Baking - Normal Map - Warping and Detail Bending
polycounter lvl 12
Hey to all, major issue here, need help.
Here is the issue, I'm trying to bake a normal maps, but no matter what, I can't get it to work correctly or bake.
Hardsurface, baker is Xnormal, I used control loops in all cases and even without, however, nothing changes, problem persists.
In first case, I used only one smoothing group, but as you can see, my bakes are bending, it's losing details, but it bakes the edges correclty. My holes and stuff warp for some reason, it's eating my detail away from one angle.
Second is more or less the same, but it's has average normals, it bakes my details the best in this way, but for some reason, I get horrible streaking at the uv islands as well edges.
I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to do at this point. I could have sworn I baked several models before without so much hassle, any idea what gives?
Here is the issue, I'm trying to bake a normal maps, but no matter what, I can't get it to work correctly or bake.
Hardsurface, baker is Xnormal, I used control loops in all cases and even without, however, nothing changes, problem persists.
In first case, I used only one smoothing group, but as you can see, my bakes are bending, it's losing details, but it bakes the edges correclty. My holes and stuff warp for some reason, it's eating my detail away from one angle.
Second is more or less the same, but it's has average normals, it bakes my details the best in this way, but for some reason, I get horrible streaking at the uv islands as well edges.
I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to do at this point. I could have sworn I baked several models before without so much hassle, any idea what gives?
Replies
Reread the Understanding averaged normals thread. Your holes are getting distorted because the normal direction isn't perpendicular to that surface, which you really want for that particular area. Either different smoothing group setup, or add some control loops to keep that area in check.
Max wasn't exporting my stacked modifiers which had the cage and support loops in them to Xnormal, so it was baking a mesh without the bell and whistles.
Cheers and sorry.