[3ds-max] Quick normal map question

Dubious_Fellow

Hi,

Which of these two high polys would result in a better normal map?:

A

B

-I would do a quick test, but I don't want to download SP until I've finished my High polys.

Thanks in advance...

IxenonI

Would not make a difference at all. Would come into play for bottom / top cap pieces of that cylinder.

Due to smoothing of your lp, you would probably not pick up much normal information anyways...

Noors

For each texel (pixel of your normal map) on your low poly, the bake process will make a projection along each "texel normal" and look for the closest normal value of the high poly. For this case, yeah it will just look a bit further and the normal value will be the same.

But generaly speaking, to avoid much distortion in the projections, you want your low and high surfaces to be as close as possible. So in theory, 2 is better. And that's how you should set up for more complex objects.