Normal Bake Fix when baking mesh maps in Substance Painter.

A Fix for Normal Map problems after baking the mesh maps in Substance Painter...
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[@helpfullinx]

For anyone wondering what the underlying issue here is, its because the UV Islands are not being separated properly via seams and are picking up adjacent pixels in the normal map for each sharp edge. In order to mitigate this all the sharp edges have to be made smooth. If you would like to have a sharp edge, each edge made sharp must also be a seam. If the issue occurs still, try turning up the padding for each UV island when baking. Hope this answers someone's question.

[@ValentiDoll]

Thank you! Very helpful info

[@Rex-xj4dj]

I have figured this and it is still happening with 100-150 padding

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

@@Rex-xj4dj helpfullinx is right to a degree, that can happen, but you can still have tight islands without this issue occurring. Try and get a visual of the normals on each vertex, see it with your eyes, which you can do in Max. They need to share the same normal value per adjoining vertex for each polygon. If they don’t, your seams look like this because it splits off each island but retains the different normals in the vertices and this is what you’re seeing. The best way to see and test this is reverse engineer using a cube or something and you’ll see. So when you add correct smoothing, the issue goes away.

[@apportion2268]

For anyone trying in Blender try adding the Weighted Normal Modifier and playing with it a bit. Did the trick for me. Thanks Kevlar. Appreciate it.

[@Riffaell]

Thank you for this comment! This was the solution for me and I tried to find answer from all over the internet with no luck :D

[@VoidloniXaarii]

First, big thank you to the video maker! Thank to ApPortion for Blender mentioning the Blender Weighted normal. It was a bit tricky, only worked after going into the data tab and then Normals->Auto smooth. The modifier seems to either be full on soft or off, i can't seem to make any changes fiddling with the parameters. Still, seems like a fix. Thanks a lot! Been wondering about this for years

[@JoparezkinEMVI]

Man, u my fucking hero. Thank you sooo much! Normals was my big-big problem, my ass starts firing everytime, that i need to do it. Problem on the problem every time. THANK YOU!!!

[@apportion2268]

@@JoparezkinEMVI Glad It Helped you man! Makes me happy!

[@apportion2268]

@@VoidloniXaarii There is an work around for using this modifier. I had created a Python script for that I was porting that to a full fledged blender addon such that it would do automatic smoothing for you based on Edges (How Maya does it) and then I lost all progress to a Windows update and lost my motivation. If I complete that addon someday. I'll share the link here.

[@nex8939]

For anyone using blender, going to mesh - normals - set from faces worked for me

[@MoyoWango]

You are a hero

[@HanSolocambo]

Edit > Project Configuration > Select > Choose your newly exported meshes with unified normals (or modified UVs, updated geometry, etc) > Bake again. No need to start a whole new Substance scene because you made some modifications on a mesh or a scene. It's not called a "non destructive" workflow for no reason. Nice idea this normals unify modifier. Never seen that around before. Seems indeed to make a damn interesting difference. Thanks.

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

Hi Han, you're right. But at this stage, nothing has been done and the clicks to get to the same position is about the same. However being knee deep in a project and noticing the issue, then modifying the scene is beneficial. Thanks for pointing that out :)

[@Gabriel-ServantOfGod]

@@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames I'm using blender and this issue is just solved by getting the mesh into smoth mode before exporting, nevertheless i still got some errors, in the UV seams, idk if there would be any way to solve them since in painter i used tridimensional projection for the most and yet the UVs leave the normals look very ugly... idk if you got any solution to the seams xdd

[@rosiethorn5812]

This is exactly why i hate unwrap so much. It's not about laziness but the fact that it causes SO MANY GODDAMN ISSUES!!! One with baking and one with the seams. I seriously hope in the near feature they will bring out the PTEX version for gaming assets. I mean for god sake with this shit.

[@abhidhiman9908]

Sir will u please tell how to do this in maya if u know please help me

[@shirosacid4514]

Click your object , then Shift and hold left mouseclick then choose -Soften/Harden Edges you can adjust the angle of it

[@typicalgod8057]

@@shirosacid4514 Bro i love you, i know you answer this 5 month ago but you fixed my problem that i had since like 3month LETSS GOOOO

[@shirosacid4514]

@@typicalgod8057 im glad it helped , soften/harden edges and baking in general is sometimes frustrating in the beginning :)

[@typicalgod8057]

@@shirosacid4514 it is bro... ty again !

