@Maph. FBX has a small problem: it does not provide the normals in the format xNormal needs, so I used some interpolation to fix it. This may introduce some problems.
However, judging the image seems your ray distances might be incorrect. Have you setup your cages?
Anyways, try to change your mesh format to SBM or OBJ and see if that helps.
Oh I see, that's a pity!
Anyway, everything has cages, except for maybe some small things; but I ended up using OBJ and that worked perfectly. No baking errors, and the meshes weren't different from the FBX versions at all. Good to know I'll just have to stick to either OBJ or SBM.
Followed a tutorial to bake normals and vcols/ AO. The maps for my character are coming out extremely sharp which is great. I am getting an echoed limb image on my uv islands though. Like this:
This is happening all over the figure. The low poly covers the hipoly. The lowpoly has been exported out of max 2012 with the xnormal exporter in .SBM format as .obj from the gm exported doesn't work at all. There are mirrored uvs that are moved over -1 space, the same as the tutorial. I used a push modifier/ collapsed/xform collapsed to get the lowpoly to cover the high. Used the distance calculator and copied the values plus tried the ray distances at default as well. One strange thing is the artist in the tute had the same looking lopoly as mine with some penetration and no adverse effects. My cage will render out nothing if I dont push it out. Lastly this baking problem is present in the vcol and normal bake.
As you can see the texture is as sharp as a tack!!! amazing. Looking forward to getting rid of the artefacts.
Followed a tutorial to bake normals and vcols/ AO. The maps for my character are coming out extremely sharp which is great. I am getting an echoed limb image on my uv islands though. Like this:
This is happening all over the figure. The low poly covers the hipoly. The lowpoly has been exported out of max 2012 with the xnormal exporter in .SBM format as .obj from the gm exported doesn't work at all. There are mirrored uvs that are moved over -1 space, the same as the tutorial. I used a push modifier/ collapsed/xform collapsed to get the lowpoly to cover the high. Used the distance calculator and copied the values plus tried the ray distances at default as well. One strange thing is the artist in the tute had the same looking lopoly as mine with some penetration and no adverse effects. My cage will render out nothing if I dont push it out. Lastly this baking problem is present in the vcol and normal bake.
As you can see the texture is as sharp as a tack!!! amazing. Looking forward to getting rid of the artefacts.
All help welcome
Cheers
You probably need to set up a cage for something with a complicated shape like this.
What you are seeing is ray casting error, where the mesh is being traced incorrectly, because the ray distances are incorrect for some parts.
Generally its always best to use a cage for baking, unless you are just baking onto a plane or something.
You can export a cage from max or you can set up a cage by going to the 3d viewer tab in xNormal a hitting launch viewer. Then go Show Cage> Edit Cage> Global Cage Extrusion and moving the slider to the right. Then save the meshes and rebake.
You can set up a cage by going to the 3d viewer tab in xNormal a hitting launch viewer. Then go Show Cage> Edit Cage> Global Cage Extrusion and moving the slider to the right. Then save the meshes and rebake.
Definitely helps. Exported a cage out of max using the new function in xnormal. Made sure the low res cage was a mesh (it wont do polys) but got the same result as you see above. Didnt know about making a cage in the xnormal viewer, will try that immediately!
Ha ha!
The result was even worse. To be fair my model is no more complex than the models on the xnormal site. I think I am missing something. Will keep trying because the good bits of the map are incredible Thanks again for your help.
Ha ha!
The result was even worse. To be fair my model is no more complex than the models on the xnormal site. I think I am missing something. Will keep trying because the good bits of the map are incredible Thanks again for your help.
lol, thats a bit odd.
Is your cage overlapping/intersecting in xNormal?
That would be a problem yes
You should use the projection modifier in max to make the cage and export it as sbm if you don´t like the editor of xnormal.
If you don´t want to use a cage(you should use one though) you should change the ray distance values so that it doesn´t hit parts it shouldn´t hit.
Also make sure you have "use cage" checked in the low poly, and also when you make a cage in the xnormal editor it isn't automatically assigned, so make sure you assign it as the cage mesh.
Sounds dumb, but I can't tell you how many cages I generated and thought I was using them when I wasn't.
