Problem with normal map weird artefacts

NAIMA

Hi sorry for all my questioning but I am really new to normal map extraction and I am making lot of errors seem , but Right now I am incurring in artefact problems coming from dunnowhere ... as you can see in the pictures there Is nothing wrong or at least for me in the meshes , the low poly matches the high poly exactly planarly the problematic areas , so I dunno why this ...

I spent the last couple hours remaking the smoothing of areas redecimanting reexporting etc etc , but the artefacts are always there ....

any idea what coudl that be due to or how to fix?

passerby

check your cage, it looks like it might be clipping into it;s self, or the highpoly model

Butthair

This looks like more of a problem with the projection cage.

If you're using the 3DS Max projection modifier, you can adjust it by hand.

If you are using xNormals to project, try going to Tools > Ray Distance Calculator. You'll get a popup, click "Go!". Wait a bit for the numbers to stop changing as much then copy results and exit. This creates a fairly more intuitive cage for projecting.

If you still get problems, or for the sake of a lower poly model, you can take out a few edge loops where it becomes concave. Just be sure to keep the silhouette and you can remove a great deal. Like the loops that are close together at the "cracks". This will also change the shape of the projection, being a bit simpler and less problematic.

NAIMA

So far I have fixed manually but as for the "cage" to see what was making the problem I have imported the 4 milion mesh into 3dsmax ...

apart the lag trying to rotate the thing , I could check that the planes ofthe poly did follow quite well the shape of the high poly one , so I didn't see any problem in it , yes there are some intrusions extrusions but I guess this is normal when a cruve shape gets aproximated by a flat one in the low poly no?

I am using xnormal anyway ....

Also when I get the occlusion map I see other weird artefacts like totally black areas and one Big black line cutting a piece of the mesh int two out of nowhere ....

Novian

@NAIMA: You can help the lag a bit by hitting "O" on your keyboard. This will cause your geometry to be shown only by it's bounding box while moving, panning, rotating, etc. It is very helpful for heavy poly counts.

Cheers~