[@braelofguletta8889]

THANK YOU great video totally saved my day for those who work on maya i did it by going to mesh display normals then stg like normal set to face then soften

[@cyrielkilller]

thanks a lot ;)

[@LightningClawmain]

Can you please help me. I go to mesh display then what do I select?

[@momoc.6538]

Mesh display> Set to face and then Mesh display> Soften edge if I understand correctly! At least it worked for me!

[@fonslucero8614]

THANK YOU!!!

[@atomicshrimpFT]

Omg thank you so much!!!

[@balaakond3045]

How can I use this method in Maya I'm getting same issues if I try to apply material to my model

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

I don't use Maya, but scroll down, somebody answered that question below...

[@akelaaslittlekitchen-diyfo1109]

Awesome thank you! this helped me get rid of a burden. "Unify" in max is similar to "Avarage" in maya incase anybody here wonders.

[@borzonstudios8638]

I had to put higher padding between those faces and I got it fixed. However, if you do that, then your textures will have noncontinuities obviously. However, you can mitigate this by using triplanar projection in substance if you want to maintain that continuity throughout the texture. Worked quite well for me.

[@Zeltor]

What is that addon that shows the shape on the top left, really digging it

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

That's not an add on, it's part of ZBrush. It was added in recent years (not sure exactly when), but it's always there now.

[@BorzonStudios]

I had to put higher padding between those faces and I got it fixed. However, if you do that, then your textures will have noncontinuities obviously. However, you can mitigate this by using triplanar projection in substance if you want to maintain that continuity throughout the texture. Worked quite well for me.

[@ollicron7397]

I didn't even know this was an error I thought it was normal for this to happen

[@szfx1062]

You saved me, thankss. In Maya is Set Normal to face and then, soften edge.

[@JamesBrett2008]

Legend! fixed my issue, cheers fella!

[@AkimboFennec]

Does anyone know how to fix this with maya, since maya doesn’t have modifiers

[@sopoky3606]

i just did a soften edge and it fixed it

[@FoxyLollyy]

you're a life saver

[@scoutwindsor]

Combined with specifics from the comments below, I fixed my Blender export issue and got a clean bake. Thank you so much!

[@ink_redemption_jack4244]

Your idea worked but I have issue with AO bake how do I fix inappropriate lighting and shadows it started with unifying the normal

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

Without seeing it, it's difficult to see what the problem is.

[@R5OZ]

Awesome such a nice clean bake after that!

[@guxiangguse]

Thank you for letting me know how to solve this legal problem, thank you!

[@krosshj]

This video is helpful to me

[@alexhooi7268]

Thank you so much for this, fixed my bake immediately! *edit* It fixes the bake issues I had with rough edges, but when exporting all the faces looked rounded and wonky, even baked it into the normal map despite the model looking perfectly fine in substance. When I load the exported map into substance painter or elsewhere, it just looks really bad. Any help fixing this issue would be great, thanks in advance.

[@yingbowang3068]

spend whole morning to fix, It works even for my flip UVs when try to fix the seam!...thanks a lot ,i never think of can fix a high res before bake

[@kungkim510]

thank you, my saviour, I was suffering from this problem and spent half a day to fix it

[@NeM3Si881]

Omg very good, but I have not idea how to do the same in Cinema4D.. any suggestion? Thanks

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

No, sorry

[@philosophyfrog2653]

Simply use align normals, sadly this did not work for me but it might work for you. Just make sure your normals are yellow.

[@lorenzo1435]

Oh my god ! God bless you , I was struggling with this problem for days , I wish you long life , now I can deliver an error free model for school

[@3DFlick7]

for maya what to do?

[@Zenedy]

So if I understand right you do it on the low poly? Doesn't it break the UV's?

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

No, why would it break the UVs? You don't need to touch the UVs :)

[@Zenedy]

@@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames oh ok, idk I've never used this stuff, I only made high Poly's before because I was working for movie company so when I switched to game modeling its completely different and I don't understand much about it :D

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

@@Zenedy ah ok... makes sense:)

[@ismailaylakci5347]

billion thanks sir .