Thanks, I could have even missed that actually. I am still trying but some stuff that may give some clues is I cant get my hipoly into max to generate a cage from, so I am doing it from a decimated version of the model in max. Also I am using symmetry. That is I copied half the low poly cage and moved the uvs off to -1.0 space so they are not overlapping. Would any of these things contribute to the artifacts?
If you have moved the mirrored uvs out of the 0-1 range it should be fine.
I had a similar issue to yours although mine was on a pretty simple mesh, a stone doorway sort of thing, where I tried all sorts of stuff (blockers files, ray distance etc...) my brute force way was baking sections separately. Then after doing some other stuff in xNormal, and revisiting the asset, I realized I simply never actually had the cage I created assigned.
hey guys/Jogshy,
i just unwrapped a model for baking a normal map in xNormal.. whem trying to generate maps its says my export of the lowpoly doesnt have any texture coordinates. when openin in others apps like mudbox or untiy3d it works just fine.. i got the latest version of xnormal as well... what am i doing wrong?
I had moved the low poly while baking it the standard way in max. One of my meshes was off and that must have thrown everything out of wack. Headbangtable time. The bakes are the best yet,... very very sharp and clean, friggin amazing.
hey guys/Jogshy,
i just unwrapped a model for baking a normal map in xNormal.. whem trying to generate maps its says my export of the lowpoly doesnt have any texture coordinates. when openin in others apps like mudbox or untiy3d it works just fine.. i got the latest version of xnormal as well... what am i doing wrong?
thanks Fatih
Did you view the uvs in the native app to look at them? Using the xnormal exporter worked best for me when exporting to xnormal from max.
Thanks for your reply.
I ended up using xNormals Sbm exporter. That seemed to worked fine.
Weird though it used to work just fine with .fbx or .obj in the past..
hey guys/Jogshy,
i just unwrapped a model for baking a normal map in xNormal.. whem trying to generate maps its says my export of the lowpoly doesnt have any texture coordinates. when openin in others apps like mudbox or untiy3d it works just fine.. i got the latest version of xnormal as well... what am i doing wrong?
Your lowpoly ( aka LP ) mesh must be UV-mapped in order to make a texture bake.
Opening the mesh in Mudbox won't tell you what's wrong really... unless you open some kind of UV editor :poly121:
If your mesh have UVs then perhaps the problem is that you're using several UV sets for your faces. xNormal can currently work with only one UV set ( it does not support MultiSubObj materials, UV face clusters, etc... ). That's one of the things I want to change in xn4.
Your lowpoly ( aka LP ) mesh must be UV-mapped in order to make a texture bake.
Opening the mesh in Mudbox won't tell you what's wrong really... unless you open some kind of UV editor :poly121:
If your mesh have UVs then perhaps the problem is that you're using several UV sets for your faces. xNormal can currently work with only one UV set ( it does not support MultiSubObj materials, UV face clusters, etc... ). That's one of the things I want to change in xn4.
hey jogshy,
im 100 percent sure my lowpoly was unwrapped and had only 1 uv set. importing to mudbox allowed me to texture paint it, and for that it needs my model to have uv's. Mudbox was just an example. In ever app i tried the uv are imported correctly.. so no clue what the issue is.
Details are captured with the cavity map or height map, AO is more of a general dark vs. white bake on a softer scale (not that you can't have it capture most details, but the pay off for finding the correct distance, bias and angle as well if to use Cosine or not will take too much).
AO is best used with your diffuse if you want all of your work to be done by the Spec/Gloss and Normal maps, but still don't want your diffuse to be simply 'flat'.
I suggest you try a 128 ray bake (for medium quality), with Cosine. An angle of 140. If it still doesn't work for you, bump up Bias to 0.001 later.
It will take a while to bake in this case, so again, I suggest height and cavity maps instead.
Is there a way to batch process files in a folder for Xnormal and for it to save out the bakes using the low poly bake?
Or maybe a way to write a batch script which will take each HP_ and LP_ file with their respective cages with corresponding names, baking out, moving said articles in a new folder, before cleaning out everything and doing it for the next file, until there is nothing in the folder?
Hi everyone,
I sculpted my mesh in Zbrush, baked it on my low-poly with xnormal, got normal issues with symmetric objects, that can be seen in maya and the xnormal viewer.
