[Technical Talk] - The ultimate be-all end-all normal mapping thread [Archive] - Page 3

EarthQuake

07-20-2009, 11:31 AM

Does the green channel need to be inverted? I think UE needs max style, but XN is set up to use maya style by default.
Try welding the uvs before you bake/export as well.
I would be curious to see what it looks like in the XN viewer as well. If it looks perfect there, you likely just need to flip the green channel.

Also, do you have any strange mirroring?
If you have any mirrored sections of your uvs, they need to be offset(just 1 side) out of hte 0-1 uv space before you bake.

OBlastradiusO

07-20-2009, 11:34 AM

Newbie question alert. How do you make the normal map stronger in unreal engine 3?

almighty_gir

07-20-2009, 11:38 AM

EQ, there's no mirrored objects, they're all using unique space. there's nothing to weld, that's a UVW seam.

EarthQuake

07-20-2009, 11:49 AM

Do an auto weld on the UVs anyway, im not sure what app you're using, but i've had issues exporting from modo where random verts would be unwelded in the UVs and i would get similar errors.

almighty_gir

07-20-2009, 12:03 PM

i'm using 3dsmax, also, the normalmap doesn't look fine in x-normal. i've tried welding everything, but it shows there's been no verts welded.

almighty_gir

07-20-2009, 03:26 PM

seems i fixed it while tinkering with some settings...

i think i had told xnormal to invert a channel before, and turned it off this time. looks much better now :)
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8741/pridizzlew.jpg

NoisyMonk

07-20-2009, 03:43 PM

Looking good gir.

I didn't want to repost my question, so I'll just post this link (http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=970298&postcount=497) and hopefully someone will be able to help me out. Thanks!

vik

07-25-2009, 04:39 PM

Newbie question alert. How do you make the normal map stronger in unreal engine 3?

You can multiply it with a 3constant vector. (2,2,1 for example)

NoisyMonk: Just a guess, but make sure `Include working model` (or whatever it`s called) is unchecked in Max

Akkiras

08-06-2009, 10:52 AM

In 3ds I have a render to texture problem when creating normal maps. It's that I can render anything 2024 and under and it will work properly. But when I do anything higher than 2024, My normal map now goes all black or turns to a diffuse. I don't change any of the settings between renders, I just up the size of the map.

Why when I go over 2024 map size, does it not render out a normal?

GCMP

08-11-2009, 08:42 PM

Currently redoing a model and seem to be coming across a shading issue, though I'm not really sure if it's normal or not.

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu196/GCMax/Temporary/vshapedplanksshading.jpg

The planks are mirrored, not joined but I did try symmetry and it made no difference. I'm wondering is this just due to the way scanline works and if this problem will dissappear with mental ray/x normal when it comes to baking normals and ambient occlusion maps?

@ Akkiras - 2024 is a funny size, personally I have no problems baking out 2048 textures, haven't gone higher than that but it sounds like you are having a memory issue.
Occasionally black renders with mental ray occour but that's a known problem and is a random event, usually just merge the geom into a new file then it works.

GCMP

08-12-2009, 02:31 AM

Double post (sorry) merged to a new file & did all the usual checks, def a shading error in 3ds max 9, default lighting & mental ray give the same error - only a centralised omni or other standard light gives a predictable real world result.

Here's the file (http://www.filefactory.com/file/ah1a3a8/n/Max_file_gcmp_zip) if anyone wants to have a look...

ps: if I am being a complete twit let me know because this has me stumped as it doesn't happen in real world lighting so it shouldn't happen in mray:\

EarthQuake

08-12-2009, 09:27 AM

uh, i dont see the problem here? Each side has planks facing in different directions, so of course the lighting will be different. How is that incorrect?

GCMP

08-13-2009, 02:24 PM

Thanks for replying EQ, yes the planks are angled slightly away from each other but I assumed that mr ambient occlusion would render this as a centralised standard light would with shadows turned on, just with better quality from the bounced light producing an even spread throughout all the geometry.
Suffice to say I changed the design so that asymmetrical dammage detail could be done without manually having to alter any baked maps afterwards because this looked pretty bad.

I must be missing the understanding of how mental ray and the viewport lighting actually works but I would love to find out.

