normal map/topology question

juanoblagu

hello everyone, i have been trying to minimize the topology of meshes just to test my abilities and study on the way and im having this issue almost always, there are these weird spots i get in some parts of the characters, not sure how to get rid off them, im using marmoset 4 for bake and maya for testing textures.

kanga

Can't see loops for animation, but if you are baking from a high poly model you shouldn't be having problems with 5 point poles or the dark patches on the end of the shirt sleeve. If you are modeling for animation or posing your topology and neutral pose are not the best. What works for me is putting all polys in one smooth, smoothing group before baking. If you are not using baked maps then there are simple ways to edit your 5 point poles so that they shade smoothly. I'm not really familiar with Maya so there should be lots of users here to help you. For a guide on model topology for cames and animation have a look in the polycount wiki.

juanoblagu

kanga said:

Can't see loops for animation, but if you are baking from a high poly model you shouldn't be having problems with 5 point poles or the dark patches on the end of the shirt sleeve. If you are modeling for animation or posing your topology and neutral pose are not the best. What works for me is putting all polys in one smooth, smoothing group before baling. If you are not using baked maps then there are simple ways to edit your 5 point poles so that they shade smoothly. I'm not really familiar with Maya so there should be lots of users here to help you. For a guide on model topology for cames and animation have a look in the polycount wiki.

Yeah, this is mainly for animation (getting my animation ready mesh) im baking maps (high poly to low poly) in marmoset, sorry for my ignorance by i dont really get what you said, should i smooth/add a subdivision to my low poly before baking? 

kanga

juanoblagu said:

Yeah, this is mainly for animation (getting my animation ready mesh) im baking maps (high poly to low poly) in marmoset, sorry for my ignorance by i dont really get what you said, should i smooth/add a subdivision to my low poly before baking? 

You don't need to subdivide the mesh, just select all polys before you bake and set them smooth. I think Maya has smooth groups so make sure they all all one group. Below is blenders shading options. There is no sub divide modifier on the models and they are identical geometry.

Have a look in the wiki here to see if you know what is meant bybaking. Your model doesn't look like it has any textures applied

juanoblagu

kanga said:

juanoblagu said:

Yeah, this is mainly for animation (getting my animation ready mesh) im baking maps (high poly to low poly) in marmoset, sorry for my ignorance by i dont really get what you said, should i smooth/add a subdivision to my low poly before baking? 

You don't need to subdivide the mesh, just select all polys before you bake and set them smooth. I think Maya has smooth groups so make sure they all all one group. Below is blenders shading options. There is no sub divide modifier on the models and they are identical geometry.

Have a look in the wiki here to see if you know what is meant bybaking. Your model doesn't look like it has any textures applied

ohhh i know what you mean now!, yeah the model is smooth shaded already and for the textures, i have always loved stylized art so what you see there is a very minimalistic normal map on it and a basic albedo map, so yeah it has textures on it
here it is another pic you can see the artifacts i talk about in the arm pit and the dress sleeve

BlueFlytrap

The X shaped errors you're seeing are a triangulation mismatch between Maya and Marmoset.


Quads are just two triangles but how they're set is arbitrary between applications. If you triangulate your model before exporting for baking that should keep the normalmap synced with Maya.

Alternatively if you have no overlapping or mirrored bits on your uv you can instead bake your normalmap as objectspace (the one right below regular normalmaps in marmoset's baker) as those won't ever give you the errors shown above.

Eric Chadwick

Solid advice.

Except for recommending objectspace. This type of normal map is mostly avoided in game development since it's very difficult to compress properly, so it eats up a lot of your VRAM memory budget (which is a very constrained resource).

You can use objectspace for a portfolio-only piece if you want. But game developers will want to see you can manage tangentspace maps, since that type is used heavily in game production.

You can read about compression here if interested. Check out the PDF since it has great images! http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Normal_Map_Compression

We also have lots of info about topology for games, including specifically for baking normal maps:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Normal_Map_Modeling

And lots of examples of how to model for deformation, like for shoulders and elbows and fingers:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Limb_Topology