Normal Mapping in Maya - Need Help

Striff

Welp, tried for the first time to normal map. Im using Maya 7. I folowed the tutorial by Jeff (which can be found here )

Im making a toilet for a prison scene.

Here is the low poly :



High Poly :



UV of low poly :


Normalmap :



And finally, the normal mapped toilet :



There definatly is a problem with my normal mapped toilet with the edges of it. I guess you could say it "pushes" the edges out.

Anyone know what is causing this? I read that how the U.V. map is layed out has no effect on the normal map. Any help would be appricated. Thanks.

Marine

tried making the normal map without the hard edges on the low poly?

Slum

In my extremely limited knowledge of normal maps, I'm gathering that what you're trying to do isn't going to yield the best results. What you're doing is trying to alter the silhouette of the mesh, but theres no real way you can hide those polys inside a normal map.

All you'll be able to get is that smooth curve resting on the surface of your low poly mesh, with the corners poking out. Somebody tell me if I'm wrong here, please.

As for the quality of the map bake, I can't really comment since I'm not a Maya user.

Sorry I'm not much help. o_o

thomasp

^like he said - the model you have there doesn't benefit from normal mapping at all. also, in my experience, normal maps look poor when mapped over a 90 degree angle in the surface. i found that 60 or so degrees is the acceptable maximum to make it look smooth - bevel that thing.

Jeff Parrott

Yeah, you really need to run some grime through the Nvidia filter and overlay that on the normal map. Normal maps aren't really great for what you're doing with it now. Model in a drain in the high res or something. That will work better. You'll probably have to paint out those edges. Shocking my tutorial works with Maya 7 since they completely rewrote the normal map tool. Hope that helps.

Striff

Jeff, I had to draw up some of my own conclusions from your tutorial, becuase, as you said, the tools is vasty diffrent. Its all relative though.