Eric Chadwick

08-13-2009, 03:22 PM

Standard lighting simulates light coming from a single direction, so the planks on one side are going to be lit stronger than the other, unless the light is coming from straight above the apex.

Ambient occlusion simulates light coming from a ton of directions (usually a dome), so the planks will have a soft shadow under each.

A game asset with AO will typically also be lit with a standard directional light (or some spot lights), so your wall there will still show the same "problem" which isn't really a problem, just the way lighting works.

Nobody does clapboard siding like that anyhow, it's always horizontal. Not saying you don't have the right to do it that way, whatever floats your boat.

http://www.unitedhomeexperts.com/Portals/61368/images/CopyofPicture012.jpg

Zwebbie

08-19-2009, 07:19 AM

I've got a question on object space normal maps.

Do they need bevels for 90° angles? For as far as I can tell, they can do without, but all the OS normal mapped models I've seen (like EarthQuake's FPS weapon) look like they'd work with tangent space normals too. Information on this is scarce and I'd like to be sure :) .

(To put it into context: I'd like to make a lowpoly version for this (http://www.joeyspijkers.com/misc_img/MG08Back.jpg), but if everything needs bevels and semi-decent normals, the triangle count will go through the roof.)

Eric Chadwick

08-19-2009, 09:43 AM

Nope, object-space mapping doesn't need any low-poly tricks to solve smoothing errors, because there is no "smoothing" whatsoever. The only reason to add bevels to the low-poly model would be to add silhouette or parallax, if that's what you want.

FWIW, http://wiki.polycount.net/Normal_Map#head-45cb26379c2660d0c4b2ad2d3e94588288df8da5

Zwebbie

08-19-2009, 01:44 PM

That's good news, though I feel like an idiot for not having thought of reading the wiki page that I keep linking people to when they have trouble with normal maps. Either way, much appreciated, Eric!

Eric Chadwick

08-19-2009, 08:13 PM

Hey, no biggie. I think there are still a couple wrong things on there, need to spend some more time on it I think.

EarthQuake

08-23-2009, 08:45 PM

Just wanted to post and say that after using maya for baking pretty extensively, everything mop says in this thread is 100% correct.

gaganjain

08-28-2009, 08:11 PM

Was baking normal map came across this problem getting edge bleeding were seam
It bleed mainly where uv are complex
how do fix edge bleeding ? by bluring bleed or coloring near by it
http://img2.pict.com/8a/41/5d/1535374/0/800/bakuv.jpg

Eric Chadwick

08-29-2009, 07:38 AM

gaganjain

08-29-2009, 10:54 AM

The edge bleed is a good thing. Depending on your software (which are you using?) you can disable the bleed filter. But ultimately you want that bleed border all around each UV island, because when your game model is being rendered in a game the normal map is usually down-scaled to prevent it from shimmering. When it is down-scaled and there's no bleed, then the black pixels will bleed into the normal map edges and cause visible seams on your model.
Eric i am say color change near border of figures as you see in image post below image circle with red it cause s seam while rendering
using xnormal
http://img2.pict.com/46/dd/25/1538432/0/bakuv.jpg

Zwebbie

08-29-2009, 11:06 AM

That happens when xNormal (or any baker) goes too far and picks normals from the next finger. I'm not quite sure how to fix it in xNormal, but I think you can by lowering the maximum ray distances.

gaganjain

08-29-2009, 11:40 AM

I thing it has to do with xnormal setting because when i rendering with baking with mudbox normal map come out with any seam or color issue
http://img2.pict.com/23/93/c8/1538581/0/800/normal2520map2520mudbox.jpg

gaganjain

08-29-2009, 12:07 PM

Zwebbi will give it shot..I thing surly some thing with setting as baked with mudbox clean bake
http://img2.pict.com/23/93/c8/1538581/0/800/normal2520map2520mudbox.jpg

slipsius

08-30-2009, 01:56 PM

ok, I was tring to do this on my own, using the eat3d pillar tutorial, but im having issues, and im getting fed up.

im working on my first real attempt at a bake... i tried my hardest at unwrapping, and did a fairly decent job compared to previous attempts.... ive followed every step in the tutorial, but for some reason, every time i hit render in the render to texture window, i creates an auto mapping modifier on my low poly, and completely ignores the unwrap i did. i made sure the "use existing channel" was checked for both object and sub-objects.

