Normal Maps, I feel like I'm doing everything wrong

[Mathwel]

@Ashern;527870

Unfortunately, I realized I’m not familiar with Maya LT’s viewport options. When I tried to apply the normal map inside Maya, the normals were all messed up. I’m not sure what it is, so I just left taking a picture of the object with normals inside Maya alone. On the other hand, inside UE, looks proper: This one is zoomed out a bit and this one is zoomed as close as possible without clipping into the actual mesh. I’m sure you can see the seam and the outline, but normals can only do so much in terms of illusion. If the low poly cube had even one bevel applied to all of its edges, it would make it close to impossible to tell that it wasn’t as round as it appeared. But since the cube has no bevels, the sharp edges will be visible with one properly placed camera along its silhouette.

thanks alot, that was exactly was i was looking, actually if i put that same diffuse color on ue4, i get almost the same visibility for that seam.
guess thats the most u can get away with that low poly geometry.

[Morderkainer]

After some tests, with different software for baking normal maps, 3d max scanline, vray, mental ray, substance painter, xnormal, etc… I reached to this result:

This is the result with Handplane baker, I think is the one who gives best normal maps (seams are practically invisibles) after all the tests I did.

This is the most visible seam in the model:

[Jak_Carver]

@ikifenix;528482

After some tests, with different software for baking normal maps, 3d max scanline, vray, mental ray, substance painter, xnormal, etc… I reached to this result:

This is the result with Handplane baker, I think is the one who gives best normal maps (seams are practically invisibles) after all the tests I did.

This is the most visible seam in the model:

Not to say it but…I told you so. There’s a reason professional studios and artists use this…

[Mathwel]

@Jak Carver;528523

Not to say it but…I told you so. There’s a reason professional studios and artists use this…

this is what you call a synced workflow right?, also what presset did you use in handplane?, ue3? since i get an horrendous normal map with it…

[ZacD]

A synced workflow is just making sure you are baking and displaying the normal map with mikktspace (for UE4, other engines might have their own tangent bias) and not editing the normal map/normals after baking in any way that will break the sync.

[Mathwel]

@ZacD;528575

A synced workflow is just making sure you are baking and displaying the normal map with mikktspace (for UE4, other engines might have their own tangent bias) and not editing the normal map/normals after baking in any way that will break the sync.

so what i see in my 3d aplications, its the same il get on ue4?

[ZacD]

Every programs viewport is going to have it’s own tangent bias. The advantage of a synced work flow is there isn’t going to be any shading errors even without support loops. The handplane videos linked about talk about it. You still can have baking issues and protection problems, but the shading should be a perfect match to the high poly. Maya and Max have their own tangent bias so a Mikktspace normal map for UE4 won’t look perfect in their viewport. You’ll have to check application by application if you want to know for sure.