@DarkDogma3D What material are you painting on in zbrush? My guess is the material is making the polypaint look different than it really is. Is the material light gray/white, or is it a color by default?
@Joopson thanks for the reply :pleased: I use SkinShade4 in ZBrush, its completely white and smooth, I first tried to export without a material applyed from zbrush, but i get the same wrong colors, then I applied at 100% the SkinShade4 and the result is the same, now I tried with Chalk that it is a grey with no reflections, the flat color material and BasicMaterial, I got the same wrong colors. I think it's not the material.
I always, before start painting in zbrush, fill at 100% to a white color, because if I dont paint at 100% before, then I get transparent colors on the bake, so the color and material, in theory, are correct.
And in xnormal bake highpoly vertex color options, I use the default white color, if I change to black, I get the same wrong colors.
@Joopson thanks for the reply :pleased: I use SkinShade4 in ZBrush, its completely white and smooth, I first tried to export without a material applyed from zbrush, but i get the same wrong colors, then I applied at 100% the SkinShade4 and the result is the same, now I tried with Chalk that it is a grey with no reflections, the flat color material and BasicMaterial, I got the same wrong colors. I think it's not the material.
I always, before start painting in zbrush, fill at 100% to a white color, because if I dont paint at 100% before, then I get transparent colors on the bake, so the color and material, in theory, are correct.
And in xnormal bake highpoly vertex color options, I use the default white color, if I change to black, I get the same wrong colors.
Do you have multiple polypaint layers? If you do try collapsing them and see if there is any change.
@m4dcow no, i don't use layers to polypaint. I even don't know how to create polypaint layers, I only know the layers in zbrush for apply morphing or do some facial animations, and no, there's any layer activated or merged, applied or anything.
the most strange thing about this, is that some colors are intact, as black, white, grey, and seems the red is intact too.
@DarkDogma3D Maybe the polypaint's colors are different due to the alpha channel or gamma ( try other file format like BMP. TIFF and PNG afaik use gamma correction ).
Or perhaps might be a bug related to the color channel order ( GGBBRR / RRGGBB / RRBBGG ). What happens if you swap the color channels in Photoshop, do you see a correct image?
Btw, if I remember well, the baked base texture is internally modulated by xNormal using the vertex colors, so please you check in the "Ignore per-vertex colors" or be sure you don't export your meshes with vertex colors.
@jogshy oooohhh, thanks a lot!!! you are right, the color channels order are incorrect, I got the correct colors if I change the Green channel to Blue channel, so I have to convert from RGB to RBG.
I use Gimp and I lost so many time finding the way to switch color channels haha.
Thanks again jogshy :pleased: Hope someday xnormal could do the channels switch when rendering, because is a bit tedious decomposing the 4 channels and then rearrange.
First of all, thanks for your time and effort in creating Xnormal. It's
an awesome app and very useful and convenient.
What I love the most is that is fast as hell. I've been recently trying
the OPTIX/Cuda renderer, but I've ran into some issues with it. I
remember using it in the past with incredible results, but for some
reason now doesn't work as expected.
As soon as I try to render something, my PC locks up like mad and takes
a ton of time to complete the render or respond in any shape or form.
I'm using Nvidia latest drivers, but I've read a post in some thread
where you recommended staying away from 364.xx drivers. Since now we are
in 368.xx, which ones should I install? Is it possible to get it working
with latest ones?
When I use "Default Bucket Renderer", everything works perfectly. I've
even tried the CUDA one in a fresh Windows installation with the same
results. My GPU is a Nvidia GTX 970, my CPU is AMD FX 8320 with 16GB DDR3.
I tried to delete the windows watchdog tweak that Xnormal inserts in the
registry. Xnormal makes Windows enter standby mode as soon as I try to
render something.
As an update I've tested all drivers from 368.xx to 353.xx (about the
date of release of Xnormal 3.19.2). They all do the same: PC lockup and
the render doesn't progress at all.
When I use "Default Bucket Renderer", everything works perfectly. I've
even tried the CUDA one in a fresh Windows installation with the same
results. My GPU is a Nvidia GTX 970, my CPU is AMD FX 8320 with 16GB DDR3.
