topic Problems baking Normal map in Maya Modeling Forum

Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 15:21:26 GMT

I'm just going through a tutorial on how to bake texture maps in Maya as I've never done it before. I also want to see how the Normal map bake fares compared to what I was getting in Marmoset Toolbag, which was showing some issues. I'm just trying to bake a high poly hair cap to a low, however, after setting everything up correctly, as soon as I hit Bake and Close, I keep getting an error saying Error: line 0: No object matches name: cap.

My low poly is called hair_cap_low and the high is hair_cap_high. I've tried deleting all the history - Delete All by Type > History - freezing the transforms, going to Optimise Scene Size and selecting everything, saving as a .ma file, exporting out the meshes and adding them into a new scene, but I get the same error every time. 😕

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Re: Problems baking Normal map

Christoph_Schaedl — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 18:08:10 GMT

Could you share the file?

What troubles did you have in marmoset?

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 18:31:56 GMT

I sure can. The files can be imported into any scene and I still get the same error.

As to the Marmoset issue, I managed to get it sorted. 🙂 It was a baking problem involving the high poly hair bleeding onto the other side of the low poly cap. It was solved by just including the low poly cap with the high.

Re: Problems baking Normal map

cavescholar — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 19:46:41 GMT

Hello,

So there is a plugin in Maya that is usually not enabled called TURTLE.

Turtle Plugin

Enable it in plugins and you should get the Turtle menu.

It is specifically used for baking and can be pretty powerful once you get to know it.

Not too much documentation in Maya 2022 help but did find in the Maya LT help because I used to have Maya LT for a little bit. Same process, link follows:

Bake Textures with Turtle

and

Bake Normal Maps with Turtle

Good luck!

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 19:52:49 GMT

Ohhh. Interesting. Is that supposed to be enabled by default for baking? I didn't think a plug-in would be needed - that Maya would have a fully operational baker from the get-go?

Thanks

回复： Problems baking Normal map

我是水~ — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 10:02:00 GMT

我认为有几种可能，1.烘培界面上面放低模下面放高模，是否有放错位置 2.是否有可能低模的UV集是空的或者没有选中

Re: Problems baking Normal map

cavescholar — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 20:47:10 GMT

Hello,

Not too sure why it is not enabled by default, it is a legacy plugin though. Could be that it is not used initially when creating and is more of a final output step. There are a bunch of plugins not enabled by default which I am suspecting is to help with performance.

Also, from Rendering menu set, Lighting/Shading > Baking>Transfer maps is pretty much the same but more updated to newer methods I believe. Which I think @我是水~ was showing in his post. It is available from the "get-go".

Transfer Maps

I just mentioned Turtle because I have used it a few times.

Good luck hope this helps!

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 21:04:57 GMT

I still haven't fully learnt how to use Turtle just yet, but I still haven't gotten it to work through Transfer Maps. 😕

I'm not sure if the translation I have of 我是水~'s post is accurate, but this is what I have:

"I think there are several possibilities, 1. Put the lower model above the baking interface and put the high model below, whether there is a misplacement 2. Is it possible that the UV set of the low model is empty or not selected"

I've set up the low poly in the top and the high in the lower. The low has a UV as well. I'll double check if the set is correct though, but I'm sure it is.

EDIT: Yep. It's looking all fine. There was an additional set there, but it wasn't selected. I've deleted it, but the same error happens. I've even tried baking with Display set to Mesh, Envelope and Both.

Re: Problems baking Normal map

cavescholar — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 21:17:48 GMT

From what I understand from Transfer maps, the Target is the Low poly and Source is the high poly.

I still need to work on my baking as I am not that good a cook yet, haha.

You might make a copy of each model you are using, rename them to something unique, make sure to delete history and freeze transformations, and then try.

Here is what I found from Maya help I will be going through it too. Just make sure all objects are clean and no overlapping UV's, says Maya help.

Transfer Maps

Create texture maps using Transfer Maps Editor

Re: Problems baking Normal map

cavescholar — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 21:22:44 GMT

That UV shell looks to be going a little out of the 1 to 1 space on the right and left hand sides. Maybe this is affecting it?

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 21:44:28 GMT

I did notice that. I didn't think much of it as it was Maya that sorted out the layout and placement. But I'll shrink it slightly and see. 🙂

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 21:53:53 GMT

That Transfer Maps link doesn't appear to be working for me. I'll have to try following them step-by-step too. I did try deleting the history and freezing the transforms. I've also tried exporting them out and setting them up in a new scene. I don't think the high has any generated UVs. Is it supposed to have some? I know some bakers want them such as xNormal.

EDIT: Looks like my high has UVs too. Because of how I generated the hair into polygons, I set it up so they'd be in a 3x3 grid, so those are overlapping.

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 22:11:35 GMT

I can't help but think there's some bug lingering in Maya...

So I've exported both the low and high into a new scene, I've scaled the UV down slightly, deleted all the UVs on the high poly, deleted the history on both of them, frozen the transforms on both, renamed them, made sure only one UV set is selected, reset all the baker settings to default and configured them again, deleted any unused materials, and re-assigned new materials... Same problem. 😞

Re: Problems baking Normal map

我是水~ — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 02:43:12 GMT

我下载了上面的模型，发现了问题是存在于UV的命名上的，将hair cap名字修改就可以正常的烘培了（我估计是存在了无法识别的特殊字符所导致的）我标记了下截图可以看下，或者我录制了视频可以进行参考

@t_smith5

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 11:57:50 GMT

For some weird reason, your video isn't showing any of the menus you're going on.

On the file I have my end, I have that map1 deleted, so it's just the one UV Set - hair cap. I'm also not sure what menu/box you have opened in the final screenshot.

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 12:13:19 GMT

I got it to work! 😄 Thank yoooouuuu. You're a genius! I tried changing the name of the UV to something simple like 'cap' and it worked. 🙂 Although, I don't understand why the original name didn't work. You mentioned 'special characters', but there weren't any. There were no underscores or numbers. At least, not on my end. It was just called 'hair cap'. I'll see if adding an underscore works.

EDIT: Yep. Adding an underscore works, too. So the naming convention is vitally importent for baking. It either needs to be a single word or each word needs an underscore between them.

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 12:21:55 GMT

I guess the only thing I'm confused about now is why I'm getting a weird seam around the outer edges, which no other baker I've used has done. Even using an envelope/cage gives the same results. And the base hair cap itself is identical on the low and high poly. 🤔

Re: Problems baking Normal map

我是水~ — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 02:22:59 GMT

太好了，能帮助到你真的太棒了

关于法线（N）的原因其实是因为高模和低模是完全一样的，而且高模也没有封口，这样子完全一样的高度的片叠在一起就会导致MAYA算法上出现接缝。解决方法就是将高模多挤出一些就行了，像我下面的截图一样。

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 11:51:43 GMT

Brilliant. Thanks again. 😄

Re: Problems baking Normal map

t_smith5 — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 12:14:04 GMT

Sorry, not sure if it's my translater, but you did mean the high poly that you have to expand slightly, right...? Only I tried that and the same issue happened. I also tried it with the low, but that makes the issue worse. 😕

Also, for some weird reason, the baking is now taking much longer, which never happened yesterday. o_O I'm using the same settings, too. It seems to be the Sampling Quality that's doing it, but again, it's only set to Medium (4x4).