Search
-
Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
Hi all! The topic of normal maps seems (pun intended) to come up a lot here, so please excuse me for posting on it again. I recently became a 3D game art student, and I'm mostly self taught at this point. I gave myself the challenge of once and for all figuring out the normal map and AO baking workflow. I'd like to think… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
Heya EQ ! Of course, there are indeed circumstances where one might want to "harden all UV edges" - it depends on the kind of asset. And of course not every asset can be made with everything soft - it depends. My point is that there is a popular misconception floating around that tends to make artists believe that they… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
A bit of ye ol' history: The demonification of the hard edge dates back to the dark ages of poor baking software and worse baking workflows. Basically, before we collectively figured out how this whole baking thing works. In the old days, baking software didn't have an option to bake with an averaged or smoothed cage (I… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
I haven't read the whole thread thoroughly but I ran a find for "dilation" and "padding" and didn't see anything. Are you telling your baker to pad out your textures? Your latest image looks like a bit of the black background in the render is leaking through. Other than that, listen to Pior, dude knows what he's talking… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
Heya ! I never said that it is "pointless to worry about smoothing groups", quite the contrary. What I am saying is that it is pointless to put hard edges on all UV islands. It is a widely spread misconception that pops up about once a week here. There's probably a popular tutorial out there claiming that (or being very… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
While this is focused on Toolbag 3's baker, the following tutorial covers all of your issues and then some: https://www.marmoset.co/posts/toolbag-baking-tutorial/ Check out the Basics and Best Results sections. "I never said that it is "pointless to worry about smoothing groups", quite the contrary. What I am saying is… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
Both Designer and Painter make an averaged cage if not provided one, which is necessary to make the "match by name" technique work (where you can throw it one high and one low file with properly named objects and it bakes and combines them all in one go.) @Zalek4 you won't see much mileage out of dithering on such a… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
No problem! Dithering is well explained in this stickied thread: http://polycount.com/discussion/148303/of-bit-depths-banding-and-normal-maps Basically it adds a bit of noise as you convert a texture from 16 bits to 8 bits. This can be beneficial because when that rounding I mentioned happens, you can end up with pixels… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
Thank you a TON @somedoggy So essentially, seams exist because of truncated information? Interesting... Now for new questions :smile: I have heard about the bit depth problem with normal mapping before, and have read that something called 'dithering' is the solution. What exactly is that if you don't mind me asking, and… -
Re: Getting Confused with Normal Mapping [Solved]
Good questions! 1) You don't have to use a cage when using match by name (it is basically making one for you based off those ray distance values), but I have experienced cage bakes looking slightly better. 2) That would be very surprising if true but I can't speak to that. 3) No, but more geometry means you can get the low…
16 results