Problem with Normal Map and base mesh

visionarymindful

So I've done a polygon mesh in Maya 2018, with its UV done, and exported to Zbrush, with the option of having all triangles and quadrats compatible to Z2. 

Anyways, I sculpted the mesh's details until subdivision level 6 and decided to bake the normal map. I exported the normal map and assigned it back in Maya as a Blinn material of the polygon mesh, set to tangents as space normal and the filter set to off. After I placeD it I noticed that it was horrendously misplaced, so I tried to edit the normal map in photoshop, so it will fit the UV Shell of the initial mesh and I noticed that it was sort of distorted and difficult to match them. 

Long story short, I imported both the initial polygon mesh and then the lowest subdivision level (which is supposed to be the initial mesh) to compare and I noticed slight topological changes. It's weird both of them have the same UV Shell.

I have to say that I did changes during the sculpting e.g. using the move tool, the transpose tool, and tri-dynamic tool.

I also tried the normal map on the exported lowest subdivision level of the sculpt in maya, but still, it was slightly distorted, which I had to move and rotate the UV Shell around but still the normal map wasn't looking alright on the lowest subdivision level.

What am I doing wrong? What I do have to do, in order to apply the normal map of the sculpted mesh in the intial polygon mesh correctly?

Thanez

To me it looks like it isn't distorted, but mirrored horizontally. IDK how that could've happened since I don't maya or zbrush, but try mirroring the map horizontally, then flipping whatever channel is horribly broken by this.

Noors

You should not edit a baked normal map, and certainly not rotate or scale or liquify it, whatever, in photoshop.

It's basically a map of 3d vectors. You just can't edit it without breaking it.

So your workflow is not good.

Dont bake with zbrush, use xnormal or substance painter or marmoset toolbag or handplane instead.

Sculpting/subdividing in zbrush changes your basemesh shape so it won't fit exactly your initial mesh.

So dont bake the 1st level sculpt mesh to put the map on the initial mesh. The 2 meshes now differ and the map won't be correct.

You should bake on your final low poly : either your zbrush sculpt first level, or the initial model edited to fit the shape of your sculpt, or a completly new low poly, whatever. Just don't bake one mesh to put the map on a mesh that differs.

poopipe

All true.

But why the hell are the UVs  flipped? 

visionarymindful

Noors said:

You should not edit a baked normal map, and certainly not rotate or scale or liquify it, whatever, in photoshop.

It's basically a map of 3d vectors. You just can't edit it without breaking it.

So your workflow is not good.

Dont bake with zbrush, use xnormal or substance painter or marmoset toolbag or handplane instead.

Sculpting/subdividing in zbrush changes your basemesh shape so it won't fit exactly your initial mesh.

So dont bake the 1st level sculpt mesh to put the map on the initial mesh. The 2 meshes now differ and the map won't be correct.

You should bake on your final low poly : either your zbrush sculpt first level, or the initial model edited to fit the shape of your sculpt, or a completly new low poly, whatever. Just don't bake one mesh to put the map on a mesh that differs.

Thanks a lot for the info! So I'll one or two of those software but the thing is how am I supposed to texture/paint on the baked model after? and which software shall I use?

poopipe said:

All true.

But why the hell are the UVs  flipped? 

That's how Zbrush baked the maps 

Thanez said:

To me it looks like it isn't distorted, but mirrored horizontally. IDK how that could've happened since I don't maya or zbrush, but try mirroring the map horizontally, then flipping whatever channel is horribly broken by this.

idk but I had to flip it vertically and it somehow matched the lowest subdivision, but it looked still horrbily

poopipe

It's been a while since I did anything textured with Zbrush but....

Zbrush will export maps with the V coordinate flipped (unless you tick a setting somewhere).
  
It looks like you rotated your UVs rather than mirroring them to resolve it