What about i missing?

using max 10

EDIT - for some reason, it didnt register that i clicked use existing channel. so, i fixed that problem by closing the render to texture window and reopening it, then reclicking that button.

amotaf

08-31-2009, 08:02 AM

Here is my question is it necessary to bevel or chamfer the edges of the in game mesh to catch a good bake down for normal maps from the high res mesh??.

Also on a side note has anyone used the turtle renderer to bake their normal maps as well?.

Eric Chadwick

08-31-2009, 12:53 PM

amotaf, sometimes bevels are good, sometimes not. EarthQuake had some good advice here (http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=932437&postcount=430).

Haven't used turtle though.

amotaf

08-31-2009, 06:29 PM

Thanks for that Eric so there is no one linear universial process to creating the perfect normal map for an asset each different piece might require something different to be done to it.

Obviously with experience then I will know when to use said techniques and when not to. Thanks for that it has helped to make things a lot more clearer.

amotaf

09-01-2009, 02:42 AM

Ok i tested it out and you are right i tried it without any bevelled edges and it worked out fine. Though this may not always be the case with everything i create.

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/194/footv.jpg

http://boards.polycount.net/%5BIMG%5Dhttp://img441.imageshack.us/img441/194/footv.th.jpg%5B/IMG%5D

$!nz

09-02-2009, 01:54 PM

Hey PC peoples...

I was wondering if anyone would try out this mirrored trick/guide/tip whatever that I made and see if it helps anyone else out and if anyone could show some results from it, I would appreciate it :). thanks.

This one is much better sry peoples...I tired:
http://warby.bitproll.de/misc/tutorial_normal_map_seams.jpg

Xoliul

09-13-2009, 09:15 AM

EarthQuake

09-13-2009, 01:14 PM

Hey PC peoples...

I was wondering if anyone would try out this mirrored trick/guide/tip whatever that I made and see if it helps anyone else out and if anyone could show some results from it, I would appreciate it :). thanks.
>>> Mirrored Normal map Object Seam Fix Trick/guide/tip/tutorial (http://fourthewin.wordpress.com/tutorialsguidestipstricks/)

This one is much better sry peoples...I tired:
http://warby.bitproll.de/misc/tutorial_normal_map_seams.jpg

Sorry but both of these are poor solutions, all you need to do is offset your mirrored uvs 1 unit in uv space, and everything will bake and display correctly. You should never have to do anything after baking to "fix" mirroring.

Vrav

09-13-2009, 01:33 PM

Ahh, if you model using quads, in some engines it seems important, or relevant that the triangulation is also 'mirrored' over the seam; this is necessary on seam-adjacent polygons only, and may cure the mysterious 'seam' occurring in mirrored tangent space. Since tangent space takes into account the surface normals between polygons, this makes sense, and is logically relevant.

Not that I know what's going on here. So maybe this post is irrelevant.

Eric Chadwick

09-14-2009, 07:34 AM

I'm getting so sick of Max not using the correct tangent basis when computing normalmap bakes. I remember Earthquake talked about this a while ago, anything you can do about it? I feel so powerless :/

Also, I can't seem to get the same sampling quality out of xNormal as I can with Max. Hammersley supersampler at 1,0 blows xNormal out of the water: every edge is crisp with no jaggies or stray pixels. Any tips?

How are you rendering the game model with the normal map applied to it? I haven't done any normal mapping for about a year now, so I'm sure my info is woefully out of date and incomplete, but still this might help...
http://wiki.polycount.net/Normal_Map#ShadersAndSeams

GCMP

09-14-2009, 09:30 AM

Having some consistant problems with normal mapping in max to anything other than a plane. I don't know what it is, no matter the mesh, smoothing groups or cage setup I cannot get a perfect bake. Usually xnormal is used and produces good results but this time even with the ray distance calculator the results were worse than max!

Here's max views;
http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu196/GCMax/Untitled-1-1.jpg

EarthQuake

09-14-2009, 09:45 AM

You've got 2 obvious problems there;

1. Your cage doesnt encompass your highpoly, or just barely? Its really hard to tell.
2. Your lowpoly mesh should be all 1 single object, no need to have the rear cylindrical space there as a separate mesh, that will give you ray errors from the intersecting there, and a seam where there isnt a seam in the HP.

