Normal error or marmoset toolbag?

bloodmoon

Ok, I've been working on a toy and a box for it. Now I been working with the normal map for the box. And found a small error when rendering in marmoset toolbag. Don't know if it's my normal map or marmoset making my head spin.

Here is the model with the normal map all four renders are with the same norm map. Only the light is moved a bit between the renders.

The error I want to try to fix is the light edge error on the pictures to the right.

Please don't comment on the inside of the lid it's only back face culling. ^_^



Any tips of what to do to fix this? Thanks

Eric Chadwick

Modeled in which app?
Do you have a hard edge along each UV edge? (smoothing groups in Max)
"Chocking" is supposed to be spelled "Choking" I think.

Visceral

Normals i not my area of expertese at all. But In what app did you use to bake the normals in ? Beacuse if its a max bake i would suggest trying a bake within xNormal with a custom cage. That usually solves the issues. And i think you can do a better job with the unwrapping.

Make the whole box into one cluster in the UVs since you want that rounded corner. Im not sure if you have overlapping UV's but that would be another thing i would check.

Honesly i think you can get some better advice from the experts here on polycount

EarthQuake

This is a problem with your bake, your projection mesh needs to be averaged otherwise the results get "split" along your hard edges. In max you must use the cage(IE: do NOT "use offset"). Let us know where you're baking your normals.

bloodmoon

Modeled in Maya and I have not made any soft edges but I'll check so they are all hard around the UV. ^_^ Gotta correct that spelling error thanks.

bloodmoon

Baked in xNormal. Overlapping UVs are moved before baking.

EarthQuake

Yeah in xnormal you need to set up a cage in the 3d viewer to make sure the projection mesh is averaged. By default the projection mesh is split on your hard edges, which means missed rays.

[edit] You could also bake in maya, as it does the "correct" method by default i believe.

bloodmoon

This is the final picture after re-baking several times, tweaking both UV-layout, cage and the actual normal map.

Thanks for the help and tips.

bugworld

Hey I'm sorry I was about to make a new thread but I found this thread is about the exact same error I got I believe, hard edges in maya appeared breaking up with Xnormal's bake. EarthQuake could you elaborate on smoothing the cage in the xnormal's viewer? I've never used cage with xnormal, is smoothing the cage a option in its viewer? I couldn't seem to find it. And indeed maya gives perfect result, its just I wanted to learn xnormal and its giving me breaking edges wherever they are hard.
Is it possible to not use cage with xnormal? I mean I've never checked use cage option, does it mean it uses a default cage instead? So is it that if there's a average cage option that I can find, I must use it, then check the use cage before baking whenever I have lowpolies with hard edges?
Sorry didn't mean to hijack your thread bloodmoon, let me know if you think I should start my own and I'll delete my post, its just my problem is exactly like yours, or maybe you can help me out by explaining what you did? Thanks