Normal map problem in Maya

[Battery]

Hello

Im trying to create a normal map in Maya via the transfer maps option. Every time I bake out the normal map, and render it out it always looks bad and for the life of me I cant figure out why.

I have tried playing around with the settings, and read up on it, but I still cant get it to look half decent. I'll post some screen grabs up and hopefully you kind people might be able to point my in the direction of where I am going wrong


The high and low versions of the hubcap im using as the normal map test.

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Bake settings 1

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Bake settings 2

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The envelope from low poly mesh

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The normal map it generates

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Uv layout and hypershade with bump map settings

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The end (bad) result

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Thanks !

[Elliott]

Have you tried softening all the normals on your lowpoly before baking? Also try rendering with a light set up on the model. Ultimately maya isn't great for looking at normal maps unless you have a shader, I'd recommend testing the normal map in an editor or engine of some sort.

[PermaGrin]

Looks as if your cage/envelope is too large in spots and is causing it to read incorrectly.

[Polygoblin]

Yeah, some people swear by "transfer maps" in Maya but I always have to tweak the settings so much and never seem to get a great result. I do all my baking in xNormal now, and life is good :P Give it a look. It's easy to use, gets great results, and is freeeeee

[latinmessiah]

Try rendering it using "Maya Hardware" instead of "Mental Ray". I always get better results that way.

[Battery]

Thanks for the responses, internet has been down for a while.

For the life of me I just couldnt get it to look right in Maya 2008, so i recently got hold of maya 2011 trial just to test it out there and to also use the new viewport 2.0 so I can see properly whats going on with my normal maps. As HQ rendering wasnt working.

I have it working, but to a degree. I have attached some screenies to show the problem, but basicaly, if my uv's arent taking up the entire uv tile, i get bad results. I am only limited to one 1024 map for normal, spec, colour etc. As this is only a test on part of the model im working on, the screenshot where the UV's are smaller is about the size they will be in the final model. So im a bit stumped on what to do and how to solve this.

I tried xnormal too, but that gave dire results.

Small uv's & wire

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Without wire

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large uv's & wire

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Without wire

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Any ideas i could try would be welcome