I have a simple desk mesh. Overview image for reference:
UVs:
When I try to bake normals and AO from it however, I’m running into several problems (pics taken after applying AO as diffuse to check):
[ul]
[li]Visible seam where I split the leg in the UV
[/li][li]The shading on the front foot of the desk is messed up
[/li][li]Lots of edge artifacts and some jaggedness
[/li][li]Sketchy effect in AO inside bin area (bottom left)
[/li][li]Visible ‘stretched’ look in the rounded edges of the bin area despite them seeming fine in the UV checker material
[/li][/ul]
AO:
Problems:
Bakes are done in xNormal.
A few questions:
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[li]How should I deal with the slanted leg? I’m thinking that it’s not (just) the angle that’s messing things up–it’s because the connection point at the cylinder has bad topology so the cage (achieved through the push modifier in 3DS Max) isn’t straight and even at that part. If have tried fixing the cage but it’s not getting much better (looks pretty straight to me…).
[/li][li]How should I unwrap the bin area? There’s a lot of stretching going on right now despite the checker material looking 100% fine…
[/li][li]Is there any special way I should be going about this so that there are no edge artifacts and jaggedness (ex. no manual fix needed)?
[/li][li]What is a better way to deal with unwrapping those long pipes? I’m breaking them up so that they fit inside the UV space without any stretching, but should I be trading that off for better seam placement?
[/li]
Thanks for any help.
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