Other than that, its hard to see exactly what your problem is, post a full size image of the bake and an screenshot of the bake on the lowpoly mesh please.

Oh i see the text is getting all wonked there, you may try reseting xform, it may be a problem with your mesh normals, you could try exporting(without normals) the lowpoly mesh and reimporting it again.

Joshua Stubbles

09-14-2009, 09:52 AM

^ what he said. You might also want to bevel the edges of your low poly, as you're not going to get good results on the sharp 90º faces there.

GCMP

09-14-2009, 01:07 PM

EarthQuake - as suggested the low poly has been remodelled as one mesh, additionally adjusted smoothing by turning some edges and the results were so much better, thankyou :)
http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu196/GCMax/Untitled-1-2.jpg
There's still a slight problem, think the text is defective, will get it sorted somehow!

So anyway this really confuses me that there are 90 degree bends and it still bakes properly!? Goes against what I thought I knew and what has been written here and elsewhere. Just to clarify there is now a contiguous mesh and uv's, before it was 3 seperate parts/uv's. Smoothing unchanged, cage unchanged.

Vassago - I could do that but it would undermine the idea of the whole mesh being low poly. This is one small part so if the rest were to follow that chamfering idea (not forgetting re-unwrapping everything!) it would double the polycount, that would be so wasteful as it's already 1265 poly.

arrangemonk

09-14-2009, 01:31 PM

GCMP, does it look proper in viewport or just in renderer?

GCMP

09-14-2009, 02:06 PM

Eric Chadwick

09-14-2009, 04:47 PM

Why not use a floater? Make a separate inset-text-mesh floating above the high-res handle-surface mesh. Some explanations here...

http://www.iddevnet.com/quake4/ArtReference_CreatingModels

EarthQuake

09-14-2009, 05:21 PM

there's a couple of tiny black spots in viewport and render, highpoly had multiple smoothing groups applied to the lettering area which was a floating plane aligned to the rest of the geometry. Gonna try something new and use a bump map on the high poly unless there is a better way?

Think what he meant was did it have any smoothing errors using realtime preview? Max's renderer renders normal maps for offline view, so if you're doing scanline renders to preview your work, you may be in for a surprise when you check it in realtime.

A good thing to do is crank your spec up pretty high, that usually helps to show any smoothing errors that you may have.

GCMP

09-15-2009, 08:09 AM

Thanks for the advice Eric, Just wanted to experiment and see what kind of results were yielded with this method as it was new to me, here's the high poly render which looked quite nice with a little supersampling;
http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu196/GCMax/Highpoly.jpg
As you say it does seem easier with floaters as I had to unwrap the low poly, add meshsmooth and then unwrap it again as the text was skew whiff!

Thanks again EarthQuake, the metal bump 9 viewport preview had a normal seam that wasn't in the render, if the normal map is turned off leaving just the ao the seam dissappears. The wierdest thing though is at first the render actually did have the same seam problem but this only appeared after applying ambient occlusion in the diffuse slot, so the other way round. After painting and fixing the ao the render was fine!

http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu196/GCMax/Newstarter.jpg

Suppose I'll have to do the same with the normal map and fix that seam but it's confusing to think that these rendering methods produce such different effects.

EarthQuake

09-15-2009, 08:11 AM

try doing a weld on your uvs with a low(like 0.0001) tollerance

also it looks like you have pretty bad smoothing errors not just in the realtime, but in the render as well.

You should try a different shader than metalbump, that thing is terrible old and outdated, try something like xoulio's shader

GCMP

09-15-2009, 08:32 AM

Hmm, didn't do anything, re-applied maps and converted back to edit poly just to double check:( btw the edge there is one of the outer edges of the uv's, do you think it's anything to do with that? I tried to keep it as flowing as possible, after 3 different unwraps this seemed like the best solution.

Edit - Missed what you said about the shader, will try that and update successes/failures.
Edit again - tried xoulio's shader and like it alot.

