TransferMap Maya

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

Does anyone know why I am getting bad bakes?:

LowPoly result

High Poly:

Baked Normal:

GlowingPotato · Jun 2015

Search the wiki. there is tons and tons of material on how to make a perfect bake.

tahakitan · Jun 2015

you should download xnormal.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

I just tried Xnormal but this is the result:

I'm not sure what to do..

DontSassMeBro · Jun 2015

Are any of your UVs warped slightly? Have you given each of your UV islands a hard-edged border?

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

I don't believe so, and I have not manually given my uv's hard edge borders.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

This is not the case, but does it matter if there are n-gons in the high poly? (but not in the low poly)

mattyinthesun · Jun 2015

It looks like to me that your low res is simply too low res and doesn't match the high poly close enough.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

I added more geometry to the LP but those weird 90degree lines are still there..

GlowingPotato · Jun 2015

Are you using a cage to bake this ?

Hayden Zammit · Jun 2015

This is not the case, but does it matter if there are n-gons in the high poly? (but not in the low poly)

N-gons are fine in your high poly so long as it smooths alright.

What is your normals like on your low poly? Are they all smoothed + UVs sewn together?

Also, I don't know what this piece is exactly, but it looks like some sort of bolt. If it is, I wouldn't even have the indent modeled in. Could just be done with your normal map.

EarthQuake · Jun 2015

Looks like you have hard edges on the lowpoly but you haven't split the uvs in the same spots, that will give you those seams.

Also, how close are you going to get to this particular screw? It seems really excessive to model in the indent, unless its a huge screw or something.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

It will be very small.

I created a new HP and got rid of the modeled X shape on the face of the LP.

Result:
- Normal map from XNormal looks good.
- The Normal map when applied in Maya looks bad.

Here is the HP:

Here is the LP:

I don't know what I am doing wrong/How to fix this..

Clark Coots · Jun 2015

Try inverting your green channel

Hayden Zammit · Jun 2015

So in my experience, the only bakes that I've ever had looking right in maya are bakes I did in maya.

If you can, try it in toolbag and set the settings for the mesh to -xnormal.

You are actually smoothing the HP before you send it to Xnormal, right? You don't just have smoothpreview on by pressing the 3 key?

Are you using a cage?

Maybe upload your LP and HP here and me or someone else more experienced could troubleshoot it better.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

How can I upload the files?

m4dcow · Jun 2015

Zip them and put them on dropbox or something.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

Here are the high poly and low poly versions of the Screw:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xjysb8l8t6kllrs/ScrewHPLP.zip?dl=0

Neox · Jun 2015

the result looks like you are using your normalmap as a bumpmap

m4dcow · Jun 2015

So in xNormal you want to check "use cage" on your low poly, even though you don't have a cage file. It is the only way xNormal does an averaged projection, and this file is simple enough that you won't run into issues without using an actual cage.

You had some results with mesh skewing the way you have your low poly setup, so I did a version where I just poked the face. Now my version looks like it has no depth but I exaggerated the angle of the hole a bit and got this:

You could also have a larger bevel on the edge of that area so it shows up better on the normal map.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

I'm not sure how you got that clean bake.

This was my process:

HP Beveled and skewed (so there isn't a 90 degree drop):

Then I clicked smooth:

And this is the result: (Used Xnormal with LP cage checked)

m4dcow · Jun 2015

I exaggerated the skewing in the high poly. I got the same result as you in the 1st image. I think this happens because of the averaged projection, while the vertex normal are flat, the averaged projection is skewed, if you move the verts along the normal this is basically what happens.

m4dcow · Jun 2015

So, I don't want to get too complicated and/or introduce bad habits but as mentioned before, your the flat looking normal in this case is cause by a skewed projection.

In the following image, I used the right model to bake, and the left and right models share the same normal map.

This thread explains what is going on:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147227

You have to be careful doing this as any added geometry to prevent skews must not change the vertex normal. A good rule of thumb would be to limit this technique to planar geometry with hard edges.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

I still don't understand what I am doing wrong.. I can't seem to get a bake like yours..

Could you show a breakdown of what you did to achieve this?

m4dcow · Jun 2015

Okay, download this zip file
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10105386/pc/Screws.zip

I made a low poly with extra geometry to fix the projections, and a cage because there were some intersections. it also has a normal map, and a screws.obj file with all the different screw head model geometry, but identical vertex normal. If you apply the supplied normal map to all of them... they all look the same.

So use these files and try baking in xNormal yourself, the zip has your original high poly too, not a modified one.

In xNormal load the HeadHP.obj into the "High Definition Meshes" section.
Then load the head_low.obj file in the "Low Definition Meshes" section. Click the "Use Cage" checkbox, then right click on the same row select "browse external cage file" and load the head_cage.obj file.

Bake a normal map and it should come out exactly like what I have.

I stress again, adding geometry and then removing it is a thing that should only be done in certain situations, ie: when you don't alter vertex normals.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

I don't understand why it did not come out the same as yours:

I followed your steps:
added the HP mesh from your dropbox file
added the LP mesh from your dropbox file
checked use cage
right clicked and added the cage mesh from your dropbox file
had those Xnormal settings
Saved as a PNG (results below)
Tried again but saved as a TGA (again, results below)

The three meshes on the left are from your dropbox file, the one on the right is my low poly model.

I even imported your files to Maya, created a new material lambert, and applied the PNG/TGA and this was the result:

m4dcow · Jun 2015

So Neox mentioned many posts ago that you are applying your normal map as a bump map. I think that is the case.

On the Bump2d you need to change it to tangent space.

Greg DAlessandro · Jun 2015

that worked, thank you. If you don't use a normal map as a bump, how would you apply it to your material?

m4dcow · Jun 2015

Yourname942 wrote: »

that worked, thank you. If you don't use a normal map as a bump, how would you apply it to your material?

Well you still have to use the bump mapping to apply it to regular materials, but just select tangent space normal.

TransferMap Maya

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