And no matter how i invert the red or green channels, the problem is still there. I believe i did everything right: my hi poly mesh is whole, my low poly is perfectly symmetric and smooth (and i also tried with hard edges), normals too, one half of my mesh has its uvs outside the map.
Depending on i turn the light sometimes it seems perfectly ok.
I really don't get it...
Hi everyone,
I sculpted my mesh in Zbrush, baked it on my low-poly with xnormal, got normal issues with symmetric objects, that can be seen in maya and the xnormal viewer.
And no matter how i invert the red or green channels, the problem is still there. I believe i did everything right: my hi poly mesh is whole, my low poly is perfectly symmetric and smooth (and i also tried with hard edges), normals too, one half of my mesh has its uvs outside the map.
Depending on i turn the light sometimes it seems perfectly ok.
I really don't get it...
Hi Kyalie... Check to make sure your that the UVs for the mirrored side aren't welded to the other side of the head. Good practice is to offset any mirrored geometries UVs by 1. This way it will still use the same uv space, but you can be sure they aren't welded together.
Quick question
If I am baking a object that has a lot of separate pieces. Would it be best to bake these all seperatley and just layer them in photoshop?
Quick question
If I am baking a object that has a lot of separate pieces. Would it be best to bake these all seperatley and just layer them in photoshop?
No
xnormal has a list for just that purpose. You will get the best results by using a cage, that has to cover all the pieces and there may be no interpenetration otherwise it will ruin things.
No
xnormal has a list for just that purpose. You will get the best results by using a cage, that has to cover all the pieces and there may be no interpenetration otherwise it will ruin things.
And don't place them no near each other if there not supposed to effect each ones AO..
I am trying to import a cage into xNormal from Max 2011. I have tried several different methods. I have tried exporting the cage that the projection modifier makes to an editable poly, then exporting out. I have tried just straight cloning my LP and exporting it out. I have tried using .obj and .sbm formats.
When I try to generate the maps I always get an error telling me that "...face "x" has a vertex index that doesn't match..."
I am trying to import a cage into xNormal from Max 2011. I have tried several different methods. I have tried exporting the cage that the projection modifier makes to an editable poly, then exporting out. I have tried just straight cloning my LP and exporting it out. I have tried using .obj and .sbm formats.
When I try to generate the maps I always get an error telling me that "...face "x" has a vertex index that doesn't match..."
Anyone know what I'm not doing right?
If the topology is 100% the same and you are still getting the error, you need to do the following:-
Go to the Plugin Manager (the plug icon)> Triangulator> Default Triangulator> Configure> Uncheck "shortest diagonal first"
Hmm well that worked, I can now use a cage, can you explain why? But now I am getting strange artifacts. Just a test box I am using, this is the same cage that I used in max and the bake came out just fine.
Nope. According to xView I don't have any. I just used a primitive box, gave it one extrusion and threw some support edges on there. Nothing fancy. I was able to bake just fine using xNormals in-house cage generator, I just feel I have more control if I generate the cage in Max.
Okay well I found a fix. If I export the LP mesh and the Cage mesh triangulated(changing the drop-down from quads to triangles) I can bake just fine. But I would still like to know what is happening and if anyone else has to do that to bake in xNormal.
Okay well I found a fix. If I export the LP mesh and the Cage mesh triangulated(changing the drop-down from quads to triangles) I can bake just fine. But I would still like to know what is happening and if anyone else has to do that to bake in xNormal.
I recently ran into this problem as well. I will outline my findings:
I took my low rez in maya, duplicated it and used transform component (similar to the push modifier in max) to build my cage.
However I would get errors in xnormal when baking my maps. I triangulated both meshes and tried again. No errors. So I decided to see what was happening back in maya.
I found that if I triangulated my low lez mesh and the cage after modified my cage then it would cut the triangles differently than my original mesh. I believe this was the cause of my troubles. So make sure to triangulate both meshes before you modify the cage.
HELP!! Whenever I bake my normals I keep getting this weird distorted look
I'm using 3dsMAX 2010 and Zbrush 4.0. not sure if I'm exporting the files right because it worked in the past. In Zbrush I just hit the "export" button and save as a "OBJ" and the same goes for MAX. Also on MAX the mesh XYZ position is set to zero.
