for me, while sometimes i will bevel edges that need it, most of the times, any hard edged object will have only 1 edge in the game mesh, and typically if that edge has 2 faces at 90 degrees from one another, ill split the uvs. not using a cage on something like that would result in a nasty black seam going down the center…
Well EarthQuake, as always you rocks ! :) Thanks for this explanation, I think I understand it now. Time to update my workflow then ! [EDIT] As discussing this with a friend, he asked me a good question : in the case of a sword, how would you process to get a good bake with a cage while getting nice hard-edge for the thin…
Yeah so there are basically a few different methods right: 1. Use averaged normals on your entire mesh, no hard edges or custom edited normals. Using a cage or not has no bearing on your baked result(unless you manually edit your cage, which works differently per app, hand editing the cage/envelope in Maya for instance…
Aren't you essentially adding more geometry anyway if you start beveling your cube and splitting the vertex normals to that extent? Personally I think different meshes call for different methods. Some can easily get away without a cage, which can make making one seem like excessive work. If you dont need one, you don't…
So the basic issue you have when not using a cage/averaged projection mesh with hard edges is that you will get gaps in your projection, which I'm not seeing in your example there which makes me wonder exactly what you're doing. This thread covers the issue in a lot of depth:…
Ah, I understand better now. Personally I haven't needed to tweak vertex normals at all (not manually anyway), and I've actually had incredibly higher success with the use of cages compared to not, in both xNormal and Maya. My work flow leaves all the UV mapping, smoothing groups, and texture baking till the very end.…
So I would like to ask a question that I'm asking myself since a very long time now. I'm a Maya user and now experienced to deal with vertex normals. I have also read some things here and there about smoothing groups and I think I understand them too, even if I don't use them. However, I really don't understand what is the…
I'm not sure what make my examples confusing sorry... :( I have already read it a lot of time, but I have hard to time to apply the logic of some parts with the usage of a cage. This is exactly what I'm saying ! :) When I say I don't use a cage, of course I'm talking about using an external geometry shape to drive the…