Normal baking

Show your low poly and high poly model

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>>543166

Ah... the UV layout of the top of the ... I'm gonna say oil barrel? ....
Is that indicative of the topology on that part of the lo-poly? (can't see) because if so, you're obviously gonna get horrible lighting errors from such a hi-valence vertex.

If not, post better views of the lo-poly topography.
And screenshots of the lighting errors after the bake.

>>543162

Also you may wanna check your normals of the lo-poly.

In maya, turn two-sided lighting off in the viewport - any black faces that appear are pointing the wrong way.

Also - everything in the lo-poly has to be in the same smoothing group. Not sure how you manage smoothing groups in Maya though, sorry.

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>>543244

I really don't know what's going on I put it in substance baked there still got errors but the mesh looked...ok...ish...but in maya looks awful.

File: bn4_normals.png (69KB, 1024x1024px) Image search: [Google]

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Did another bake with edge padding off. I think it's better but I still don't know what is causing random black and light spots.

>>543257

Ok - couple of things.

1, You're using Maya which has Y-up I believe?
Are you sure you've got the Y/Z axis set correctly at every stage in the pipeline?

2. The topology on the top of the lo-poly is - no offence - stupid.
You shouldn't have anywhere near that number of edges terminating on one vert. It will ALWAYS cause pinching and lighting errors.

3. Are you just previewing the normal map in the Maya viewport...?
That's not gonna give you an accurate idea of what the normal map is doing. You need to view it in Marmoset toolbag or something.

>>543247

I'll bet it's a confusion between Y/Z as the up axis....

>>543259
How do I fix this?

>>543247

Go with what it looks like in Substance over Maya.

Post a screengrab of your lighting settings in the viewport; having two-sided lighting on or off will make a huge difference for how normals appear.

>>543260

Are you exporting the lo-poly as an .obj from Maya?

If so - there should be a setting at the export stage where it gives you the chance to flip the z/y axis.

Maya uses Y as up, and literally every other piece of 3D software in existence uses Z as up - it's fucking annoying but I don't use Maya anymore so.... yeah.

>>543242

Um.... where are the UVs for the bottom of the barrel?

Unpack the UV islands so the top and the bottom of the barrel have their own real estate. I'm not sure but I think having them overlap like that might cause xNormal to get confused...

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Re-UV'd the mesh, changed the top and going to try the Export thing.

File: Whyamishit.png (573KB, 653x965px) Image search: [Google]

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Here it is in Marmoset. I don't know why i'm fucking this up the bake still comes out with these errors around the ridges on the top bottom and center.

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>>543269

It may actually be caused by the hi-poly geo you're getting the bake from:

did you create your hi-poly object off the same low-poly that you have now retopologized (which still has a high-valence vertex right in the center!)

if so - that may be the problem. Again - you cannot have 18 edges all meeting at one vertex!

the top of the barrel should be based on quads like pic related.

>>543269

Also - you are sure you've committed the UV map to the low-poly as well, right?

>>543272
I created the low poly and then duplicated it and added minor detail. I will fix the vert thing as well. I'm just very annoyed by the random issues i'm having on the ridges at the top and bottom of the mesh (and the centre but not as much).

>>543275

You need to start over with good topology on the low-poly then make the high-poly model from that lo-poly.

Also i'm not quite sure what wonders you're expecting this normal map to do that lo-poly geo.

I mean, a low poly mesh will appear faceted from close distance, whether there's a normal map or not.
Remember - making good looking game assets is all about smoke and mirrors - and the normal map is only one part of that.
You've yet to texture it and add an AO map and light it carefully and set it in a detailed environment.

Until you do all that, a low-poly cylinder is gonna look like a low-poly cylinder.

>>543272
Wouldn't insetting the top of the barrel on the high poly cage achieve the same effect as quadrifying it? Never seen people quadrify cylinder ends desu.

>>543278

Dude... just use the polycut tool or multi-cut tool or whatever it's called in Maya now and cut it into quads. this is literally a 30 second job.

No it's not the same as quadrifying it, because quadrifying it will produce a million more polygons than needed and they will potentially be laid out badly still because they were derived from bad base topology!

Seriously - cut the thing up properly. There is no quick way around this.

You can get away with a few triangles and stars here and there on lo-poly geo if there is going to have a normal map applied to it, because the normal map will hide the small lighting errors caused by the inconsistent topology, but trust me - 18 edges meeting at one vertex will not reflect light well!

>>543278

Please read this page:

http://graphics.pixar.com/opensubdiv/docs/mod_notes.html

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>>543278

>>543269
That's got something to do with the way the rays are projected on your bake. It's a common problem with baking cylinders.
The rats nest on your cap doesn't really matter for your low poly since its flat and you would only need good topology for the high poly but since you already have that it doesn't matter. You might do one inset at the top poly and it will be fine.

This video is exactly what you need to fix the normal bake on the ridges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnuK6xyi-qY

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>>543346
Basically you want your projection to be like this.
You might need to make a hard edge on the border of the top and bottom cap to make it work better.

>>543280
>There is no quick way around this.

It's an interesting workflow and I would definitely use it should it become needed, but I've been baking meshes with poles on flat surfaces (like these inset cylinder ends) without a single problem so far.

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I've edited the mesh some more. I don't know how to do the Cage thing in Maya like in the example above. I've just made a cage that covers the mesh.

However these latest ones still have issues but no where near as bad. It's getting there

>>543393
If you use xnormal you can just export a second modified low poly mesh to use as the cage.

>>543394
I have been. I increase the mesh slightly by scaling via normals. Still getting this shit.

>>543396
Try detaching the caps and only scaling the hull of the cylinder to the sides (xz-axis in maya I believe) and then baking both seperately

File: Workingish.png (112KB, 726x810px) Image search: [Google]

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Swapped over to 3ds max and baked it in there, got it working I just followed how the guy did it in the video someone linked earlier.

I guess If I want to use X-normal i'll just smooth the mesh and cage and export that.

Thanks all for help on to Texturing.