roadkill is a standalone unwrapping tool, though there is a maxscript which automatically send your model as .obj to it and recieves an unwrapped model back with just one click. then you have a basic layout and can start fuzzing around. though i prefer working directly in roadkill...
Thanks snoop. I'm having some issues with the bake, which can best be described as gradient banding. Here's a shot from marmoset of the issue. I'm exporting the high and low poly from 3ds max as obj. The bake is from xNormal v3.18.3 with a resolution of 8192x2048.
did you go under the "Subdivision" menu and "Save" there? That's the one if you want to export subdivided retopo mesh (= more polys). If you want to save as it is in the viewport go to Edit -> Save scene as -> There select "obj". This should export your mesh with the polycount as you did it.
so if the red is the outline of the obj that I attached.. so that is my base shape, what would you use as the green area to get the various shapes, extrusions, edges etc? Also, would you be using dynamesh or just subdviding to get more polys in play?
Thanks MoP, when I export .obj from 3dMax they're all aligned to how the final mesh will be. What I'm thinking is that I should make separate passes for each normal map then combine these in photoshop. Still getting used to the workflow. Thanks man.
looking forward to whatever you cook up. while i have never used 3/4ths of the tools in your toolset, the other 1/4 are so immensely helpful (auto viewport / base obj / hotkeyable span select / the various inner & outer selections) ..
Try disabling the option to load history when opening projects. Only save history when it is something you need. Try selecting a subtool and click the make poly mesh 3d button to make a clean clone with no history. Try exporting that as both a tool and obj.
Tadao215: As long as it's a texture map you can merely right click on the file in the generic browser and click export (from which you can select the file type of TGA, etc). EDIT: P.S. you can also do this with exporting meshes to OBJ format.
Why do you want to reimport it back into Max? I would use Xnormal and import the obj from Mudbox or Zbrush. If you dont use this solution then you can take the high sub divided model and step it down and reimport it into max and see if that works.
Did you already tried the free Zmapper plugin for Zbrush? Here is the link: http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=031281 I would always prefer to make my normal map in Zbrush before I try to import a high poly OBJ into Max.