Normal-workflow-problem

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1

hi,

i got a huge problem with normals in ue4.

here is my “normal-workflow”:

  • i build an low-poly-mesh in maya 2010-64 bit

  • i make 2 copies:
    one for the low-poly-base (and triangulate it)
    and the other as an high-poly-mesh (i smooth the mesh several times and triangulate it).
    … erverything is shown smooth and nice at the high-poly-mesh in maya

  • i go to xnormal

  • i load the high-poly and the low poly-mesh

  • i adjust the settings (mesh-scale 1.00000 and select “average normals”)

  • i build an cage with the “ray distance calculator”

  • i bake an normal map

  • after this i go to substance painter2 and load the low-poly-mesh and the normal map…

but every smoothnes is gone… and it looks nearly like the low-poly-mesh without any smoothnes.

can anyone give me an advice, where my error (s) sits
(ok…ok… in front of my screen… i know :wink:

thanks a lot !!!

greetz
loopon

2

are you sure smoothing groups is enabled in exporter settings?
is normal map looks smooth? if not try deleting object history before exporting.
not sure if xnormal bakes +Y or -Y normals so you can try switching this (OpenGL/DirectX) in painter project settings too.

can you bake normals in maya(it bakes directx format) and check if it’s ok?

3

Try baking in Substance Painter, it has replaced xNormal for baking for me.

4

hi Superbelko,

thanks for your fast reply!

are you sure smoothing groups is enabled in exporter settings?

  • edge smoothing is activated… the fbx looks smooth after reimporting into maya…

is normal map looks smooth? if not try deleting object history before exporting.

  • i deleted the history… but my normals are always a problem.
    i also tried to make my high- and low-poly mesh via zbrush and imported theses high-and low-polys into xnormal…
    with the same bad result

not sure if xnormal bakes +Y or -Y normals so you can try switching this (OpenGL/DirectX) in painter project settings too.

  • i will try it

can you bake normals in maya(it bakes directx format) and check if it’s ok?

  • i baked an transfer-normal-map … just a lttle bit blurry…

but nothing is working correct in substance designer2 :-((

5

hi ZacD,

thanks a lot for your advice!

unfortunately i can´t bring my fbx-file (which is shown perfectly in maya) correctly into substance designer too… (it looks like the low-poly-version :frowning:

6

if your mesh works fine in maya this just could be outdated FBX version, you can try export to .obj

or it could be a viewport issues in painter, try exporting textures to UE and see if they are also broken

7

hi superbelko,

thanx again for your tipps!!

i went to an completely new way:

i took my mesh into blender (never used it before) and exported it as an smoothed fbx.
that looked much better , than the xxx-maya2010-fbx-file.

the next step is, to check out my normal-worflow… :slight_smile:

8

Sorry for stupid question, but… Do you put your normal texture to normal map slot inside painter?

9

hi superbelko,

thats not a stupid question. sometimes… in a hurry… that could happen :wink:

but i did it right this time :slight_smile:

and after the “blender-tryout” i know, that one of my problems was the maya2010-fbx-exporter, who gave me such weired results.

now i´m looking for “the best map-pipeline”-program (maybe knald?),
which can bake me really good normals, a good ao-map and a perfect displacement-map.

10

well, the OBJ format should work in any program, it is old and simple and may be not suitable for too high poly or skinned meshes but it is wide supported, so it may be an option when exporting from maya.

Like said above painter(and designer too) itself does a good job baking all kind of maps, and it fast.

But i guees it depends anyway, so probably the best way to do this right where you work in first place. For example when sculpting it will be best to bake just in ZBrush, maya has lots of control using cage and it can be reused later, and so on.
Baking with fixed trace distance is just faster than setting up proper cage, yes. But for characters and organic geometry it is a matter of quality, right? At least that what i would do for characters :slight_smile:
Another option is to bake higher res like 8k and downscale image to 2k in Photoshop.

btw can you post some pics showing off what’s wrong showing the good meshes and what the problem in painter?

11

hi superbelko, here are two pics from an motorcycle (mirror and fender) which were the reason for this thread.

mirror_ue4.JPG fender_ue4.JPG

after importing the mesh as an obj into blender and exporting it as an smoothed fbx (faces smoothed),
the mesh seems much better for me…

but after all there are not so strong edges shown in ue4 as well as in substance painter2…

so i hope to blurr these edges down a little bit by using a good normal map…

  • by the way… :
    is it possible, to get this geometry of the mirror completely rounded with an normal map and a smoothed fbx-file?
    or must this job be done by an displacement map?
12

well you definitely can subdivide this to get smooth geometry. there should be performance considerations, the more details the bigger performance impact… what you already have is near optimal for real-time rendering of complex scenes.
you can try assign material and tweak its tesselation settings to make mirror more rounded.

as for normals, i’m not familiar with blender so don’t know if it has subdiv surfaces, but in maya you should take subdiv approach to make good smooth normals.

13

hi superbelko,

thanks a lot for your patience,

i will take your way!

and i tried the advice from @ ZacD:
the substance painter2 -workflow works ok for me…
the normals are not so “crispy”, but ok :slight_smile:

i will give a “virtual beer” to everyone of this thread :slight_smile:

greetz
loopon