Adjusted low poly smoothing groups and now it seems better;
http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu196/GCMax/Untitled-1-3.jpg

The problems seem less than mb9 presented so def. will use this new shader from now on :)

shrew81

09-18-2009, 04:44 PM

ok, ive been around for a while, and have always had normal mapping issues. at first i exported to xnormal, and now i finally got Maya 2008 and am able to do all work in one program. my normals now at least look decent, but when I render it, it looks like there is a major seam, and some serious shading issues popping up. It may be my settings or the way I am doing it, but this is the second program I have used, Ive set up my cage properly, and have taken the advice from the rest of the thread. It may be something small and insignificant (like some option not right), but i cant seem to find it.

low+high:
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/7184/bad4w.th.jpg (http://img15.imageshack.us/i/bad4w.jpg/)

Heres the clean normals: (look clean anyways)
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/8878/thrusternorms.th.png (http://img30.imageshack.us/i/thrusternorms.png/)

And the Crap that came out:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/9837/bad2d.th.jpg (http://img21.imageshack.us/i/bad2d.jpg/)
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/1862/bad1h.th.jpg (http://img21.imageshack.us/i/bad1h.jpg/)
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/6089/bad3.th.jpg (http://img29.imageshack.us/i/bad3.jpg/)

modeled in silo, imported to maya, baked and rendered in maya as well.
Suggestions?

EarthQuake

09-18-2009, 09:14 PM

try using high quality rendering in the viewport to display your normals in realtime instead, i think there are issues with rendering normals in the offline renderer(gets rendered as bump?)

shrew81

09-19-2009, 12:24 AM

I cant, my video card wont support it. would that be a problem? if im rendering off of software mode it should work properly, it just doesnt want to, I guess... :susp: I tried Xnormals viewer and the same issue pops up.
Even my teachers comps gets crazy things off my models. dunno why. same issues, same rendering techniques, but on a mac and on a schools workstation. could Silo be messing up my models? the normals look fine, I cant find any duplicate faces, and no overlapping uvs.
I dont know what to look at next. This battle with normals has been raging for a good six months now, and Im still losing :poly114b: jeeeeez

JMYoung

09-19-2009, 08:11 AM

Are you using software renderer or mental ray?

shrew81

09-19-2009, 01:04 PM

You sir, deserve a muffin. that just fixed all of my problems, of course it was something rather obvious. thanks

tadpole3159

09-23-2009, 03:31 AM

the image says it all, what's wrong?
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/235/fixmeplease.jpg

Whargoul

09-23-2009, 08:28 AM

Is your high poly reversed then?

tadpole3159

09-23-2009, 01:40 PM

i don't know what's going on but reversing the normals on the low polygon model and then reverting the green channel of the normal map did the trick. what have i just done?
marmosets having some trouble with them, it looks like the typical tangent space shading errors. I'll have to bake an object space normal map for marmoset then it seems

JohnnyRaptor

09-24-2009, 06:58 AM

if its max, reset xform on your lowpoly and highpoly and try baking again,

tadpole3159

09-26-2009, 08:18 AM

both high polygon and low polygon were reversed at the time of the bake. must have forgotten to save after i spent that hour correcting the normals...technology blows sometimes

helldiver

10-21-2009, 02:51 AM

What's a good Mental Ray setup for Normal Map baking in 3Ds max 8? Someone linked me a preset, but it didn't load :( I think it may have been for a different version of Max.

Perhaps some folks can list what settings they use? Sample Quality? etc.

thanks!

PhattyEwok

10-22-2009, 04:55 AM

Hey Guys thanks for the truley informative and helpfull thread my question is thus if you could ever be so kind :)

In 3ds max is there a way to save the changes you have made to a cage so that one could say go back collapse the stack and alter the UV layout or even geometry. There have been a few times when I'll bake my normals and find that I need just a little bit more geometry to help the situation and in turn end up losing my cage I just spent a good amount of time on.

Eric Chadwick

10-22-2009, 06:26 AM

@PhattyEwok
You can use "export" in the Projection modifier to save the cage as a mesh, then re-import it after you've made your edits... except it has the same restrictions as a morph target... so if you add/remove vertices then it won't re-import. UV changes should be fine though.

However you could try exporting the cage, adding/removing verts as needed from the base model, adding a new Projection modifier, exporting the cage, using Conform to make it match the shape of your old pre-change cage mesh, then importing that as the new cage. Sounds like overkill to me, but...

