ahh ok, thanks for the help guys! I def forgot to set up the smoothing groups on this part of the model. I was doing them previously but must have forgot when I needed to fix something using a non-smoothed version. I just re-did the low poly UVed mesh with the smoothing groups on and it fixed the problem. *facepalm
Painter itself can handle smoothing information just fine. The problem is in the baking because for every hard edge/smoothing group you need to have a separate UV shell. Otherwise you get the baking errors which is apparently what's happening on your mesh. More info is in the wiki. Farfarer was indeed referring to the…
thanks for the reply but aliasing does not fix it. could it be something to do with smoothing groups? I had them set to 30degrees which I don't think that is over but i read somewhere you dont want any smoothing group information at all on the low poly before bringing it into painter hmmm