Everytime I bake normal maps in xnormal I get extremely ugly results. I made this model to test out smoothing groups and perfect normal baking. In this image, my cylindrical bases will be divided like so: The cylindrical part will get a cylindrical map with one smoothing group on one UVW island. The top of the cylinder…
You don't need to add any more geo to get an OK bake out of this. Your smoothing groups should be defined by your UV islands. There are [SCRIPTS] that will do this for you automatically. If you have a smoothing group break, you have to split that in the UV's otherwise your normals will break, which is exactly what is…
So a general rule to follow, if you have a unique smoothing group then you need to have a UV split along it. The reason you are seeing seams is because you don't have UV splits along your smoothing groups. This thread Goes more in-depth then I have time to do right now. The main problem you are facing is that you don't…
Ok so for mapping that, would I still wrap the cylindrical part as a cylinder projection, and the top with the new bevel would just be a quick planar map? And each island gets one smoothing group?
Ok so I made one smoothing group per UV island using textools. Rendered it in marmoset and this is the result: it's slowly getting a little better, still some issues (ive circled them) But overall I am liking this :D
As a protip, the new versions of 3DSMax have a button that auto unwraps based on smoothing groups. <3 that they added that. I also agree that your view in Max may look weird because you are using Xouliul's shader. You should switch it to Nitrous and see if the issues lessen.
The idea behind adding more geo is to reduce the amount of sharp edges you have. So start with the base hexagon for example, notice how the highpoly has a smooth transition from the top of it to the side of it? Try to represent that in the lowpoly by giving the outer edge a bevel. You'll have to re UV map the object if you…
Your uv and smoothing group setup looks fine to me. So does your normal bake. I think the main problem here is that xoliul shader doesn't work properly with max 2013+. I had similar problems some time ago when I tried it with max 2014 I think. http://www.laurenscorijn.com/future-xoliulshader-support.html Try Marmoset2 or a…
The muzzle cylinders are not really 'errors'. Those are just cases where you should have quite a bit more geometry to describe that shape if you want them to look a bit more accurate. At least double the amount of sides on those cylinders. The edges you have highlighted are also not really errors. Those edges correlate…