PhattyEwok

10-22-2009, 08:12 AM

lol yes yes it does I'll try that though thanks

papercliphouse

11-06-2009, 01:13 PM

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=16456564&albumID=2777045&imageID=62828087Hi I'm new to Polycount and new to game art as well. I was trying to optimize my model as much as i possibly could: UVing one side and mirroring everything. Normally this seems to be a good process but this is the first time I've tried this with normal maps applied and I am getting frustrating results. When I leave the normals facing outward on both sides then the normals on the mirrored side are inverted. When I reverse all my face normals on the opposite side I get a lighting seam. I realize that if I spread all my UVs out then this wouldn't happen but that would double the size of my texture map and I'm pretty sure that's not what I should be looking for. Any help please?

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=16456564&albumID=2777045&imageID=62828087

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=16456564&albumID=2777045&imageID=62828087http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=16456564&albumID=2777045&imageID=62828087http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv237/SlitherSwine/NormalsHelp.jpg
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=16456564&albumID=2777045&imageID=62828087
http://boards.polycount.net/%3Ca%20href=%22http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=16456564&albumID=2777045&imageID=62828087%22%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://hotlink.myspacecdn.com/images02/13/70f921d6e25d43febf24d9845e2f0035/m.jpg%22%20alt=%22%22%20/%3E%3C/a%3E

Eric Chadwick

11-07-2009, 05:14 AM

Which software did you bake in, and which software are you rendering in?

papercliphouse

11-07-2009, 09:36 AM

Baked in Xnormal, rendering in Maya. I've got my mental ray set up to production quality and my normals are set to a bump map as Tangent Space Normals

OBlastradiusO

11-12-2009, 07:23 PM

I'm trying to figure out the best way on to optimize the low poly light fixture on the left. Can anyone tell me the best way how to do this without getting those pesky smoothing errors? The hi poly is on the right.

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2748/samexam2.jpg

Whargoul

11-13-2009, 08:07 AM

I would alpha the holes and float the cylinders behind them. Cheap hacks are the best.

SunSetter

12-04-2009, 09:06 AM

hi everyone, i'm new to this normal mapping(baking) stuff, but i read all the info i could get...i thought that i understend how it works but with every assets i realize that i suck, or i dont know how to use info that i read.
my problems is: heaving a box, made some modification, made a low poly, mapped(0,1), unic...the low poly has 1 smtg group, channel 1. both models were reset(xform). then bake: and look what i get :
http://deviart.ro/layer/3ds_max/prb_ts.jpg
tried xnormals, sbm exporter, average normals...nothing seems to work...
probably because of my geometry on low poly, but i cannot understand why normals look this way..its high poly who dictates the normal map, right.then why is it looking like low poly normal map?

any help is apreciated...i think i will go crazy :))

Adam L. Gray

12-04-2009, 02:31 PM

Is the whole lowpoly in one smoothing-group/does it have major smoothing-errors?

I think that the normalsmap simply can't compensate for such severe smoothing-errors and therefore you'll have to look into setting the low-mesh into different smoothing-groups to help it out a bit. Then again, tech ain't my thing :)

SunSetter

12-04-2009, 04:19 PM

thx for the reply. i think i get the point with the smoothin groups. but as i read, everyone says that i should keep my model in one smtg gr. or that just dont work(or i am stupid). i did some experimental geo and bake and i think i figure it out how it works.
of course with one smtg group it s ugly, i've change that, rerendered and here s the result.
http://deviart.ro/layer/3ds_max/done.jpg

2ndcrack

12-07-2009, 08:47 AM

Hi All

I'm completely new to the board but found it trying to find out what I need to view realtime game assets in a Maya viewport, so after reading through a lot of this thread (but not all yet) could someone answer this question for me:

Do you have the necessary viewers/viewport shaders you need to properly check your results?

What do I need to properly check my results in a Maya viewport?

Thanks.

Adam L. Gray

12-07-2009, 12:22 PM

Well, you should only need the maya high-quality rendering. But you could plug in a hlsl shader too if you want. Load it up through the plug-in manager and a hlsl material should appear in your material editor.

2ndcrack

12-08-2009, 03:28 AM

Thanks for the reply - I didn't realise the answer was that simple I thought I had to do something with the cgfx plugin.

Am I right in thinking the cgfx and hlsl shaders are for custom game shaders to be written for?

Adam L. Gray

12-08-2009, 05:41 AM

Yea, those would be custom shaders. Like Xoliul's or Doylle's viewport shader for max, and then there's some for Maya which I unfortunately never used myself, so can't tell you anything bout them.

