There's a thing I dont quite get about weighted normals.

HammerB

Heya Folks!
I've been studying for some days some techniques for speeding up the creation process of my models, specially for environment art.
Some people recommended me to try trims and weighted normals, and the techniques look fantastic, really powerful, but I have a stupid question that it's bothering me.
I, ve been doing 3d stuff for almost a year, and I come from a typical highpoly>bake>lowpoly workflow that my teachers hardcoded in me and since I'm a Max user, I tend to use TexTools to make every separated UV island a smoothing group.

I would like to know what is the proper procedure with wieghted normals: Let's say you want to unwrap a simple square support pillar



Since the entire objet will be smoothed thanks to weighted normals, how would you unwrap it to avoid seams or artifacts? As a strip? Where would you place the seam?
That being said, does anyone know any tuts or guides I could read to properly implement weighted normals with trim sheets? Because i get weird results like this
 

I know these might be simple and newbie questions, but this workflow is entirely new to me. Thanls in advance.

gnoop

Not sure I understand the issue, especially in Max. Just unify vertex normals along the seam edge.   A purpose of the whole technique IS to avoid seams and artifacts. And it doesn't have to be smoothed all. The top  side of the pillar is a separate smooth group/ uv island, right? 

For such pillar you don't even have to bake anything. Just paint few dents maybe in something like Substance Painter

musashidan

Are you confusing weighted normals on chamfered edges with floating corner trim methods?

Your floating corner trim needs to blend off into a neutral flat(no data) on the normal map. Otherwise you will get thst harsh transition.

HammerB

musashidan said:

Are you confusing weighted normals on chamfered edges with floating corner trim methods?

Your floating corner trim needs to blend off into a neutral flat(no data) on the normal map. Otherwise you will get thst harsh transition.

That explains a lot, and answers my second question. Thanks Musashidan.
I'm still confused about Unwrapping procedures for normal weighted pieces, in a 90º pure square object, I was taught that every smoothing group has to be a separated UV island, otherwise you'll get seams and stuff. But if with weighted normals you bevel that 90º angle, creating a curve (And a single smoothing group in Max) how do you split those uvs? That's my main question

scgstudio

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.
There is a whole idea behind weighting normals just to use a single smooth group for entire object.
There are some exceptions here and there but the whole concept is the same.
So you can cut uv in any way you see it fit as long as you do not bake any normal maps.
So another 'rule' is to have as few uv islands as possible while keeping them non distorted.

HammerB

scgstudio said:

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong.
There is a whole idea behind weighting normals just to use a single smooth group for entire object.
There are some exceptions here and there but the whole concept is the same.
So you can cut uv in any way you see it fit as long as you do not bake any normal maps.
So another 'rule' is to have as few uv islands as possible while keeping them non distorted.

If someone can confirm this (and/or post an example) would be very helpful.

scgstudio

If you do not bake any normal maps, you do not need to pay attention to keep uv island per each smoothing group, because... there is only one smoothing group. So cutting uvs has no impact on anything except good uvs . Using mid poly is aiming to bypass normal map to generate overall shape of the model. You can use normal map as surface characteristics instead of faking mesh shape.

HammerB

scgstudio said:

If you do not bake any normal maps, you do not need to pay attention to keep uv island per each smoothing group, because... there is only one smoothing group. So cutting uvs has no impact on anything except good uvs . Using mid poly is aiming to bypass normal map to generate overall shape of the model. You can use normal map as surface characteristics instead of faking mesh shape.

Now i get it. Thanks Scgstudio.

musashidan

Here's a video from my YT channel explaining FWVN:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kizs6RIa1dQ