Baking errors with curved models

wandering_snail

Hi! I have this model and it's giving me strange artifacts. My low poly is very similar to my high. I thought it would be straightforward where the edges would get smoothed but no luck... I really don't know what the problem is. I have tried various things to no avail. My smooth groups are fine, bake groups are fine, cage is fine... I don't know... Is there any other way I should be using to smooth the edges instead? 
Thank you in advance!

Eric Chadwick

Show the shaded wireframe for your lowpoly model?

wandering_snail

Here it is. I thought perhaps my initial model was too low poly and maybe that was what was causing problems so I increased the polys by a bit but apparently that wasn't the issue.

In my first attempt I didn't get those lines but I still had weird artifacts in the curved part

Eric Chadwick

If you just want a smooth bevel around the model, don't use a normal map. Edit the vertex normals instead.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/VertexNormal#Smoother_Shading

wandering_snail

Thank you! I will study it and see if I can make it work!

wandering_snail

I tried to do what you suggested! But I am having a problem in that part of the model, I'm not sure how to fix the topology. Can you tell what the problem is? Thank you!

Eric Chadwick

Put an Edit Normals modifier on the model, select the normals for the flat part of the model and click the Average:Selected button.

wandering_snail

Thank you! I fixed it by adding another loop. I think it´s okay since that´s only for the high poly! By the way, I wanted to ask because I don´t want to make a new thread for this. I keep getting seams for my ambient occlusion. I made the seams in places where they wouldn´t be as visible but isn´t there a way to fix it?

Eric Chadwick

Show a visual example, and what software you used.

wandering_snail

Marmoset, it happens every time I use the ignore groups option, I'm not sure why. This specific cut here show very faintly on the normal map too but there is also another one in the front that only shows in the ao.
 

Eric Chadwick

Are the UVs flipped there, or overlapped?

wandering_snail

Eric Chadwick said:

Are the UVs flipped there, or overlapped?

No, I´m pretty sure I separated and straightened them all. Of course there are cuts because that thing was too long to put in one shell.

Eric Chadwick

Make a question topic in the Marmoset section, with images.

https://polycount.com/discussion/63361/information-about-polycount-new-member-introductions/p1#make