I'm a newbie trying to learn normal map baking, I'm using Maya 2008 and for the most part it's going well except when I try to bake cylinder type shapes. I've been using Ben Mathis's normal map workflow
http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow_2.htm to help me but I still can't seem to get the same results as his cylinder example (see link).
These are the steps I've been taking...
1^ this is my high poly and low poly cylinders. low poly is 16 sided.
2^ I place the low poly on top of the highpoly. I think my placement should be fine, but correct me if I am wrong. The red shaded is the search envelope for the baking. In Ben's tutorial, it's reffered to as the cage which I guess is 3DMax's term. I think what I am showing with the red shaded is the same thing but again correct me if I'm wrong. I've placed the top and bottom of the envelope very close to the top and bottom of the high poly model, encasing it but not touching it.
3^ This is how the low poly looks after the bake with the normal map applied. On the bottom there is weird bumpy things. It's also on the top but not as obvious.
4^ This is the resulting normal map generated which is not as clean as Ben's (below screen)
How come my normal map isn't coming out as clean as in Ben's tutorial? Also, I'm still learning so if there is anything I can improve in my steps or anything at all, please feel free to chime in!
Replies
Really if the only difference is a few more sides, and a beveled edge, your high could be your low.
Some good reading on the subject: http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=50588
I think you can specify a mesh as a cage in XNormal can't you? I guess beveling would clamp the effect some more to the point it isn't noticeable?
I think cheese is onto something, the low poly mesh you use to do the baking doesn't need to be the final mesh.
http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=761510&postcount=8