Texturing socom mk23 -=wip=- NEED HELP!
Hello everybody! This is my first post here on polycount. So thank you forward to be patient with me!
I'm texturing (yep, that's my 1st time) a low poly model of a gun. I made hi-poly then lowpoly and did a transfer maps in Maya for normal maps. And that seems ok
At this point i should make a normals for the "inscriptions" in Xnormal. So I tried to use height source from alpha or from grayscale value-both giving same result (outward 'displacement'). As far as i'm using soft normals on (almost) entire model it cause those gradients on normal map (where the geometry is actually flat). so making a straight text, converting it in normals and placing over the texture give me some weird lighting.
So what should I do? Is there some trick in PS?
Another problem that I have in Xn is ambient maps baking (as far as normal, but for those fortunally maya's working well). For now I'm just messing with baking parameters trying to find legit values. I even exploded my model! The method that seem to me more fulfilling is to convert tangent space normal map into cavity map. But the result is tooo smooth without getting those normal map artifacts, that's not a "true" ambient I see in this forum!
BTW, i'm started using marmoset toolbag. Noticed some highlights where are my texture seams are (with smooth edges). Is this possibly to avoid?
Other advices are welcome.
I'm texturing (yep, that's my 1st time) a low poly model of a gun. I made hi-poly then lowpoly and did a transfer maps in Maya for normal maps. And that seems ok
At this point i should make a normals for the "inscriptions" in Xnormal. So I tried to use height source from alpha or from grayscale value-both giving same result (outward 'displacement'). As far as i'm using soft normals on (almost) entire model it cause those gradients on normal map (where the geometry is actually flat). so making a straight text, converting it in normals and placing over the texture give me some weird lighting.
So what should I do? Is there some trick in PS?Another problem that I have in Xn is ambient maps baking (as far as normal, but for those fortunally maya's working well). For now I'm just messing with baking parameters trying to find legit values. I even exploded my model! The method that seem to me more fulfilling is to convert tangent space normal map into cavity map. But the result is tooo smooth without getting those normal map artifacts, that's not a "true" ambient I see in this forum!
BTW, i'm started using marmoset toolbag. Noticed some highlights where are my texture seams are (with smooth edges). Is this possibly to avoid?
Other advices are welcome.
Replies
I would like to get rid of those lighting artifacts, but don't know what causing them.
I've used geometry normals matching in maya while baking nomal map. The entire model was soft edge. Should I harden UV seams, and rebake?
2. Rebake
3. Lock normals
4. Triangulate
5. Export
Should give you the best results going from Maya to Marmoset Toolbag.
On my laptop here so I don't have access to maya, but its in the same menu as soften edge, harden edge, etc... Just under mesh -> ?
At this point have some questions:
0. Locking normals:what it does? the whole normal map appears different and when triangulated some edges became hard.
1. For uvs I've did complete unwrap for less distortion. Should I do a planar projection on geometry where goes the grip texture?
2. polycount: what's optimal number for a realtime game? Is there some principle I must follow? Now there's 4k tris. The uv number is also has significance(as far as it's different from vertex count) ?
3. Ambient occlusion map. I'm stack with this. Maya's baking not working. Xnormal request some serious digging in the settings. Crazybump just converts normalmap into grayscale image (maybe with my new normal texture it will work:shifty:). So the question is: what I have to do?
Another one: while converting a height map into a tangent space in Xnormal how to reverse the result? The details generated go "in the mesh" (sorry for my poor language) though I'm trying to get opposite effect.
PS. thanks a lot Mr. EarthQuake for your quick and precise reply:thumbup:
1. Not sure what you mean. Post some images to explain?
2. 5000-10000 is about normal for current generation hardware, for a first person gun in a typical first person shooter game. Less for 3rd person. 4K is fine.
3. You'll really need to bake it in Xnormal. Maya can't bake highpoly to lowpoly AO maps, at least in the last version of Maya I used. You have to bake to the highpoly first, then bake that to the lowpoly, its really shite.
No idea about your height map question, don't really understand what you're asking.
I'm not sure if its necessary, in Maya you need to do it because a triangle's vertex normals are calculated differently than a Quad or Ngon's. In Max this isn't the case, I'm not sure about Modo.
-don't know why cant make a screenshot in the toolbag. while pressing F12 it stamps its logo over my mesh.
Any C&C are welcome! Maybe should make some holes or other details?
Is there any benifit to that work flow versus triangulating before baking?
In modo, the normal of any polygon (any number of sides) is the cross product of it's first two edges. So if you've got a non-planar polygon, it's normal will change when you triangulate it (and, as a result, so will the normals of it's vertices).
igi: Yep, the Set Vertex Normals command will bake the normal(s) for each vertex into a "vertex normal map". They're stored in object-space. So any changes to the mesh (that don't add new geometry) will not affect the normals at all (you can move, scale, rotate, triangulate, etc).