There are a few ways of storing vertex colour data in obj format. If you export a an obj from maya with vert colours it would show up in xNormal, whereas a mesh with polypaint directly from zbrush will work.

So I'm not sure if xNormal supports the way Faogen encodes vertex data.

Originally Posted by almighty_gir

just wondering if anyone's had an issue, where exporting both a mesh and a cage as .obj from 3ds max has xNormal throwing up an error that their vertex counts do not match?

it works if i export as .3ds, but then there are some annoying seam issues due to 3ds splitting along verts uvw seams.

I don't use max, but I have heard of it's default obj exprter causing issues for some (missing faces, detached verts, wrong smoothing etc...). I remember an alternative obj exporter being recommended, but xNormal supports the fbx format better now, so maybe that's an option.

yeah. I am not sure how Faogen exports the vert color either. I have definitively baked vert color from polypaint no problem at all before in Xnormal, so I am almost sure that both xnormal and maya are unable to read what Faogen exports. If anyone has experience with this I would love to know how this works with Faogen exports. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Vrav

Can't seem to load an fbx from Blender. Says memory is protected when trying to bake.
Using the latest build from the xN site. Before updating today, this sort of fbx worked...

Otherwise, happy new year for xNormal, hope eveything is going well.

Has anyone managed to fix this? Would be great to know how to make it work.

Originally Posted by MrOneTwo

I view in 3ds max (with Y changed to ' - '). Does it mean I will never get good results with max ?

So the side is a separate UV island AND a different smoothing group? That should render out fine. I've done it before with far less of a seam than you have there. It looks like there may not be much padding on the UV islands?

Yeah different smoothing groups for different uv islands. In xNormal I use about 8 pixels of padding. I thought it may be issue casued by something that oXYnary is talking about here :

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showp...postcount=1984

Since you got better results maybe its not that.

Thx for trying to help ;p I thought my post was left for dead ;p

Originally Posted by almighty_gir

just wondering if anyone's had an issue, where exporting both a mesh and a cage as .obj from 3ds max has xNormal throwing up an error that their vertex counts do not match?

it works if i export as .3ds, but then there are some annoying seam issues due to 3ds splitting along verts uvw seams.

Which version of xNormal are you using? Make sure that "Shortest Diagonal" is unchecked in the Plugins> Default Triangulator. Also, It can help if you pre-triangulate the mesh before export (save memory in xN too )

Originally Posted by Frankie

Has anyone managed to fix this? Would be great to know how to make it work.

Sounds like a bug in the Blender export. Might be worth reporting it in the Blender bug tracker.

Originally Posted by MrOneTwo

Yeah different smoothing groups for different uv islands. In xNormal I use about 8 pixels of padding. I thought it may be issue casued by something that oXYnary is talking about here :

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showp...postcount=1984

Since you got better results maybe its not that.

Thx for trying to help ;p I thought my post was left for dead ;p

Yea, Joshua is correct...This should bake without any major issue. For the padding, 8px might be ok, but it really depends on the texture size you are using. I usually use 8px per 1k of map (so 2k would be 16).
Can you post the normal map, UV's and the objects (obj/fbx please) that you are trying to bake?...I would be happy to try and bake them here to see if I can find out what the issue is

metalliandy - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6144823/thomp.zip

Here you go. I hope I exported those right. Since I deleted example from which I made those screenshots I had to prepare this model again. It should give the same result. Thanks for trying to help.

Originally Posted by metalliandy

Sounds like a bug in the Blender export. Might be worth reporting it in the Blender bug tracker.

I think the error come in with an xnormal update but haven't tracked it down as I don't want pre Normal 3.17.7 without the "- The FBX mesh importer has been completely rewritten. Now it can load the tangent basis from the files which is specially good if you use the Unity engine."

FWIW I did have it working at one point ages ago with blender 2.49.

Originally Posted by MrOneTwo

metalliandy - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6144823/thomp.zip

Here you go. I hope I exported those right. Since I deleted example from which I made those screenshots I had to prepare this model again. It should give the same result. Thanks for trying to help.

Ok! I baked the new normal map and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary when everything was viewed in Marmoset.
I imported the meshes into Blender so that I could make a cage and then set the UV islands borders to sharp (smoothing groups), exported into xNormal and baked with 16px edge padding.