For the normal settings I have "Tangent space" checked and i have the Swizzle Coordinates set to (X+, Y-, Z+)...Any suggestions? I have already tried reinstalling/installing xnormal
- The FBX mesh importer has been completely rewritten. Now it can read properly UVs, normals and the tangent basis( which is specially good if you use the Unity engine ).
- Solved the problems loading the filter plug-ins in Photoshop CS5.
- Re-exported all the example's JPGs because most of them were saved using old programs and they were causing problems with some modern libraries and applications.
- Added a warning message in case you use external cages having the “Use shortest diagonal” option enabled in the triangulator.
- Recompiled using the latest libraries ( Optix 2.1.1, FBX, Crosswalk ).
Invalid value (Details:Function "_rtContextSetDevices" caught exception: The list of devices is incompatible., [1574309])
Pls try with the new 3.17.6 Beta 1 I've uploaded at Eat3D's forum.
Also sure if you use Win7 x64 that you execute the 64-bits xNormals's .exe and not the 32 bits one.
When I try to generate the maps I always get an error telling me that "...face "x" has a vertex index that doesn't match..."
That's probably caused because you checked in the "Use shortest diagonal" option in the default triangulator plugin. Open the plug-in manager and uncheck it.
Btw, the 3.17.6 Beta 1 now disables that option by default and emits a warning in case you use it with external cages.
If I export the LP mesh and the Cage mesh triangulated(changing the drop-down from quads to triangles) I can bake just fine.
ALWAYS put an Edit Mesh + ResetXForm before exporting your meshes from 3dsmax. That will save lots of memory and time because xNormal could skip the triangulation process. ResetXForm is used also to pre-transform the normals saving exporting time and solving some possible artifacts with the normals.
If you're a Maya's user then Edit Mesh==Mesh->Triangulate. ResetXForm = Freeze transformations :poly136:
It's been awhile since I read anything in this thread. Decided to catch up on it today... and I gotta say I can't wait for XN4!!! Keep up the good work
Replies
However, judging the image seems your ray distances might be incorrect. Have you setup your cages?
Anyways, try to change your mesh format to SBM or OBJ and see if that helps.
Anyway, everything has cages, except for maybe some small things; but I ended up using OBJ and that worked perfectly. No baking errors, and the meshes weren't different from the FBX versions at all. Good to know I'll just have to stick to either OBJ or SBM.
Followed a tutorial to bake normals and vcols/ AO. The maps for my character are coming out extremely sharp which is great. I am getting an echoed limb image on my uv islands though. Like this:
This is happening all over the figure. The low poly covers the hipoly. The lowpoly has been exported out of max 2012 with the xnormal exporter in .SBM format as .obj from the gm exported doesn't work at all. There are mirrored uvs that are moved over -1 space, the same as the tutorial. I used a push modifier/ collapsed/xform collapsed to get the lowpoly to cover the high. Used the distance calculator and copied the values plus tried the ray distances at default as well. One strange thing is the artist in the tute had the same looking lopoly as mine with some penetration and no adverse effects. My cage will render out nothing if I dont push it out. Lastly this baking problem is present in the vcol and normal bake.
As you can see the texture is as sharp as a tack!!! amazing. Looking forward to getting rid of the artefacts.
All help welcome
Cheers
You probably need to set up a cage for something with a complicated shape like this.
What you are seeing is ray casting error, where the mesh is being traced incorrectly, because the ray distances are incorrect for some parts.
Generally its always best to use a cage for baking, unless you are just baking onto a plane or something.
You can export a cage from max or you can set up a cage by going to the 3d viewer tab in xNormal a hitting launch viewer. Then go Show Cage> Edit Cage> Global Cage Extrusion and moving the slider to the right. Then save the meshes and rebake.
You can set up a cage by going to the 3d viewer tab in xNormal a hitting launch viewer. Then go Show Cage> Edit Cage> Global Cage Extrusion and moving the slider to the right. Then save the meshes and rebake.
Hope that helps
Definitely helps. Exported a cage out of max using the new function in xnormal. Made sure the low res cage was a mesh (it wont do polys) but got the same result as you see above. Didnt know about making a cage in the xnormal viewer, will try that immediately!
Cheers
The result was even worse. To be fair my model is no more complex than the models on the xnormal site. I think I am missing something. Will keep trying because the good bits of the map are incredible
Is your cage overlapping/intersecting in xNormal?