You possibly get this problem because of your GPU. GTX 970 has a 3.5 Gb of "fast" memory and 0.5 Gb of "slow" memory (it's because of videochip architecture). With big amounts of data xNormal uses all your VRAM and so you get freezes in your OS and also long rendering times.
When I use "Default Bucket Renderer", everything works perfectly. I've
even tried the CUDA one in a fresh Windows installation with the same
results. My GPU is a Nvidia GTX 970, my CPU is AMD FX 8320 with 16GB DDR3.
You possibly get this problem because of your GPU. GTX 970 has a 3.5 Gb of "fast" memory and 0.5 Gb of "slow" memory (it's because of videochip architecture). With big amounts of data xNormal uses all your VRAM and so you get freezes in your OS and also long rendering times.
I also thought of that, but when I monitor ram usage doesn't exceed 2000 mb.
With MSI Afterburner, while rendering with CUDA and between lockups and freezes, showed about 1Gb Vram used (I had photoshop in the background).
That is strange. When I get total load using substance designer 5 my system freezes like you said and sometimes it is fatal freeze, but I use nearly 2 Gb VRAM (of 2 Gb).
EDIT: Hi there. Does anyone know why the lo poly mesh is brighter than the hi poly one? It's like the former has highlights and the latter doesn't. I only have the normal map loaded.
@mireazma-> We use different shaders for the HP mesh in order to optimize. The light's specular component is not as accurate as the LP mesh ( Phong vs Blinn model ). It might be affected also by the glow effect.
Btw, we're investigating the problems with the 970s.
@mireazma-> We use different shaders for the HP mesh in order to optimize. The light's specular component is not as accurate as the LP mesh ( Phong vs Blinn model ). It might be affected also by the glow effect.
Btw, we're investigating the problems with the 970s.
Thanks from me too. It makes sense. Having no maps for either models I suspected it was about different shaders (90%) and I wanted to make sure. In fact I like the HP looking more!
I'm stuck and i really need tough help. I'm currently using Matcap redwax in Zbrush (with mrgb) and trying to export it as my Polypaint to bake down to lp in Xnormal. My problem is that my Bake to highpoly vertex color is turning out totaly white (you clearly see where my uvs are but the uvs are pure white).
so my workflow So i'd like the information from the matcap (left picture) to bake down to my uvwed LP (right side) 1. sculpt highpoly 2. Paint in redwax matcap with mrgb and use colorize 3. Export it and open up xnormal 4. I load in my hp, unchek ignore per vertex 5. load in my Lp and check cage (using cage for this) 6. use bake highpoly vertex color
results.. Pure white texture.
I'm trying to export a couple of matcaps to use in photoshop. but it's not working.
Hey guys! SBM exporter doesnt seem to work with maya 16.5. Simply cant tick it in plugins section. Has any1 encountered that? Really need this for exporting vertex colors.
Hello , I baked a curvature map but i got visible seams on each square of the mesh visible in the baked map , does someone knows why this happens and how to fix?
My naked man is not reaching his potential due to these baking errors, please help. For the most part, it seems that of the few errors, all of them happen close to a seam, or nearly hidden area. Any help would be great
My naked man is not reaching his potential due to these baking errors, please help. For the most part, it seems that of the few errors, all of them happen close to a seam, or nearly hidden area. Any help would be great
Hi All, This is my first post to this forum, but I'm having some problems with baking normal maps in xnormal.
I've been getting these shiny reflective artifacts on the model. I've been looking online for hours trying to find what the issue is, but I can't seem to find anything.
My current settings are .SBM files, mesh scale at 15, ray distance is worked out using the ray distance calculator, Average normals (gave best Result), external cage, I'm using the bucket renderer, 2x anti aliasing, 8 edge padding and a bucket size of 16. I've checked the cage and it covers all of the HP model.
Any help as to why this happening would be much appreciated.
Is there any way of baking alpha to texture in xNormal? I need it for cutouts.