There are a few sharp edges that show up when you are really close, but nothing that I wouldn't expect when the camera is zoomed in to such an extent and when the tangent basis of applications don't match.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2057427/Polycount/thomp.zip

Hope that helps

@Frankie, Ahh ok. Might be worth me running a few tests later... I will keep my eye open for the error.

Just wondering any more info about xNormal 4?
Really like this tool, so would be nice to hear something more about the next version.

Originally Posted by Stromberg90

Just wondering any more info about xNormal 4?
Really like this tool, so would be nice to hear something more about the next version.

Still working on it :p
We had to completely rewrite the UI system from wxWidgets to Qt so we got a small delay but we'll post an update soon :p

jogshy: Sounds sweet

hello all I'm getting the current error.

Why does xNormal crash at the end of every render I do?

This is the first time I use xNormal in Windows 7 (32bit).

I get this problem signature:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: xNormal.exe
Application Version: 3.17.9.0
Application Timestamp: 4f4a5e1e
Fault Module Name: StackHash_5bce
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7601.17725
Fault Module Timestamp: 4ec49b60
Exception Code: c0000374
Exception Offset: 000c380b
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1053
Additional Information 1: 5bce
Additional Information 2: 5bce71d8d54da5b419fecfd05c0cc915
Additional Information 3: b2ed
Additional Information 4: b2eda8bb034772ca34666c187a029a58

Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?link...8&clcid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
CWindows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

It does not save my settings after the crash as it usually did in XP when it crashed there.

I am using the latest xnormal version.

Any ideas? Thanks

Originally Posted by jogshy

Still working on it :p
We had to completely rewrite the UI system from wxWidgets to Qt so we got a small delay but we'll post an update soon :p

Will a Max-like "Match Material ID" baking option will be included?

Looking forward to more updates, this is a great tool.

Does anyone know how to make inward-facing AO maps similar to the ones here

http://colinbarrebrisebois.com/categ...ce-scattering/

I cant figure out how to do it in Xnormal, and so far the only program that i know that can do it is max.

Originally Posted by spider2544

Does anyone know how to make inward-facing AO maps similar to the ones here

http://colinbarrebrisebois.com/categ...ce-scattering/

I cant figure out how to do it in Xnormal, and so far the only program that i know that can do it is max.

xNormal can render out a thickness map which is exactly that as far as i can tell.

Hey guys, I'm getting some weird artifacts when baking. This image sums it up pretty well, although in reverse order. You can see on the left what the model with the normal looks like, the middle of the normal map itself, and the right is the low-poly and high-poly with the cage clearly covering it.



EDIT: Okay it was the smoothing groups affecting the bake.

does anybody have any good AO settings for characters? i keep getting washed out, undetailed AO's and no matter how i change the settings, it only gets more washed out or stays the same. im so confused??? and also, do you have to have a floor plane whenever you are using a cage?

Read the Help file, setting it to cosine, 128 rays should get your started.

Having an odd problem with xNormal not baking the correct high-poly geo.



On the left I've got the xNormal view with some low-poly geo's cage covering the high-poly (ignore the stuff above it, there's no low for that yet). But the bake in the middle is clearly baking some random stuff from above... the bake on the right is how it's baked within Max.

I've tried collapsing everything and resetting the xForms of everything, I've exported everything via different methods (using the plugin, objs for everything, including cages) and even baked without using a cage.

I'm lost for ideas!

I have been having problems with bleeding around my uv islands and came across xnormal dilation filter as a potential solution. I have done a test texture but am unsure whether the result I am seeing is normal/ desired.
Below is the image.


http://flic.kr/p/bsbPJN (sorry about the link, my images aren't embedding)

At number 1 is what I was expecting to happen with the dilation effect extending the solid colour by the desired pixel amount. At 2 however the dilation effect isn't really close to the original sample; I can't see the effect solving my problems in those areas.

Nope, you're right, that shouldn't be happening, which version of XN do you have?

OK, just tested with the pre-latest release, and it seems like the plugin has an issue, bummer, will check the latest version and go hunting for the old version and see which one works.

Is it possible to use the xNormal 3D viewer to view a height map, I tried loading the height map on to my low poly model, but it doesn't show up. Am I missing something, I would just do this in Maya, but the height map looks banded in the high quality viewport mode.