Artifacts in baking NORMAL MAPS.
Hi PEOPLE!
Begging for help. Result of my baking is awfull. Tried both with 3ds Max Projection and xNormals...
I think I almost understood the principals of baking tangent space maps - they are deep linked with normals of model. So when I make my model wholly smooth (as you see on the top picture) - normals make object unrecognizable.
I tried to use Edit normals modificator in 3ds max and achieved better results in that places which are circled with yellow marker - but only on one side of the model. Symmetry destroys all my hard work so I suppose there is some other helpful utilities for modifying Normals about which I did not heard.
Also when I import my model into other applications (Mudbox e.g.) - my edited normals do not save
Maybe my approach is fundamentally wrong and you will eventually show me the right direction. Need to solve that artifacts ASAP.
Thank you!
Begging for help. Result of my baking is awfull. Tried both with 3ds Max Projection and xNormals...
I think I almost understood the principals of baking tangent space maps - they are deep linked with normals of model. So when I make my model wholly smooth (as you see on the top picture) - normals make object unrecognizable.
I tried to use Edit normals modificator in 3ds max and achieved better results in that places which are circled with yellow marker - but only on one side of the model. Symmetry destroys all my hard work so I suppose there is some other helpful utilities for modifying Normals about which I did not heard.
Also when I import my model into other applications (Mudbox e.g.) - my edited normals do not save
Maybe my approach is fundamentally wrong and you will eventually show me the right direction. Need to solve that artifacts ASAP.
Thank you!
Replies
You said you understood that tangent space normal maps are "deep linked" to the normals of the model. So if the normal map looks like it has artefacts, but it looks fine when applied to the model.. than dont worry about it.
Maybe there's something I'm not understanding about what you're going for, though. Might help to see both High and Low poly models.
Also, changing the normals or SGs after baking will probably make the result look worse.
It also looks like you have an issue with triangulation. Try triangulating your mesh before you bake..you cant really control how a polygon will split up into 2 triangles, so it could have been triangulated one way for the bake, but reads a different way in engine...if that makes sense.
B. Apply smoothing groups to each uv island, this will likely help. Textools has a feature to do this automatically. More on that topic here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196
You were right - I didn't export the model to any game engine yet - just used 3ds max and Mudbox. I realise now that Max has issues with displaying normal maps in viewport. So I'm currently use Xoliul and 3point shaders.
Goat Justice, yeah, Edit Normals wasn't the right choise...
gsokol, I've triangulated it before baking. Just thought the wireframe becomes too complex for analizing on screenshots - so no triangulations there.
EarthQuake, just as I mentioned before - viewport in 3dsmax and Mudbox gave me much trouble to understand where I am not doing right. Thank you for linking that topic - It helped much!
Though I have another PROBLEM - half-visible lines on model - don't know how to get rid of them.
They appear no matter how high the resolution of Normal Map is. (pictures 1 and 2)
They appear in both in Xoliul and 3point shaders
Its somehow connected with Smothing Groups - it looks like as if every triangle has separate SG ---> though model is properly smoothed before ---> as you can see on the "default shader" picture.
On picture 3 - I smoothed it again - and lines are gone, however model looks not good.
Maybe there some troubles with exporting - cause I baked in 3ds max 2013 and Shaders works only in 2012... testing testing testing >:|
If the bad bake came from an external program, it might have to do with the cage mesh you exported. If you exported without preserving the SGs it could harden all the edges and give a screwy result. (I'd imagine you would be able to see it when looking at the baked map in photoshop if this happened) I do most of my baking in Max so I'm not an expert on this just going by what I've heard from others.
I found out that this is somehow connected with export-import and normals.
When I exported .obj and opened it in Marmoset - problem was there too. After some false tryies I happened to find the reason - in the "OBJ export options" --> Normalise tab ---> I marked "Normals". And the problem vanished. Also it dissapeared in Marmoset only. Somehow I can't solve it in Max 2013.
I tried to reimport previously exported file with different parameters with no luck however.