So, the good thing with em is that you can add certain maps you need, and certain effects or w/e. Xoliul's for example got gloss, reflection, cubemap.. things which are hardly mentioned but sometimes very important.

But if you're just after the standard diffuse, specc and normals shading then you could go with maya's high quality rendering, it's not a too bad shader tbh, aslong as you tweak your maps to fit it :)

MrMachete

12-14-2009, 09:11 PM

can the low poly model have any intersection geo at all? or should it be all one mesh?

also, if it can have intersecting geo is it just a matter of exploding the mesh before baking normals and AO?

SunSetter

12-14-2009, 11:10 PM

can the low poly model have any intersection geo at all? or should it be all one mesh?

also, if it can have intersecting geo is it just a matter of exploding the mesh before baking normals and AO?

of course you can have diferent pieces(intersecting each other) on your low poly model.
in this situation you should go with an exploded bake(when u separate the pieces from low poly, so that the cage of every individual one should not intersect with any other)
as for the AO, i make one ao from the hi poly and one of the low poly and play with them in ps.

here is a link :
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/3d-art/next-gen-weapon-creation-day-3-unwrapping-and-texture-baking/

MrMachete

12-15-2009, 12:39 AM

thanks for the reply and link

garriola83

12-18-2009, 02:00 PM

Sorry but both of these are poor solutions, all you need to do is offset your mirrored uvs 1 unit in uv space, and everything will bake and display correctly. You should never have to do anything after baking to "fix" mirroring.

i have done this so many times but that nasty seam still shows in my renders. like EQ said i'd offset it by one unit, to the right and bake, but still!!!! any other solutions because i have searched and its hit or miss sometimes

garriola83

12-18-2009, 02:19 PM

and oh yeah i use max to bake....so maybe thats the issue?

garriola83

12-18-2009, 02:29 PM

time to experiment with maya now...oh maya

SunSetter

12-18-2009, 06:22 PM

time to experiment with maya now...oh maya
or simply detach as a clone in max the part you want to mirror and then mirror it...btw, this is "suppose" to work only with tangent space normal map...

garriola83

12-18-2009, 07:09 PM

or simply detach as a clone in max the part you want to mirror and then mirror it...btw, this is "suppose" to work only with tangent space normal map...

hmm i'll try that, sometimes it seems to work then sometimes it doesnt at all. the seam also shows really badly depending on the positioning of the light as well. i'll just go back and forth in maya and max and see which works

SunSetter

12-19-2009, 03:27 AM

hmm i'll try that, sometimes it seems to work then sometimes it doesnt at all. the seam also shows really badly depending on the positioning of the light as well. i'll just go back and forth in maya and max and see which works

please upload some pictures with the problem, to see better where's the problem

EarthQuake

12-19-2009, 03:57 PM

i have done this so many times but that nasty seam still shows in my renders. like EQ said i'd offset it by one unit, to the right and bake, but still!!!! any other solutions because i have searched and its hit or miss sometimes

you really shouldn't get any errors like that, unless you're using a really old shader, or have some wierd unweled geometry or something? the uv offset should simply always work, as it does for me. Not exactly sure what would cause that, yeah pictures would be good.

jocose

01-19-2010, 04:40 PM

This might have been mentioned before, but I didn't see anything on it. Is there any ratio or rule of thumb that can be used to determine if a detail is going to be too small to show up at a given normal map resolution. For example a screw that has a bounding box of 2cm x 2cm will not show up on a normal map of a given resolution. I'm just wondering if there is some kind of ratio I can use to to quickly determine what will work and what wont.

Eric Chadwick

01-19-2010, 05:04 PM

I don't think there is. It's more of a general feeling I have when modeling something.

It all depends on how the lowpoly mesh is UVd, how big the pixels will be. You could add a 1-pixel checker map to your lowpoly, that would show you right away how small to go.

TylerFluharty

03-06-2010, 02:20 PM

It looks to me like your normal map is reading correctly, its just that it is a double normal map. What I mean by this is did you duplicate your arms of this character model? If the arms are the same and using the same UV Space then when you bake your normal map in Maya or 3Dsmax, whatever you are using, only have one arm there when you bake your normal. If you have both then it will be building a normal map twice in the same uv space and your normal map will be double strength. So Remove any part of the mesh that you will be duplicating, then bake your normal again from your high rez mesh, THEN duplicate your arms and whatever else you need to have mirrored. Hope this fixes!