[@bafhimself3970]

works for me great job sir

[@taterino2722]

Would you recommend turning sharp edges off as well? I have some enabled for my model and I noticed that most of those same edges were visible after baking.

[@evandronet]

Thanks!

[@lanamaybug]

bless you

[@sebastianvilla2240]

HI, can you make a tutorial about fix seems in painter ? Thanks for reading and good job with the tutorials have a nice day !

[@none53]

Hey, clone stamping is the way to fix the seems, and other than that, triplanar projections is the primary way to remove seems procedurally

[@philosophyfrog2653]

I did this and it didn't work. Do you have any alternative solutions?

[@PandaJerk007]

I'm having trouble with seams in my Normal map at the edges of UV seams. Is there any way to fix this? Unifying normals doesn't seem to help in this case. I'm using 3ds Max to model and Substance Painter to bake

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

Where are you getting the Normal Map from?

[@fil1208]

That was very helpful and straightforward. Thank you, sir!

[@marula777]

Thank you!!!!!!!

[@Shadrax2904]

How to do this in Blenedr?

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

Haha, i just literally did that in Blender a few minutes ago for my own project... how odd :) Select your model, go into edit mode, select your faces, drop down 'mesh', go to 'Normals' and select 'Select from faces'. Worked for me. Hope it helps :)

[@cr3d294]

That's not low poly.

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

No, it isn't in game terms, but it was compared to the high poly version I used for the bake.

[@dougnftgames3476]

i have the same problem, but on maya, how can i fix it, anybody knows?

[@nemam83]

I've been looking for this for quite some time. Do you have any idea how to do it in Blender?

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

I did a quick search for Unifying Normals in Blender and there is information out there...

[@nemam83]

@@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames I did the same, but it all appears to be simply about flipping normal direction, not the issue you described. But maybe my google-fu is just bad. :D Thanks for trying though.

[@LouSaydus]

Mesh edit mode > A > Right click > Shade Smooth

[@wattashot]

If you press F3 in blender and type in 'Normals' with your mesh polygons selected, there should be an option called 'Recalculate normals'. I believe this will do the same as the 3DS Max 'Unify' function used in the video - will basically recalculate the normals of the object for you.

[@illin1289]

Smooth shading (polygons) did work

[@곰룡-p1e]

you saved me, thanks!

[@soulfiber3614]

Please the song name !!! Thanks ;)

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

Hi, it's called 'Jal Edge of Water'. Not sure who it's by though, i got it from the free KZbin audio library.

[@Yoopsen213]

revolutionary 😍😍😍

[@hiteshmalik16]

Thanks so.......................much for this video.

[@valeriyapaine8729]

It doesn't work! Substance bakes a black normal map!

[@al-oh8fq]

black mostly means highpoly and lowpoly are so badly missaligned that rays scatter away too much. two reasons for that: 1.your lowpoly and highpoly models differ in scale very much, or do not sit right onto each other. import both in 3ds max and check that they are roughly same in size and sit exactly on same coordinates. 2. even though you already pointed highpoly mesh file in substance painter, it goes nuts when you resave the high poly file and needs to be reselected (inside bake menu)

[@mayurhedau5930]

thank u man

[@lobsteronantidepressants7668]

Lifesaver

[@MsUndertaker99]

Now the only thing left is to find a free version of 3d Max, cause all Autodesk production is absurdly expensive for someone who absolutely has no money

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

Indeed, but unfortunately that doesn't exist! :(

[@MsUndertaker99]

@@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames hello, i tried this method and my model just get more polygons. Is it suppose to happen?

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

@@MsUndertaker99 no... I'm not sure how you managed to do that?

[@MsUndertaker99]

@@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames I imported my low poly model from zbrush to max, then i first added some smoothing groups and after that i did just like you in video. After 'collapse all' polygon count increased like 3 or 4 times

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

@@MsUndertaker99 how are you counting the polygons? Can you see them actually appear? Did you have any other modifiers in your stack ?

[@AkimboFennec]

How to do this in blender?

[@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames]

I don't use Blender, but others in the comments below do. If you read through them, I'm sure you'll find something :)

[@AkimboFennec]

@@KevlarOxyTheARTofVideoGames just out of curiosity. Is Blender as powerful for modelling as 3Ds Max? Cause I tried Maya and it was horrible for modelling but blender is so enjoy full. What is your professional opinion on this?