Normal map nightmare

[GeoffKornfeld]

I can't seem to get a seamless normal map happening.

• I sculpted a model

• Had Mudbox re-topologize the model

• Had Mudbox generate UV coordinates at level 2

• Tried to extract a normal map from subdiv level 5 to level 2

Below are screengrabs of my results. This is using Tangent Space. Switching to World Space or Object Space generates even worse results.

I haven't tried it with Ptex yet, since it's very possible this model could end up in a game engine that won't support that.

Is there any way to make this work properly?

Thanks.

[absoluteKelvin]

are you using subdivision method?

[GeoffKornfeld]

Yes I am.

[absoluteKelvin]

this might help. Windows> preferences> Paint> Create UVs bias > set to based on Mesh face Size> recreate the uvs> bake again.

I would still suggest to do uvs outside of mudbox for better results.

[Christoph_Schaedl]

Are you sure you baked maya or max normalmaps and use the right preset in the mudbox shader?

[GeoffKornfeld · Accepted solution]

Not sure what I did right, but I spent a lot of time this morning slaving over guide curves, and getting the retopo as good as I could, and now the normal map looks as it should. So maybe the retopo was causing the UVs to generate wrong?

Well, it's weird. If I generate the normal map for Maya/SoftImage it looks good in Mudbox, but bad in Substance Painter. But the opposite is true if I export for Max. Before it looked bad no matter what, but I seemed to have fixed things now.

I'm curious though, what's the difference between a Max normal map and a Maya normal map? Is it gamma?

[kevin_bayliss]

I've found the solution to this problem - at least in my case.

Make sure you're using the exact same low poly mesh in Mudbox as the one you're using in Maya. 

For instance - I spent ages trying to get rid of the seams - it turned out I was generating them using level 0 and level 8, but the model I exported to Maya as my low poly model was level 3. So the normals were not the same!!