black edges from xnormal

raven9 · Feb 2013

Hello! I used a high poly and a low poly model and exported them both from maya into xnormal to get a normal and an AO, and got this.

Anyone know how to get rid of the black edges?

r4ptur3 · Feb 2013

These could be from low edgepadding issues. Try setting the edgepadding to something like 4 or 5 -- this will bleed the pixels along the UV edges and eliminate artifacts like that.

You might want to test the AO and Normals separately to see which map(s) is messing up.

raven9 · Feb 2013

the padding is already at 3 and both AO and normal has the edges

SlyRipper · Feb 2013

post a screenshot of your textures maybe we can see what it is? I would also guess for edge padding or a material/shader thing. You could also get a line on edges that have 90+ degrees.

raven9 · Feb 2013

SnakeDoctor · Feb 2013

Did you break UV seams where different smoothing groups meet? You might want to try separating edges that are 90 degrees from each other in your uvw map.

BARDLER · Feb 2013

Also looks like you have no edge padding, that could be it as well.

EarthQuake · Feb 2013

Set up a cage, if you have hard edges/smoothing groups set up but you're using the default ray distance settings, you'll get gaps at your hard edges.

raven9 · Feb 2013

thanks for the replies :x but what do you mean set up a cage?

SlyRipper · Feb 2013

raven9 wrote: »

thanks for the replies :x but what do you mean set up a cage?

Enter the 3D Viewer on xNormal and edit the cage till it covers the whole model and doesn't intersect with other cage/model parts. You need to save the cage then, it can also be auto-assigned within xNormal.

passerby · Feb 2013

could just create a cage in Maya too by copying the lp than pushing things out a little on there normals.

r4ptur3 · Feb 2013

A cage is a boundary the baking program uses to say "hey, don't shoot rays beyond this point!". If the cage does not extend far enough you will get plateaus and blank areas in your map. If the cage extends too far your mesh will project onto itself and cause weird artifacts.

In Xnormal this is the F and R raycast distance values. You can also go into the viewer like SlyRipper said and manually set one up for more accuracy (instead of a blanket value).

EarthQuake · Feb 2013

r4ptur3 wrote: »

A cage is a boundary the baking program uses to say "hey, don't shoot rays beyond this point!". If the cage does not extend far enough you will get plateaus and blank areas in your map. If the cage extends too far your mesh will project onto itself and cause weird artifacts.

In Xnormal this is the F and R raycast distance values. You can also go into the viewer like SlyRipper said and manually set one up for more accuracy (instead of a blanket value).

No, the front/rear raycast settings in xnormal are not a "cage" by the common usage of the term. A cage refers to an averaged projection mesh. The F/R default raycast will shoot the rays straight out from the lowpoly mesh normals, which means gaps anywhere you have hard edges.

More here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81154

Specifically:

EarthQuake wrote: »

Oh, and another thing. Even if your lowpoly's normals look like A, your Cage/Projection mesh normals look like B. That is unless of course your bake is set up poorly(either using "offset" in max, match using "surface normals" in maya, or using the ray distance in XN instead of a proper, welded cage). If your cage is not averaged, you will get seams on all of your hard edges, as the normals will be facing perpendictular along those edges, and cause gaps in the projection.

r4ptur3 · Feb 2013

my bad, apparently.

black edges from xnormal

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