Edges and Seams visible on Normal Map

wrote

Hey everyone,

It's probably the 1000th topics talking about this problems, but after reading every topics as possible about this subject, I didn't solved my problem.
So I recently try to add normal map on my 3D models to improved my skills in 3D modeling. But I quickly hit on the problem of visible Edges and Seams on my normal map. So I follow any steps that I found on differents topics and it solved a part of my problems but not every problems.

So I want to bake my normal Map but I don't understands why my bake looks better on 3Ds Max than xNormal.

I use the same obj for the High Res Mesh, Low Res Mesh, and Cage.

On the top of the xNormal you can see some artifacts appearing.

But under the 3Ds Max bake there is some artifacts too that are not on the xNormal bake.

Here is my Uv (not really optimize) but i try to split every parts with Hard Edges


So my final question is, what did I do wrong? Is it a problem with my Cage? my Uv? or both? or something else?
Sorry I begin with baking normal maps and I really try everything I can before posting this topic.

Thanks in advance 

Kanni3d

Could be a lot of things. Regardless, your UV's need a ton of work. You can have those curly islands straightened, and merge a lot of shells together assuming your smoothing groups are respectful to them. This would give you a much better looking result, and pack.

But it wouldn't entirely solve your artifacting. That could come from a ton of things, from your low-res mesh, to your cage, to your high-res mesh. I could be wrong here, but it could possibly be the type of tangent normal map  xN gives you, which naturally looks strange in Max's viewport.

wrote

Kanni3d said:

Could be a lot of things. Regardless, your UV's need a ton of work. You can have those curly islands straightened, and merge a lot of shells together assuming your smoothing groups are respectful to them. This would give you a much better looking result, and pack.

But it wouldn't entirely solve your artifacting. That could come from a ton of things, from your low-res mesh, to your cage, to your high-res mesh. I could be wrong here, but it could possibly be the type of tangent normal map  xN gives you, which naturally looks strange in Max's viewport.

Thanks for your advices. I'm currently reworking on it.

I try to do it with a simple cube and i have the same problem.

i don't understand is why it works with the 3Ds Max baking, but not with xNormal.

So each faces is on a different smoothing groups, it's not working.

I seperate each faces on my Uv to avoid seams problems and artifact. but it's not working too.

For my high poly i try to scale it close as possible from the low poly and i also tried to complitely cover my low poly but it's not working too.

For my cage I also tried differents things but it's not working too.

I really take care to use the same Low Poly, the same High Poly and the same Cage for each one, but the Normal are still different.

On the 3Ds Max normal you can clearly see there is no corner, it's like chamfer.

And on the xNormal it's just a simple corner.

On xNormal, I try to change the Edge Padding but it's worth.

I know it's a commun problem but in many tutorial, peoples solved the problem. But in my case, I can't solved it, or there is clearly something that i really don't understand about normal maps.

Udjani

@wrote

Like Kanni3d said, it looks like a tangent basis problem, max and xnormal have diffrente ways to calculate and display the normals, so you either have to export from max without tangent, or make that xnormal doesn't compute them using mikkt. 

I im not a user of both of this programs, so im don't know the ''terminology'' that hey use, but sure they have those options. 

Kanni3d

Yep, you gotta check your export options from Max, when baking out of xN and viewing it back in Max. Have these options checked on your low-poly.