my bad..
I just wondered, as this was the first time I used Modo for Normalmap baking. I'm a former 3ds max user and when I use a smililar workflow there (but with a proper, smoothed highpoly mesh, no rounded edge shader included) I receive much better results. The normalmaped lp's shading is far closer to how the hp looks.
So I thought maybe it's a problem of working around the actual highpoly and using this shader for smoothing.
If I cannot find a way around this issue, I will push the bevel effect as you recommended to get closer to the result I want.
Edit: I found out the "Blur" comes from the rounded edge material itself (should have thought of that earlier). Due to the small size of the bevel it looks blured, using a seperate material might solve the issue.
Gave it another try to use no cage with minimal or 0 distance - the endresult looks distorted but in the other direction.. the bevel became far to strong.
It is still the same hp mesh. I just made the whole setup in the Bake Wizard new (to distance of 1mm instead of cage) and deleted the Morph Maps..