Normal Map creation - 1st time

Hang10

Hey everyone, so I've made a few hard surface high poly models and I'm trying to learn on my own how to create and bake normal maps. I started small with a rocket pod I made an attack helicopter and I just thought I could get a few pointers on the whole normal mapping workflow.



The main area is obviously the rocket holes but I also have those artifacts on the top. Now I'm not sure if it's my cage or the high poly not being straight but it's something I'm investigating right now.

For those who wanna see my Helo here it is

explodingseashells

this looks like a simple matter of 90 degree angles wrecking ur normals. try chamfering/beveling ur end caps.

Hang10

I know what caused the linear artifacts now, I have the the bottom and top uv's overlying each other. I did the normal mapping process when they were rotated correctly I jsut had them in this pose when I took the image. Another reason for the artifacts was the smoothing groups I had, some didn't have any at all when I rendered the normal map so it has that defined line running across it.