In the Alpha channel of every bake there is an alpha, I can't remember if you have to adjust padding for it to be a proper alpha map though, another annoyance is that map isn't anti-aliased.
Is there any way of baking alpha to texture in xNormal? I need it for cutouts.
In the Alpha channel of every bake there is an alpha, I can't remember if you have to adjust padding for it to be a proper alpha map though, another annoyance is that map isn't anti-aliased.
Thanks for the info, M4dcow. I ended up baking opacity from mesh with Substance Designer and blending it with a custom mask that regulates the occurrence of that baked map.
Hey guys, I'm trying to bake some AO maps on buildings with interiors, but the problem is that the interiors are rendered completely dark. I've tried playing with the ray distance values but with little luck, either the interiors end up completely dark, completely white or details from the outside of the building mesh gets projected on the inside. Any tips how to bake AO interiors?
>>xNormal is that apparently every vertex index must be the same between the lowpoly and the >>cage; having the same number of vertices is not enough. Is this correct?
The cage musty have the same TOPOLOGY:
1. Equal #vertices and #faces.
2. Same indices for the cage<->LP faces.
In general, once your lowpoly is finished, create the cage using a clone operation.
Then, you can MOVE the cage's vertices but NEVER add/remove vertices nor faces.
Also, caution if you work with quads and you have the "Use shortest diagonal" enabled in the xNormal's triangulator. I recommend to triangulate all your meshes manually to avoid problems.
>>the majority of your normal map's flat area has a color of 139,139,255
Yep, caution with normalizing and also with gamma correction (specially for PNGs and OpenEXR )
In Plugin manager> obj Importer> Triangulator I have only one option: default. I looked for it, because I have serious problem with cage. Xnormal claim that my vertex index is changing when it's not. Triangulation in Xnormal sounded like the perfect suspect but like I said, I have only one option there.
So, any other ideals? Why me clone of the low poly mesh is very often gives an error: vertex index bla bla bla? I seriously just use push mod on it and move few vertexes. (Push mod is safe, I've tested it).
EDIT: potential solution, haven't tested yet: Export your cage from max together with low poly mesh, with projection mortificatior (important: under projection mod. you should have EditMesh mod. (editable mesh?)). Export all as xNormal format- SBM, with preset "Low definition mesh".
Hi all, If someone can assist in height map generation that would be great...... It sometimes works sometimes not but please see the image below for the error I'm currently getting and can't seem to shake.
Hello! Im trying to learn xnormal. I made normal map in max 2017 scanline render and in xnormal. I think map from max looks slightly better. What Im doing wrong? What is max -> xnormal workflow? Maybe I miss something... This is normal? This artifacts on flat surface?
hey guys trying to bake this cave scene but i keep getting these weird missing chunks iv tried bringing the low poly as close as possible and it doesn't seem to effect it any takes on what is causing this thanks a lot ??
@Opteryx You need to flip the normals. Also, create some hole in the geometry to the rays can escape to the exterior and reach "the sky" ( for instance, remove a wall or the roof). If not, the AO will be rendered in black.
@philipp.bogdanovskiy That seems to be Z-fighting artifacts. Try to scale up the meshes and separate a bit the HP mesh from the LP one ( or give more distance to the cage ). Also, setup the cage in a way that covers completely the HP mesh.
@Chubbydan Try to use the manual tonemapping for heightmaps. Also, make sure you don't have overlapping geometry or multiple UV maps in the meshes when you export ( it's very easy to make a mistake and to export in the same file several meshes ). In 3ds Max, please remind to perform an Edit Mesh+ResetXForm+Collapse ( or Triangulate+Freeze transformations in Maya) before exporting. And setup the cage in a way that covers completely the HP mesh.
Hi, guys, Thanks for the thread, it's a mine gold ! I would like to have your feedbacks on the following steps : - For "Normals" baking , what is your methodology ? Do you use a cage from the 3dviewer or just put a number inside the max and min rays checker (0.5) ? To be honest, i 've had always use the first one, but yesterday, i tried the second option, and i didn't see any differences. - For "AO" baking, i would like to accelerate the processing using the CUDA/optix option (cg card :980Ti inside), but each time that i run the process, xnormals crash (version 3.19 for Xnormals and my CGdrivers are uptodate). Any idea ? Thanks again for your reply.
superdroso , for complex shapes I recommend to use cages. For simpler objects like boxes, walls, etc... the uniform ray distance method usually just works. The latest xN version ( 3.19.2 ) has some problems with Maxwell/Pascal-based cards. We'll fix that soon with the 3.19.3.
