I am getting shading errors in my maya-xnormal-handplane workflow. I've watched the youtube video and think I'm following all the steps.
See this image. There are a few areas of "stress" due to long triangles but compared to what you do in your maya-handplane video when you slash the model apart, it feels like this should be no big deal for the normal map to compensate?
My model has smoothing on, except where UVs are separated : I set it up following the advice in this video "the fundamentals of perfect baking" by Michael Hosticka.
It's safe to ignore the clustered issues around the two recessed dots on the right - the highpoly is actually noisy there - and it looks like there are also a few projection errors there. But the long thin triangle that refuses to look smooth on the left is what I'm concerned about here.
Speaking of projection errors - I normally use a cage, generated by maya's "transfer maps" function (it "inflates" the mesh in preparation for baking inside maya, I don't bake in maya, I just duplicate the inflated mesh and close the transfer maps window). Normally this works perfectly with xnormal, but for some reason when exporting the cage using the handplane SBM exporter, I get this error in xnormal :
So to sum up -- my questions are:
-why am I getting the long hard unsmoothed triangle in the first picture?
-why am I getting the error in xnormal re: the cage?
-do I need a cage in xnormal? I read somewhere that using handplane you didn't really need a cage anymore for perfect baking because you were going to object normals. Is this true?
I'm using handplane for the first time converting a Object space normal map generated in 3dsmax to a Source engine tangent space map. I have all the settings configured and it shades correctly but I'm getting this horrible aliasing along soft edges. I've exported to multiple formats (FBX, OBJ and SMD) and tried all sorts of settings regarding the smoothing groups/normals but they all produce the same result.
For comparison, I rendered the tangent space map in max (ignore lack of padding) to show how smooth it is compared to the handplane output. The object source has no artifacts present.
I thought it might but you can't turn it off (1 minimum). The aliasing is all over the place and makes it look ugly in places like along smooth beveled edges. I'm going to have to resort to converting it back to tangent in max.
IS UE4 looking like something you will support soon? I have made Handplane a crucial part of my pipeline and would hate to have to change things again due to the feature not being in there yet!
I know it is asking for a lot but I would love to know when this might come to light!
My low poly is triangulated, UV shell borders are hard and the other edges are soft.
Before baking in Maya, I've exploded all. Then I've baked an object space normal with cage. The object space was nearly perfect.
After converting the object space to tangent space in Hand Plane there are some smoothing errors. The issue isn't the shell size. I've already tested it.
it looks like there is no smoothing while converting. It would be great if anyone could help me. thanks :-)
Replies
Model scale should have no effect on the output. What object format are you using? Overlapping UVs or symmetry?
it was a long time ago so I don't remember. But I think it was an FBX export issue in the end.
I am getting shading errors in my maya-xnormal-handplane workflow. I've watched the youtube video and think I'm following all the steps.
See this image. There are a few areas of "stress" due to long triangles but compared to what you do in your maya-handplane video when you slash the model apart, it feels like this should be no big deal for the normal map to compensate?
My model has smoothing on, except where UVs are separated : I set it up following the advice in this video "the fundamentals of perfect baking" by Michael Hosticka.
It's safe to ignore the clustered issues around the two recessed dots on the right - the highpoly is actually noisy there - and it looks like there are also a few projection errors there. But the long thin triangle that refuses to look smooth on the left is what I'm concerned about here.
Speaking of projection errors - I normally use a cage, generated by maya's "transfer maps" function (it "inflates" the mesh in preparation for baking inside maya, I don't bake in maya, I just duplicate the inflated mesh and close the transfer maps window). Normally this works perfectly with xnormal, but for some reason when exporting the cage using the handplane SBM exporter, I get this error in xnormal :
So to sum up -- my questions are:
-why am I getting the long hard unsmoothed triangle in the first picture?
-why am I getting the error in xnormal re: the cage?
-do I need a cage in xnormal? I read somewhere that using handplane you didn't really need a cage anymore for perfect baking because you were going to object normals. Is this true?
Thanks for any insight you can give!
I would like to see this happen too.
For comparison, I rendered the tangent space map in max (ignore lack of padding) to show how smooth it is compared to the handplane output. The object source has no artifacts present.
send me your files and I will take a look. I mostly need a lowpoly model (fbx is best) and the object space map.
alecmoody@gmail.com
This is my best guess for what is happening:
http://i.imgur.com/KWkCW4Y.png
IS UE4 looking like something you will support soon? I have made Handplane a crucial part of my pipeline and would hate to have to change things again due to the feature not being in there yet!
I know it is asking for a lot but I would love to know when this might come to light!