Normal Map/Baking issues

zhaiires

hello im super new to texturing and everything ive googled doesnt seem to be quite my problem so i thought id make a post here to see if anyone could help me. Any time im baking my normal maps i get weird projections of the other parts of my model across where ive my the seam cuts in my uvs and the like dips and curves of my model the normal map is just blank apart from really specific areas. Below i have attatched images of my model, normal map, the issues and the UVs. Are my UVs incorrectly done? Is there issue with how ive modelled it? Any help would be greatly appreaciated so i can avoid this issue again/finally crack on with learning substance painter also if you need any more details ill do my best to provide them!

poopipe

Check the painter documentation for the bake by name feature. It's for preventing this exact problem

zhaiires

poopipe said:

Check the painter documentation for the bake by name feature. It's for preventing this exact problem

I have that checked already, most of the tutorials i was following covered this and said it shouldve solved it but unfortunatly hasnt thank you though!

Benjammin

check that your HP and LP are aligned correctly. 

zhaiires

Benjammin said:

check that your HP and LP are aligned correctly. 

They are, i've already checked that also - genuinely think there must be something else glaringly obvious that im missing but can't work out what appreciate your response though!

gnoop

Your NM artifacts  is  your projecting rays in search for hi-res target going too far away and make  details  reflecting in each other like in mirror.       And since  Painter does set the distance as a value/ a share of some cubical bounding  box  around  it's always a problem  for something long and stretched.  

 Typical workaround  is breaking your hi and low  in pieces  with matching  naming  like ring1_low, ring1_high   etc.     it makes  the baking rays ignores other parts  of model  and do it for each part separately.    

You also forget one important rule.   If your low res has a hard/split edge  it should be also split in UV.

That said your model as you did it (based on unwrap) would need to be separated  into too many small parts this way.    And doesn't look as in need of  hi to low  baking at all.  Be having mostly same 128.128.255  flat NM color everywhere anyway.

I bet you hi res is just  subdiv of low res with same UV .   You could render all your maps including curvature   on hi res itself  without any low to hi  ray tracing.     

And also for a game i work for  for example  your model  may be  kind of useless .   If  in 5 meters away  it would switch into lod-02  all those  ring shaped bumps around the shaft  be no more represented neither in geometry nor  the normal map  and you would see a sadden switch.     You would have to bake  your NM  for that lod 02 and have vertex normals of lod 01 be projected from lod 02 .

   

  If it's just one  instance  of hundreds of such shafts in a row  and  the lod switch  would be happening  by  big chunks  of them  it's irrelevant    but total polycount would be still  too big  per chunk.

  In Unreal5   your model is ok   probably.

but again doesn't need  to be baked from hi res .

Neox

for higher quality textures i would also suggest, straighten those UVs

ZacD

Setting the max frontal distance and max rear distance to 0.01-.02 in the baking menu will clear up most of the artifacts, except where rings are almost touching. 

zhaiires

gnoop said:

Your NM artifacts  is  your projecting rays in search for hi-res target going too far away and make  details  reflecting in each other like in mirror.       And since  Painter does set the distance as a value/ a share of some cubical bounding  box  around  it's always a problem  for something long and stretched.  

 Typical workaround  is breaking your hi and low  in pieces  with matching  naming  like ring1_low, ring1_high   etc.     it makes  the baking rays ignores other parts  of model  and do it for each part separately.    

You also forget one important rule.   If your low res has a hard/split edge  it should be also split in UV.

That said your model as you did it (based on unwrap) would need to be separated  into too many small parts this way.    And doesn't look as in need of  hi to low  baking at all.  Be having mostly same 128.128.255  flat NM color everywhere anyway.

I bet you hi res is just  subdiv of low res with same UV .   You could render all your maps including curvature   on hi res itself  without any low to hi  ray tracing.     

And also for a game i work for  for example  your model  may be  kind of useless .   If  in 5 meters away  it would switch into lod-02  all those  ring shaped bumps around the shaft  be no more represented neither in geometry nor  the normal map  and you would see a sadden switch.     You would have to bake  your NM  for that lod 02 and have vertex normals of lod 01 be projected from lod 02 .

   

  If it's just one  instance  of hundreds of such shafts in a row  and  the lod switch  would be happening  by  big chunks  of them  it's irrelevant    but total polycount would be still  too big  per chunk.

  In Unreal5   your model is ok   probably.

but again doesn't need  to be baked from hi res .

thank you so much for all of this its a huge help! appreciate you taking time out to help me, we didn't really get much tuition for 3d in uni it was mostly 2d so i feel like im making a lot of mistakes as i go

"You also forget one important rule.   If your low res has a hard/split edge  it should be also split in UV." i did not know this so ill be sure to keep this in mind for future projects!

We were always told just to work as low as possible with polys so i was afraid to bake straight onto the high in case it wasnt proper practice.

zhaiires

Neox said:

for higher quality textures i would also suggest, straighten those UVs

Thank you, i will do!