I'm having problems with baking high poly to low poly in Marmoset Toolbag

Ravanex

I'm trying to bake the details of a high poly lantern to the low poly but I can't get it right. There are seams where I didn't even cut the UV and there are no seams where I did. Doesn't it supposed to be the opposite way?

Here are some pictures from 3DS Max including the UV: https://imgur.com/a/bU1BkdS

The cage and settings: https://imgur.com/a/K9k25FA

The result of the baking: https://imgur.com/a/lIbHQbH

This wouldn't be the final bake, I'd like to make some scratches and damages on it in Zbrush. I've never used Toolbag before so I thought I'd try it out before the sculpting.

FrankPolygon

Hard edges that aren't pared with UV splits can generate extreme normal values on either side of the edge and this creates a visible seam in the baked normal. If the hard edges are necessary for controlling the mesh smoothing behavior then the issue can be resolved by adding UV splits along the hard edges and adjusting the new UV islands so there's adequate space between them.

Alec Moody has an excellent video on this topic:

https://youtu.be/ciXTyOOnBZQ

Additional information on hard edges can be found in the thread linked below:

https://polycount.com/discussion/107196/youre-making-me-hard-making-sense-of-hard-edges-uvs-normal-maps-and-vertex-counts/p1

The waviness in the baked normal is caused by the difference between the shape of the low poly and the high poly mesh. This can be resolved by adding additional segments and creating a low poly that more closely matches the high poly.

Additional information on waviness in normal bakes can be found in the thread linked below:

https://polycount.com/discussion/81154/understanding-averaged-normals-and-ray-projection-who-put-waviness-in-my-normal-map/p1

The black splotches in the bake are likely ray misses where the high poly mesh falls outside of the low poly mesh. The low poly mesh should fit over the high poly mesh. Also check that there isn't some kind of position offset that's causing overlapping or occlusion issues. Adjusting the cage distance on this component may resolve the issue.

The abrupt gradation change on the bottom cone shape may be caused by some kind of edge split, normal or triangulation issue. Without a clear view of the mesh it's a little hard to diagnose.

The Toolbag baking tutorial is a great resource:

https://marmoset.co/posts/toolbag-baking-tutorial/?page=Best Results#bestresults

Here's some recent discussions on identifying normal bake errors and hard edges:

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2723853/#Comment_2723853

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2727831#Comment_2727831

Ravanex

@FrankPolygon Thank you, these will be really useful!