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Baking normals problem

polycounter lvl 14
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NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
Hello , I am baking normals with Substance but I am getting weird normals in proximity of seams, do you know why and how can I fix them?



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  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    Showing a picture of just the normal map is meaningless. 

    Does it look bad on the model? 
    Have you read the 200 other threads on normal baking artefacts ? 

    Also post a picture of the artefacts

    And its probably because you haven't turned antialiasing on
  • Kanni3d
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    Kanni3d ngon master
    ^ That, or lack of padding.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    Kanni3d said:
    ^ That, or lack of padding.

    How should I set padding?
  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    I don't want to be that guy but all of this has been discussed ad-nauseum in this bit of the forum. 

    The information is there, if everyone took 5 minutes to refer to the documentation or search the forum for it before posting you'd have less threads to search through. 
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    poopipe said:
    I don't want to be that guy but all of this has been discussed ad-nauseum in this bit of the forum. 

    The information is there, if everyone took 5 minutes to refer to the documentation or search the forum for it before posting you'd have less threads to search through. 

    I know but I am not able to find the relevant information , perhaps you can tell me the right keywords to search?
  • Kanni3d
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    Kanni3d ngon master
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    Kanni3d said:
    Googling "substance painter padding" nets you:
    https://docs.substance3d.com/spdoc/padding-134643719.html

    I already saw this and is not the thing helping me at all ,
    Here is how appears normal channel ...


    But the material instead look like this ...


    What I am missing?


  • BagelHero
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    BagelHero interpolator
    Doesn't the material look ok?

    If it looks okay when rendered, then it's fine.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    The discontinuity of colors at the seams is merely caused by the fact that your UVs are not at the same angle near these seams. It will happen pretty much all the time, and that doesn't mean that the nmap is "wrong" in any way.

    To understand this, do another bake with some of the islands rotated differently, and you'll see the colors change further. You just need to spend more time to get familiar with the way normalmaps work, as this is perfectly normal.

    All that said ... there is no good justification for UV seams to be placed in the middle of a surface like that to begin with. That probably explains why this looks alien to you, as this is not a common/good practice since it will make any mismatch in texturing very apparent.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    pior said:
    The discontinuity of colors at the seams is merely caused by the fact that your UVs are not at the same angle near these seams. It will happen pretty much all the time, and that doesn't mean that the nmap is "wrong" in any way.

    To understand this, do another bake with some of the islands rotated differently, and you'll see the colors change further. You just need to spend more time to get familiar with the way normalmaps work, as this is perfectly normal.

    All that said ... there is no good justification for UV seams to be placed in the middle of a surface like that to begin with. That probably explains why this looks alien to you, as this is not a common/good practice since it will make any mismatch in texturing very apparent.

    I understand , but when you "have to" put seams on open surfaces, how you do otherwise ? If you can't hide them in creavesa and folds?
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Well, this is like asking how long is a piece of string.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    pior said:
    Well, this is like asking how long is a piece of string.

    Lol ok so , in theory , if we are forced to put seams in a visible plain area is better to align the quads and borders even if in different uvmaps, but the problem then its if there are other seam zones.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    NAIMA said:
    ...... if we are forced to put seams in a visible plain area is better to align the quads and borders even if in different uvmaps........
    I don't really see what you're getting at?
    Your shaded model above looks fine; how the normal map looks as a flat texture matters very little, except when troubleshooting issues with shading.

    If you can avoid putting seams in very visible areas, it's generally a good idea, but if you can't, there's not much to be done about it, just put them in logical places.
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    Joopson said:
    NAIMA said:
    ...... if we are forced to put seams in a visible plain area is better to align the quads and borders even if in different uvmaps........
    I don't really see what you're getting at?
    Your shaded model above looks fine; how the normal map looks as a flat texture matters very little, except when troubleshooting issues with shading.

    If you can avoid putting seams in very visible areas, it's generally a good idea, but if you can't, there's not much to be done about it, just put them in logical places.

    Well the seams are visible in game even if not as pronounced as if I loaded normal maps as diffuse textures...


  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    To paint over like clone tool on normal maps to fix those seams is a viable solution?
    Is it possible in substance painter clone across all maps like normal , diffuse, occlusion etc at the same time with the same stroke brush paint ?

  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    No, there is still some misunderstanding going on.

    You just can't load a desaturated normalmap as part of your diffuse and expect a seamless result - doing so will *always* create difference in value across UV seams. That's why one just can't paint some "normalmap blue" to smooth out a shading seam - it doesn't work except in some very specific cases. And if you do  "paint out" these seams in the normalmap ... then the shading itself will break. Can't win :)

    To understand what going, again, do as follows : 

    Make an alternate version of your project, with one of the UV islands rotated, say, 45 degrees from the original. Bake the normalmap. Display the shaded result. It will still shade perfectly, even though the normalmap is of "different colors". That's because normalmaps are linked to the orientation of the UVs.
    So if you desaturate your normal map and attempt to use it as part of your diffuse, you will almost always get these faint seams - because different colors tend to have different values when desaturated.

    If you need to use a prelit pass in your texturing stack, then you need to render and bake an actual lighting pass, by placing some lights in your scene and baking that from high to low. Usulally referred to as something like "complete map" or "lighting map".


  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    If the seam is visible in game but not in substance painter and you are simply applying a flat value to basecolor then you most likely have a tangent basis mismatch. 

    There are a number of ways it can happen so you need to answer these questions. 
    Which game engine? 
    Are you using exactly  the same mesh in painter and game engine?
    Was the mesh triangulated before baking? 
    What are your import/export settings at every stage? 
    Somebody will know the correct boxes to tick for your specific circumstances
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
     
    Which game engine?---Secondlife
    Are you using exactly  the same mesh in painter and game engine? ?---yes
    Was the mesh triangulated before baking? ?--- no
    What are your import/export settings at every stage? ?--- import fbx in substance no triangulation ,export smoothing



  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    i did a quick google and found nothing concrete about normal map baking for second life except that in 2014 it did not import tangents from the mesh and they probably weren't going to change it. That means the mesh tangents are created at import and you need to do your bake in something that matches the engine.

    you need to find out what people are using to successfully bake normals for second life and do your bakes there. or work out how to hide your seams 
  • NAIMA
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    NAIMA polycounter lvl 14
    poopipe said:
    i did a quick google and found nothing concrete about normal map baking for second life except that in 2014 it did not import tangents from the mesh and they probably weren't going to change it. That means the mesh tangents are created at import and you need to do your bake in something that matches the engine.

    you need to find out what people are using to successfully bake normals for second life and do your bakes there. or work out how to hide your seams 

    Thankyou , I will check .
  • Kanni3d
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    Kanni3d ngon master
    NAIMA said:
     
    Was the mesh triangulated before baking? ?--- no
    Although this may not be the cause of your issue, you should always triangulate before baking, and use that very same triangulated mesh export as your import for second life.
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