Digital humans the art of the digital double
Ever wanted to know how digital doubles are created in the movie industry? This course will give you an insight into how it's done.
# 1 22-01-2009 , 04:56 PM
Falott's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: vienna
Posts: 1,095

baked hi-to-low-res Smoothing Problem

facts of the case:
I baked a hi to low res geometry with "TransferMaps", applied the map to low geo. everything looks fine. so far so good. after closing and opening the scene again. the NM looks somehow inverted, ugly. the problem doesn´t only afect maya. test export to 3dsmax shows a similar behavior of either geometry or NM.

things I allready tried:

-converting geo to subD and back to poly.
-detaching/combining a face from the geo.
-smoothing full soft/hard (each version baked in a single map)
-deleted blindNodes and history
-freeze transformation.

-all different variations of settings in the TransferMaps dialog
-inverted red and green channels in photoshop.
-exported as fbx/obj and imported again.
...?

software on different machines displaying the geometry/NM abnormally: maya, 3dsmax, quest3D



I know maya has a problem ever since displaying normalmaps correctly with high quality settings in viewport. (somehow inverting the green channel) but I´ve never seen this odd behavior in 3 different applications.


if anyone has an idea ->
don´t hesitate to let me know!



edit- resized the pic


everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.

Last edited by Falott; 22-01-2009 at 04:59 PM.
# 2 22-01-2009 , 05:00 PM
Falott's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: vienna
Posts: 1,095
highRes over lowRes on the left.
lowRes on the right side.

Attached Thumbnails

everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.
# 3 22-01-2009 , 06:19 PM
mastone's Avatar
Maniacal boy king of Babylon
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: the netherlands
Posts: 1,605
Are the normals pointing outwards, or maybe just a couple of them, i also found the transfermaps a buggy thing.
I know you have to fidle some withenvelope aswell

And displacement rendering takes just as long as when you had the highress model

# 4 22-01-2009 , 06:40 PM
Falott's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: vienna
Posts: 1,095
normals point outwards.

I´ve been playing with this shape and textures now all day long. what I can tell is


maya bakes NM with inverted greenChannel in allmost all cases, but sometimes not. I don´t know why. I use lefthanded tangentSpace.

shaderFX plugin from 3dsmax displays the obj with NM different from mayas way to display. maya has much smoother results in the panelview than 3dsmax with shaderFX-HLSL shader.

but

once you save a maya file and open it again the same normalmap´s green channel gets inverted somewhere in mayas shader. odd behavior. I had to smooth the whole obj again with 180° (same condition when baking the NM) then it showed up correctly in the viewer.

if I used a wrong NM with green inverted, maya shows it correctly like you´d expect. once you touch the obj with smoothing, the NM inverts instantly and gets displayed wrong - like it should.

all 3 applications interpreted the NormalMap different (from slight to very strong differences)


well after all I could not tell what the problem really is. but I get it working in quest3D that´s all what matters. would have been cool though to understand why maya ****s around with normalmaps all the time.


everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.
Posting Rules Forum Rules
You may not post new threads | You may not post replies | You may not post attachments | You may not edit your posts | BB code is On | Smilies are On | [IMG] code is On | HTML code is Off

Similar Threads