Tools for baking textures

Marcus_Aseth

Hi guys, I've been away from 3d more than 3 years I think, I'm coming back at it now but I'm unsure if the tools I used in my workflow have became obsolete or if they are still relevant.
In the specific are xNormal and handplane still relevant or have they been replaced by something else?
Also, what tool would you recomend me to use to bake all kind of maps? (I'm not sure if xNormal is suited to bake stuff other than normal and AO)

Udjani

There are a lot of pleople still using handplane and xNormal from what i see here, but marmoset and substance are pretty foking good.

SnowInChina

marmoset makes baking really easy
i love it, well worth the money

Eric Chadwick

Which Baker??

Marcus_Aseth

Thanks guys, also @Eric Chadwick sorry, I didn't understood the question.

I just realized I have another question: does my old workflow for normal maps using 3ds max still applies, meaning smoothing groups still have to match UV shells? Or baking technology advanced and that's not a thing anymore?

gnoop

X-plane is still unrivaled when you need to bake something from super hi-res object and height map baking there is really good

Eric Chadwick

Welcome back, man. 

That's a link to a recent thread on the same subject. Might help you, to see more opinions on the subject.

Marcus_Aseth

Thanks Eric

btw pls forgive me if I throw a baking normals related question on the side, is so simple I'm not sure it deserves it's own tread.

In the image below of a wood log, the red part is a cylinder coming out of a cylinder, and the two have separate UV shells. In order to bake a good normal map, does the smoothing group need to be separated as well, or the two cylinder can share the same smoothing group while having separate UV shells and still give a perfect normal map during bake?

m4dcow

The transition off the log looks smooth enough to be one smoothing group. The caps might be another smoothing group depending on how you do it though.

Marcus_Aseth

@m4dcow With one smoothing group covering separate uvshells, that used to generate a bad visible seam in the illumination of the final model with the normal applied (in fact it was always recomended to have smoothing groups matching uv shell divisions, I remember that)

So you recomend one smoothing group anyway betweem the log and the "cut branch" that have separate uv shells, with some knowledge that is not a problem anymore? Or you wheren't aware of this "lighting artifact thing" (and accidentally gave me a suggestion you're not sure about)?

Eric Chadwick

The recommendation only goes one way... If you have a hard edge, always split the UV. 

This is because the normal map colors will be very different on each side, and you don't want that bleeding across the edge. You want each side to keep its disparate colors.

But you can split UVs all you like, and not have to add hard edges on them all. 

Hard edges need to be split. Splits don't need to be hard.

Marcus_Aseth

got it, thanks both
Still, that part highlighted in red in the image above would require it's own smoothing group, right? I say this because even if the outside edges flow pretty straight into the log edges, the inner ones (on the right side of the highlighted area) form some harsh concave angles. Not sure if a single smoothing group between the log and the highlighted branch can handle that concave angles correctly. Maybe I should just test it hehe