I'm trying to use the xnormal dilation photoshop plugin. Never used it but I'm using it now on a projection baked to uv's in maya but it's not doing anything. No dilation is happening and no errors.... Any ideas?
Does the layer you are trying to dilate have transparency surrounding all of the shells? It's been a few years since I used that plugin but if I remember correctly the layer needs surrounding content to be deleted, not just a layer mask.
Hi!! First, sorry for my bad English :P. I have this normal problem. Those are just simple beveled edges, this is its high poly mesh. And this is the result of those artificial in the normal map.
From what I have investigated so far, it's either because the beveled edges are too sharp or the UV size for this mesh is too small. Increase the high poly mesh polygons or triangulate doesn't help. Nor increase its cage size. However I just wonder if there is a way to fix this beside retouch the map in Photoshop. I also attached a rar file of all my meshes(low, high and cage I used).
NVM, it appears that it's because I didn't perfectly alight those UV seams to the perfect vertical. It's really slightly off from a perfect vertical and it changed the whole thing.
For the first time today I realized that you can GPU bake in xNormal, and it's way faster, however when I tried to do this for an AO bake I noticed that you can't use antialiasing for this method, and the result was quite a bit worse than when I CPU bake. Is this to be expected?
I'm stuck and i really need tough help. I'm currently using Matcap redwax in Zbrush (with mrgb) and trying to export it as my Polypaint to bake down to lp in Xnormal. My problem is that my Bake to highpoly vertex color is turning out totaly white (you clearly see where my uvs are but the uvs are pure white).
so my workflow So i'd like the information from the matcap (left picture) to bake down to my uvwed LP (right side) 1. sculpt highpoly 2. Paint in redwax matcap with mrgb and use colorize 3. Export it and open up xnormal 4. I load in my hp, unchek ignore per vertex 5. load in my Lp and check cage (using cage for this) 6. use bake highpoly vertex color
results.. Pure white texture.
I'm trying to export a couple of matcaps to use in photoshop. but it's not working.
Quick check: before you export your high poly, select the "white" material if your model turns to pure white then you didnt actually bake the polypaint on the model.
For the first time today I realized that you can GPU bake in xNormal, and it's way faster, however when I tried to do this for an AO bake I noticed that you can't use antialiasing for this method, and the result was quite a bit worse than when I CPU bake. Is this to be expected?
The current GPU renderer trades a bit of quality in favour of speed. Anyways, we're working on a new GPU renderer supporting AA. It's almost finished
I baked a displacement/height map in xnormal from a high poly model. I baked it to a 16 bit tif as well as an 8 bit tif. However when imported into zbrush as an alpha and used to draw out a shape, both the 8 bit and 16 bit tif both show almost identical banding/stepping.
This leads me to believe that either xnormal isn't using the full range of values when baked, or zbrush is crushing the values on import. Is there a way to verify the xnormal side of things? I also tried baking a 32 bit map and copying it into a 16 bit tif to downsample it, but the results were the same.
The upper rock in this image is the 16 bit, and the lower rock is 8 bit.
Issue Solved! It turns out that zbrush can only accept uncompressed grayscale 16 bit psds. I was able to disable the automatic photoshop compression, restart photoshop, and then convert the 16bit tif files to grayscale uncompressed 16bit psd files that worked in zbrush in true 16bit.
Replies
What material are you painting on in zbrush? My guess is the material is making the polypaint look different than it really is. Is the material light gray/white, or is it a color by default?
I use SkinShade4 in ZBrush, its completely white and smooth, I first tried to export without a material applyed from zbrush, but i get the same wrong colors, then I applied at 100% the SkinShade4 and the result is the same, now I tried with Chalk that it is a grey with no reflections, the flat color material and BasicMaterial, I got the same wrong colors. I think it's not the material.
