Marmoset Cage Issues

shelleyabeasley

Forgive me, I'm relatively inexperienced in baking, marmoset, prop making...just everything. lol

Anyways, I'm in Marmoset with a dagger I've modeled in Blender and I'm trying to bake the hipoly to the lopoly. Everything else has worked beautifully except for this hilt. The closest accurate bake that I've managed to get is the following picture. 


...aaaaand it's not very good. To get this I actually have to set my cage at -0.3 without cage smoothing, like below. I think this is causing the weird wiggly AO/Normal maps around the edges of this hilt, as well as causing the sides of the cylinder to shade itself darker (I've checked if it's my lighting in Marmoset and it is not).



But if I go to a positive 0.3 cage...



...the cage fragments or something, like its normals are completely borked. The next two photos are included to showcase this a little better.





I have recalculated outside normals, set normals from faces, and flipped normals so many times I am getting really frustrated. This has completely halted my progress for at least a week or two now. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Please, anything helps. 

Eric Chadwick

Moving from Technical Talk to the Marmoset section.

WillDettrey

@shelleyabeasley, I have put together several topology tests that appear to mimic your situation but neither case is giving me the results that you are experiencing. Can you send me some test files (either obj, fbx, or scene bundle) so I can examine precisely what is happening on your end? You can send those files to support@marmoset.co and I will review those files and get back with you with any feedback. Thank you!

WillDettrey

@shelleyabeasley Thank you for sending me your test files. The culprit to this is that there are two meshes that have an inverse scale to them. With the scale being inverted, the Normals are always facing internally and have Back Faces enabled will not resolve the issue. I removed the negative scaling and positioned the meshes back to their original origins. This can easily occur if you are not paying attention to it AND you are working in a double-sided shading mode where the indicators are subtle or non-existent. Check your email for my revised files.