[xNormal] Artefacts on a baked normal map

Particle · May 2014

Hello,

I'm currently working on a small piece that I create for fun. It's a suppressor. I created High and Low on Maya, and then, I generated a cage with the Transfer Maps window.
In xNormal, I import my meshes and I click "Bake".

I precise that the models have the same coordinates in the 3D space. I moved the Low for the screenshot.

The result is ugly as you can see. The details are great on the "Planar" parts, but on all cylindrical parts, I have some ugly artefacts.

To solve this problem, I tried to bake without my cage, or to create a cage directly into xNormal. The result is still the same.
I checked UVs to avoid overlapping, I checked smoothing groups and all is clean. I can't find the problem's source.
If it can help, I'm using the last xNormal's version (3.18.7).

Thanks for taking time to read this post,
Hope you can help me,
Samuel.

EarthQuake · May 2014

This is pixel padding. It is a good thing. It makes it so when your texture gets mip-mapped in game (sized down) the data doesn't bleed over the edges and cause seams. If anything, you should have even more pixel padding (too much pixel padding isn't a thing) I set pixel padding to 96 pixels in xnormal.

Apply the texture to the model with a realtime shader. You can't really look at a normal map in 2d and point out errors (most types, at least) as that's simply not how it works.

Particle · May 2014

Thanks for your answer Earth Quake. I understand your vision of Normal Maps. So thanks for the explaination and for the tip.

[xNormal] Artefacts on a baked normal map

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