You should use the projection modifier in max to make the cage and export it as sbm if you don´t like the editor of xnormal.
If you don´t want to use a cage(you should use one though) you should change the ray distance values so that it doesn´t hit parts it shouldn´t hit.
Sounds dumb, but I can't tell you how many cages I generated and thought I was using them when I wasn't.
Thanks, I could have even missed that actually. I am still trying but some stuff that may give some clues is I cant get my hipoly into max to generate a cage from, so I am doing it from a decimated version of the model in max. Also I am using symmetry. That is I copied half the low poly cage and moved the uvs off to -1.0 space so they are not overlapping. Would any of these things contribute to the artifacts?
I had a similar issue to yours although mine was on a pretty simple mesh, a stone doorway sort of thing, where I tried all sorts of stuff (blockers files, ray distance etc...) my brute force way was baking sections separately. Then after doing some other stuff in xNormal, and revisiting the asset, I realized I simply never actually had the cage I created assigned.
i just unwrapped a model for baking a normal map in xNormal.. whem trying to generate maps its says my export of the lowpoly doesnt have any texture coordinates. when openin in others apps like mudbox or untiy3d it works just fine.. i got the latest version of xnormal as well... what am i doing wrong?
thanks Fatih
I had moved the low poly while baking it the standard way in max. One of my meshes was off and that must have thrown everything out of wack. Headbangtable time. The bakes are the best yet,... very very sharp and clean, friggin amazing.
Thanks for the help guys.
Did you view the uvs in the native app to look at them? Using the xnormal exporter worked best for me when exporting to xnormal from max.
Keep going it is really worth it.
Thanks for your reply.
I ended up using xNormals Sbm exporter. That seemed to worked fine.
Weird though it used to work just fine with .fbx or .obj in the past..
I am new to xnormal so I dont really know about past versions. I wont be using anything else for a while though.
Opening the mesh in Mudbox won't tell you what's wrong really... unless you open some kind of UV editor :poly121:
If your mesh have UVs then perhaps the problem is that you're using several UV sets for your faces. xNormal can currently work with only one UV set ( it does not support MultiSubObj materials, UV face clusters, etc... ). That's one of the things I want to change in xn4.
I have a question, is it possible to bake out the color ID's of a mesh instead of Polypaints/VertexColors? Or is it only (in my case) a 3DS Max thing?
I tried using Write ObjectID (I applied a Multi-Sub-Object material with 3 IDs, with the colors R-G-B), but it doesn't seem to work.
Cheers.
Cheers.
I am baking a hard surface model made in Maya 2008. I am getting awful edge distortion issues on the normal. Here is a pic.
This seam issue is happening on both UV seams and regular edges they share the same UV piece.
I am wondering if it is an issue with the normals of the edges or if its just an problem with the fidelity of my low poly mesh I am baking onto.
Any help would be great.
hey jogshy,
im 100 percent sure my lowpoly was unwrapped and had only 1 uv set. importing to mudbox allowed me to texture paint it, and for that it needs my model to have uv's. Mudbox was just an example. In ever app i tried the uv are imported correctly.. so no clue what the issue is.
I have meet some difficulties with Xnormal and the AO baking
I lost a lot of d
AO is best used with your diffuse if you want all of your work to be done by the Spec/Gloss and Normal maps, but still don't want your diffuse to be simply 'flat'.
I suggest you try a 128 ray bake (for medium quality), with Cosine. An angle of 140. If it still doesn't work for you, bump up Bias to 0.001 later.
It will take a while to bake in this case, so again, I suggest height and cavity maps instead.
my AO was far better and I mix it with the cavity pass and its perfect now
I'm running Win7 x64 SP1 and 2x GTS250 cards on the 270.61 drivers.
Is there a way to batch process files in a folder for Xnormal and for it to save out the bakes using the low poly bake?
Or maybe a way to write a batch script which will take each HP_ and LP_ file with their respective cages with corresponding names, baking out, moving said articles in a new folder, before cleaning out everything and doing it for the next file, until there is nothing in the folder?
I sculpted my mesh in Zbrush, baked it on my low-poly with xnormal, got normal issues with symmetric objects, that can be seen in maya and the xnormal viewer.
