Collar topology/Normals issue

user38

I'm having some troubles with getting nice looking normals around the collar of a pretty simple character I have. I've been through several different iterations of the topology in this area none yielding satisfactory results. I don't have images of the bad results but (deleted the useless normal maps) but I do have images of the current topology and a screen grab from zbrush.

I'm about 95% sure this is a result of my crappy topology incase it's not I'm using Maya 2011 x64, xnormals for map creation using high quality render with normal maps set to tangent space.

thanks for any topo tips or help/advice you can give.



topo 1:


topo 2:


topo 3:


Zbrush grab:

Scruples

It's hard to gauge what sort of problem you are having without seeing the result with the normal map applied as the tangent normals themselves appear to not be too distorted. It is then most likely a problem when generating your normal maps. Did you try generating the normals within Maya using a decimated mesh?.

cryrid

If you mean that dark shading, you probably just need to move the verts on the bottom out more so that it can catch the light (or add some extra geo so that the transition isn't so sharp).

EarthQuake

If you're using maya, render your normals in maya. Maya will always display Maya baked normals better than normals baked in any other app. If all you need to do is preview in Maya, this should fix your issues.

If you need to send it off to a different engine, you'll probably want to use some hard edges.

user38

Scruples wrote: »

It's hard to gauge what sort of problem you are having without seeing the result with the normal map applied as the tangent normals themselves appear to not be too distorted. It is then most likely a problem when generating your normal maps. Did you try generating the normals within Maya using a decimated mesh?.

yeah, I think I was just so frustrated at the time I think I went out on a search for help kinda knowing that it was my crappy topology and looking for help mostly on that end of things. The normals were generated in xN via lowpoly cage out of topogun/maya and highpoly meshes out of zbrush.

cryrid wrote: »

If you mean that dark shading, you probably just need to move the verts on the bottom out more so that it can catch the light (or add some extra geo so that the transition isn't so sharp).

This actually helped me a bit, I never really knew how to fix that burning I would see on polygons in maya. I typically only saw it after I softened normals.

dustinbrown wrote: »

Yep it's your geometry. Specifically, those bottom corner areas of the collar. You're going to have to put UV seams in some front and center areas in order to get those corners to unwrap. That's bad. Find a different topology solution, and think about UV seams when you're doing it. Also, if you have the option, make the guy and the shirt all part of the same mesh.

Thanks Dustin, this is pretty much exactly what I needed to do although it's not perfect right now it's a million times better than it was before. If I'm still not happy with the results, I might combine the head and body to see if that does anything extra for me, for now I would like to keep them separated... although I can't give you a good reason why.

EarthQuake wrote: »

If you're using maya, render your normals in maya. Maya will always display Maya baked normals better than normals baked in any other app. If all you need to do is preview in Maya, this should fix your issues.

If you need to send it off to a different engine, you'll probably want to use some hard edges.

Thanks EQ, I've been planning on buying marmoset, it's probably what I'll use to display the model and the ones I do in the future.

So here are the updated results, the topology is still kind of sloppy I probably have to adjust it more. It's something I really need to get better at. I rendered out a 1k map out of xNormal just to preview the results, no point in waiting for the larger res to render if there were still issues.

It's a million times better than before but I still have some minor issues that I think I'll be able to fix in photoshop. If you see anything wrong or something that just totally sucks, please let me know so I can try to fix it.

normal map :


UV layout:


Topology "fix":










Applied 1k Normals:

D4V1DC

Looks like you need to first give It more space, if not, try adding more detail to that area or depth to the highpoly so the normals can project a better quality, maybe overlaying a dupe of that normal map at 50%-100% will help try that.

user38

thanks $!nz ii'll try your suggestions