Right, Vig, I've got to side with MoP and EQ here (begrudgingly, as they are very bad people) in that I would rather specifically make something look the way it should on purpose than sit and hope for the infinitely small chance that a baking error should represent the exact effect that I intended ;)

Yeah good points. I agree if its a planned detail you've probably already thought about it and its not like it wouldn't be hard to paint in. I agree I probably wouldn't waste time trying to getting a spot to bake badly, but I might not nuke it if pops up... maybe...

Originally Posted by MoP

dur23: Well, the whole point of a normal-map is to represent the high-poly normals using the texture, it's not really anything to do with having "the inverse of the low poly shading" as you seem to be suggesting.

All it represents is the difference between the interpolated vertex normal and the high-poly normal, per pixel. It just so happens that a lot of the time, to make that look correct, you end up with per-pixel normals which are "counteracting" the shading of the lowpoly normals, resulting in the stuff you're identifying in those images.

Yar mop, i do understand the per-pixel representation of the high poly normals. I think i just worded it incorrectly, because in the second paragraph you kind of say exactly what i was saying by "counteracting the shading of the lowpoly normals". Which translates to (imo) the baker taking the normal of the lowpoly, inversing (pixel based) it and overlaying it over top of the per-pixel high poly normals. Which means the low poly shading (normals) = zero. So when you add the High poly normals it does 100% of the shading. Which means the low polys shading represents 0% of the overall shading.

Now when i look at the max render, it appears it is not properly adjusting for the low poly meshs normals (smoothing groups). Which to me looks like the whole problem starts at the interpolation of the low poly normals. Anyone wanting to use max baking in their engine would have to interpolate the low poly normals the same way that max (which is why it only looks right in max) does in order to replicate the shading within max. Am i crazy? Am i being useless by pointing this out???

dur, not really useless, it's clear you get it - and that's the whole point of the thread. and it's not really the lowpoly normals as such, more actually the tangent space it creates from the lowpoly at render time, which is different to the viewport tangent space.

single smoothing group applied, raytrace projection, crytek method generates its own custom normals (however those won't affect the bake ray direction)
further tests need to be done, whether smoothing groups help cryteks way at all and so on... but anyway proof of concept is done. How this is taken further within 3ps and outside (considering the associated additional work of rebuilding the maya way) still needs evaluation.

Wow that is quite interesting, Crazy. I still some some minor issues, but nothing that would be noticeable once textured. That's nice.

be in mind that I am no baking expert, I just applied the standard stuff, set projection method to "Raytrace" and thats it. As said if its really worth further efforts, will be found out by fellow artists.

Originally Posted by bugo

I use Turtle inside Maya, I wonder why nobody use that, it's so good.

wuts turtle? links plz

Originally Posted by onionhead_o

wuts turtle? links plz

http://www.illuminatelabs.com/

CrazyButcher, got to love how major behemoth apps are being fixed by their users, again ...
Not really sure if I fully understand what you are doing but yeah that screenshot looks odd and awesome at the same time :P like something that should have been here always, but only happens now, thanks to you!

CrazyButcher: Very cool. That could turn into an extremely useful plugin.

Originally Posted by bugo

I use Turtle inside Maya, I wonder why nobody use that, it's so good.

Because it costs money and you have to email Illuminate Labs for pricing information?
How much does a single user license cost, bugo?

Originally Posted by MoP

How much does a single user license cost, bugo?

http://www.illuminatelabs.com/shop/T...chasing-turtle

Never tried it, but it's always prasied in 3DWorld.

Turtle also makes a mess of all your Maya scenes with extra nodes that you can't remove if you don't have the plugin installed. We've done a few outsourcing jobs where the client sent us these nice surprises ;)

This is an awesome thread!

I did my own tests with EQ's mesh and my conclusion is that Max uses a different method to interpolate the normals in the software render no matter what you do.

The only partial solution is to try to bring the normals in the viewport close as possible to what the offline engine engine does.

The best result with EQ's mesh was with after I ran a Retriangulation in Edit Poly and I added an Edit Normals modifier and Retested them.

All hail Crazybutcher!

haha, no wonder more people don't use Turtle if it's $1500 per license... that kinda prices it out of anything other than a studio who do a lot of lightmap baking's budget.

Undoz, can you elaborate on that? Please post your results too

The best result with EQ's mesh was with after I ran a Retriangulation in Edit Poly and I added an Edit Normals modifier and Retested them.

I don't see why or how this would change anything at all but I totally trust you, and wouldnt be much surprised if it was yet another one of these special Max cases...

The difference is not that spectacular, and pretty far from perfect.

Originally Posted by MoP

CrazyButcher: Very cool. That could turn into an extremely useful plugin.


Because it costs money and you have to email Illuminate Labs for pricing information?
How much does a single user license cost, bugo?

I have no idea, I use here at the company. So I don't know the prices, I can research that tho.
But yes, it might be expensive for one user only.

Taking the price out, it is a great plugin, best I've ever used.

Aargh what is this magic?

So I retested it because I get like that sometimes, maybe I can crack this impossible problem, but of course I can't.

Interesting though, that adding edit normal modifier in max fixes some of the errors! How so? Who knows! It must be magic!

here:

from left to right, scanline, shader before edit normals, shader after edit normals.

good old max, the package that keeps on giving!



oh, I think this is the same as undoz posted, sorry!

I've also got some progress going on: I'm well on my way developing the conversion tool, but decided to test the theory first.

In the shots below, taken from the viewport, I'm using Max's own tangent basis. Both shaders are using an object space normal map as a normal source. The mesh on the right, however, is running a shader that converts OS to TS on the fly.





I should be able to get the tool up and running in the next couple of weeks.

fozi, that looks perfect

that's pretty amazing fozi, looks flawless

that's pretty good!

That's awesome fozi! Looking forward to see what you come up with.