I always, before start painting in zbrush, fill at 100% to a white color, because if I dont paint at 100% before, then I get transparent colors on the bake, so the color and material, in theory, are correct.
And in xnormal bake highpoly vertex color options, I use the default white color, if I change to black, I get the same wrong colors.
the most strange thing about this, is that some colors are intact, as black, white, grey, and seems the red is intact too.
Or perhaps might be a bug related to the color channel order ( GGBBRR / RRGGBB / RRBBGG ). What happens if you swap the color channels in Photoshop, do you see a correct image?
Btw, if I remember well, the baked base texture is internally modulated by xNormal using the vertex colors, so please you check in the "Ignore per-vertex colors" or be sure you don't export your meshes with vertex colors.
I use Gimp and I lost so many time finding the way to switch color channels haha.
Thanks again jogshy :pleased:
Hope someday xnormal could do the channels switch when rendering, because is a bit tedious decomposing the 4 channels and then rearrange.
What I love the most is that is fast as hell. I've been recently trying the OPTIX/Cuda renderer, but I've ran into some issues with it. I remember using it in the past with incredible results, but for some reason now doesn't work as expected.
As soon as I try to render something, my PC locks up like mad and takes a ton of time to complete the render or respond in any shape or form. I'm using Nvidia latest drivers, but I've read a post in some thread where you recommended staying away from 364.xx drivers. Since now we are in 368.xx, which ones should I install? Is it possible to get it working with latest ones?
When I use "Default Bucket Renderer", everything works perfectly. I've even tried the CUDA one in a fresh Windows installation with the same results. My GPU is a Nvidia GTX 970, my CPU is AMD FX 8320 with 16GB DDR3.
I tried to delete the windows watchdog tweak that Xnormal inserts in the registry. Xnormal makes Windows enter standby mode as soon as I try to render something.
As an update I've tested all drivers from 368.xx to 353.xx (about the date of release of Xnormal 3.19.2). They all do the same: PC lockup and the render doesn't progress at all.
I also thought of that, but when I monitor ram usage doesn't exceed 2000 mb.
Hi there. Does anyone know why the lo poly mesh is brighter than the hi poly one? It's like the former has highlights and the latter doesn't. I only have the normal map loaded.
Btw, we're investigating the problems with the 970s.
Thank you very much, sir. Any ETA?
I'm currently using Matcap redwax in Zbrush (with mrgb) and trying to export it as my Polypaint to bake down to lp in Xnormal.
My problem is that my Bake to highpoly vertex color is turning out totaly white (you clearly see where my uvs are but the uvs are pure white).
so my workflow
So i'd like the information from the matcap (left picture) to bake down to my uvwed LP
1. sculpt highpoly
2. Paint in redwax matcap with mrgb and use colorize
3. Export it and open up xnormal
4. I load in my hp, unchek ignore per vertex
5. load in my Lp and check cage (using cage for this)
6. use bake highpoly vertex color
results.. Pure white texture.
I'm trying to export a couple of matcaps to use in photoshop. but it's not working.
I use blender for low poly, zbrush for sculpt and xnormal for baking.
After loading LP\HP and cage into xnormal. I have really bad result.
1) AO texture have noise\black color;
2) On normal map baking together cup+handle on one texture.
http://s019.radikal.ru/i626/1607/d4/033ddf80438a.png
http://s012.radikal.ru/i319/1607/77/b43d7e65e39a.png
Any help would be great
Any help would be great
This is my first post to this forum, but I'm having some problems with baking normal maps in xnormal.
I've been getting these shiny reflective artifacts on the model. I've been looking online for hours trying to find what the issue is, but I can't seem to find anything.
My current settings are .SBM files, mesh scale at 15, ray distance is worked out using the ray distance calculator, Average normals (gave best Result), external cage, I'm using the bucket renderer, 2x anti aliasing, 8 edge padding and a bucket size of 16. I've checked the cage and it covers all of the HP model.
Any help as to why this happening would be much appreciated.