And no matter how i invert the red or green channels, the problem is still there. I believe i did everything right: my hi poly mesh is whole, my low poly is perfectly symmetric and smooth (and i also tried with hard edges), normals too, one half of my mesh has its uvs outside the map.
Depending on i turn the light sometimes it seems perfectly ok.
I really don't get it...
Hi Kyalie... Check to make sure your that the UVs for the mirrored side aren't welded to the other side of the head. Good practice is to offset any mirrored geometries UVs by 1. This way it will still use the same uv space, but you can be sure they aren't welded together.
If I am baking a object that has a lot of separate pieces. Would it be best to bake these all seperatley and just layer them in photoshop?
No
xnormal has a list for just that purpose. You will get the best results by using a cage, that has to cover all the pieces and there may be no interpenetration otherwise it will ruin things.
And don't place them no near each other if there not supposed to effect each ones AO..
I am trying to import a cage into xNormal from Max 2011. I have tried several different methods. I have tried exporting the cage that the projection modifier makes to an editable poly, then exporting out. I have tried just straight cloning my LP and exporting it out. I have tried using .obj and .sbm formats.
When I try to generate the maps I always get an error telling me that "...face "x" has a vertex index that doesn't match..."
Anyone know what I'm not doing right?
If the topology is 100% the same and you are still getting the error, you need to do the following:-
Go to the Plugin Manager (the plug icon)> Triangulator> Default Triangulator> Configure> Uncheck "shortest diagonal first"
Let me know how it goes
The artifacts look like they could be zfighting or something. Do you have doubled verts or faces on the HP?
I recently ran into this problem as well. I will outline my findings:
I took my low rez in maya, duplicated it and used transform component (similar to the push modifier in max) to build my cage.
However I would get errors in xnormal when baking my maps. I triangulated both meshes and tried again. No errors. So I decided to see what was happening back in maya.
I found that if I triangulated my low lez mesh and the cage after modified my cage then it would cut the triangles differently than my original mesh. I believe this was the cause of my troubles. So make sure to triangulate both meshes before you modify the cage.
I'm using 3dsMAX 2010 and Zbrush 4.0. not sure if I'm exporting the files right because it worked in the past. In Zbrush I just hit the "export" button and save as a "OBJ" and the same goes for MAX. Also on MAX the mesh XYZ position is set to zero.
For the normal settings I have "Tangent space" checked and i have the Swizzle Coordinates set to (X+, Y-, Z+)...Any suggestions? I have already tried reinstalling/installing xnormal
- The FBX mesh importer has been completely rewritten. Now it can read properly UVs, normals and the tangent basis( which is specially good if you use the Unity engine ).
- Solved the problems loading the filter plug-ins in Photoshop CS5.
- Re-exported all the example's JPGs because most of them were saved using old programs and they were causing problems with some modern libraries and applications.
- Added a warning message in case you use external cages having the “Use shortest diagonal” option enabled in the triangulator.
- Recompiled using the latest libraries ( Optix 2.1.1, FBX, Crosswalk ).
Also sure if you use Win7 x64 that you execute the 64-bits xNormals's .exe and not the 32 bits one.
That's probably caused because you checked in the "Use shortest diagonal" option in the default triangulator plugin. Open the plug-in manager and uncheck it.
Btw, the 3.17.6 Beta 1 now disables that option by default and emits a warning in case you use it with external cages.
ALWAYS put an Edit Mesh + ResetXForm before exporting your meshes from 3dsmax. That will save lots of memory and time because xNormal could skip the triangulation process. ResetXForm is used also to pre-transform the normals saving exporting time and solving some possible artifacts with the normals.
If you're a Maya's user then Edit Mesh==Mesh->Triangulate. ResetXForm = Freeze transformations :poly136:
Lol! Funny pic
1. Your ray distances / cage is not well setup.
2. xNormal does not support MultiSubObj materials. All the mesh's faces must be UV-mapped and they must use the same material.
3. Don't use the old 3dsmax's max2obj exporter and neither the Blender's 2.5X beta .OBJ exporter.
3DS Max 2011 x64, win 7 x64, xNormal SBM Exporter
Stack(from top to bottom):
Unwrap UVW (ch1)
FlatIron (ch1)
Editable Poly