Eric Chadwick

03-07-2010, 03:46 PM

only have one arm there when you bake your normal. If you have both then it will be building a normal map twice in the same uv space and your normal map will be double strength.

This is incorrect. Overlapped UVs do not create double-strength normals in the normal map. Instead it creates something akin to z-fighting, where parts of one mesh (one arm) interpenetrate parts of the other mesh (the other arm), so you end up with an uneven patchwork in the normal map, but all the same "strength."

kyle.rau

06-23-2010, 08:53 PM

(Heh I'm such a forum lurker its horrible.)

I don't know if this is technical enough for this thread but...I've been doing some reading and tinkering with OS maps, great stuff. I'm just wondering if they are widely used yet?

What about for portfolio/personal work? Is it looked down upon to have models with OS maps instead of Tangent?

Eric Chadwick

06-24-2010, 04:57 AM

Object-space maps are used less often than tangent-space maps, I'm not sure how much less though.

OS maps are easier to get a smooth bake with, however they have some notable downsides, so they're not used as often as TS maps:

Can't easily reuse maps, different mesh shapes require unique maps.
Difficult to tile properly, and mirroring requires specific shader support.
Harder to overlay painted details because the base colors vary across the surface of the mesh. Painted details must be converted into Object Space to be combined properly with the OS map.
They don't compress very well, since the blue channel can't be recreated in the shader like with tangent-space maps. Also the three color channels contain very different data which doesn't compress well, creating many artifacts. Using a half-resolution object-space map is one option.

So it's generally preferrable to have TS maps in a portfolio, to show you can create them, since there is some skill needed.

kyle.rau

07-01-2010, 11:51 PM

Hey guys I'm looking for a simple max to maya translation....
I'm baking down my normal map and I have all my edges soft (one smooth group in max?) and I'm getting some strange artifacts. All those triangular type lines/burnt seams...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7427381/forumstuff/artifacts.JPG

I know its a smoothing problem, I got some help from a friend who fixed it up in max using a bunch of different smoothing groups instead of just calling the whole thing smooth.

What exactly can I do in maya with this?
Its weird, the maya viewport render will show the bake on the model just fine, but when i bring it in marmoset:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7427381/forumstuff/marmoartifact.JPG

SunSetter

07-01-2010, 11:54 PM

Hi keyle, i cannot send you any pm, somehow you cannot receive or something.

paranoidMonkey

07-07-2010, 03:50 PM

Hi people, really helpfull stuff here.

These are a few models Im making for a personal project and as you can see on the bottom the bakes worked out quite well, but when it comes to round models I always get this wave things, wich.. I think are logical, but somehow annoying. is there a way to minimize the effect during the baking process or even after with photoshop?

I've tried different UVs, but no changes.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/3764/normalprobs.jpg

SunSetter

07-07-2010, 03:59 PM

yes, there are a few ways :
1. you can adjust the cage a little more.
2. after 1 you should go in photoshop and do a smudge were the problem is.

here's how : Go to http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap?highlight=%28normal%29|%28map%29 and search how to solve wavy lines .

PS: srry for the bold, its a stupid bug

paranoidMonkey

07-07-2010, 05:28 PM

heh really fast reply, thank you. I'll try it tomorrow :)

paranoidMonkey

07-08-2010, 08:18 AM

It worked! Thanks : )
Btw HP recommended this one http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/how-to-bake-a-flawless-normal-map-in-3ds-max/ by Racer445. It explains pretty much everything.

stringkeeper

12-02-2010, 04:28 AM

I have a noob question: I heard a lot of people say that intersecting high- and lowpoly models dont matter for baking. But when I bake the lowpoly seems to "trim" off parts that are outside the model. I am using mayas transfer maps tool.

shrew81

12-02-2010, 04:29 AM

do you have a cage built around the meshes?

EDIT; just go here to understand normal mapping:
http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap?highlight=%28\bCategoryTexturing\b%29 (http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryTexturing%5Cb%2 9)
and here for your issue, just look towards the bottom of the article:
http://www.paultosca.com/makingofvarga.html