I ended up baking opacity from mesh with Substance Designer and blending it with a custom mask that regulates the occurrence of that baked map.
In Plugin manager> obj Importer> Triangulator I have only one option: default.
I looked for it, because I have serious problem with cage. Xnormal claim that my vertex index is changing when it's not. Triangulation in Xnormal sounded like the perfect suspect but like I said, I have only one option there.
So, any other ideals? Why me clone of the low poly mesh is very often gives an error: vertex index bla bla bla? I seriously just use push mod on it and move few vertexes. (Push mod is safe, I've tested it).
EDIT: potential solution, haven't tested yet:
Export your cage from max together with low poly mesh, with projection mortificatior (important: under projection mod. you should have EditMesh mod. (editable mesh?)). Export all as xNormal format- SBM, with preset "Low definition mesh".
Why those noises occur? What am I doing wrong?
If someone can assist in height map generation that would be great......
It sometimes works sometimes not but please see the image below for the error I'm currently getting and can't seem to shake.
http://i819.photobucket.com/albums/zz114/Chubbydan_slob/Height_Example.png
Im trying to learn xnormal. I made normal map in max 2017 scanline render and in xnormal. I think map from max looks slightly better. What Im doing wrong? What is max -> xnormal workflow? Maybe I miss something...
This is normal? This artifacts on flat surface?
https://twitter.com/xNormalApp
https://www.facebook.com/xNormalApp
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjPmEODM2JNwmRwBEoY7tRw
https://www.instagram.com/xnormalapp
We'll try to upload interesting content there ( 3rd party tools, news, tutorials, devlogs, etc... ).
And we hope to release the 3.20.0 soon.
thx!
@philipp.bogdanovskiy That seems to be Z-fighting artifacts. Try to scale up the meshes and separate a bit the HP mesh from the LP one ( or give more distance to the cage ). Also, setup the cage in a way that covers completely the HP mesh.
@logosm You might need to bevel a big the edges of your LP mesh. Also, make sure your smoothing groups and normals are well set.
http://docs.cryengine.com/download/attachments/15745515/pic_7.jpg?version=1&modificationDate=1400151164000&api=v2
@Chubbydan Try to use the manual tonemapping for heightmaps.
Also, make sure you don't have overlapping geometry or multiple UV maps in the meshes when you export ( it's very easy to make a mistake and to export in the same file several meshes ).
In 3ds Max, please remind to perform an Edit Mesh+ResetXForm+Collapse ( or Triangulate+Freeze transformations in Maya) before exporting.
And setup the cage in a way that covers completely the HP mesh.
Thanks for the thread, it's a mine gold !
I would like to have your feedbacks on the following steps :
- For "Normals" baking , what is your methodology ? Do you use a cage from the 3dviewer or just put a number inside the max and min rays checker (0.5) ? To be honest, i 've had always use the first one, but yesterday, i tried the second option, and i didn't see any differences.
- For "AO" baking, i would like to accelerate the processing using the CUDA/optix option (cg card :980Ti inside), but each time that i run the process, xnormals crash
Any idea ?
Thanks again for your reply.
The latest xN version ( 3.19.2 ) has some problems with Maxwell/Pascal-based cards. We'll fix that soon with the 3.19.3.
First, sorry for my bad English :P. I have this normal problem.
Those are just simple beveled edges, this is its high poly mesh.
And this is the result of those artificial in the normal map.
From what I have investigated so far, it's either because the beveled edges are too sharp or the UV size for this mesh is too small. Increase the high poly mesh polygons or triangulate doesn't help. Nor increase its cage size. However I just wonder if there is a way to fix this beside retouch the map in Photoshop. I also attached a rar file of all my meshes(low, high and cage I used).
Anyways, we're working on a new GPU renderer supporting AA. It's almost finished
This leads me to believe that either xnormal isn't using the full range of values when baked, or zbrush is crushing the values on import. Is there a way to verify the xnormal side of things? I also tried baking a 32 bit map and copying it into a 16 bit tif to downsample it, but the results were the same.
The upper rock in this image is the 16 bit, and the lower rock is 8 bit.