#normalmap

i havent had much time to work on my game since school started, but here is a crumb 

I was asked by a fellow modder to explain how to make a good normal-map. So, here’s the steps.

I first used another plugin first, from NVIDIA (from DAI-modding) to make it look like this (small window in pic 1)

Then, I edited the channels to make them look like in the pics 2-4

Now admittedly I am a little late with this, been juggling extra days at work and being a lottle under the weather, so let's dive right on in...

This week included learning more about unity materials with a crash course on their creation and the types of maps that can be applied to them.

Overview

Today I started the baking process for my hero prop and ran into a shading problem that affected the normal maps. When I checked the baked normal map and previewed the low-poly in render view, I could clearly see mesh lines / hard edges showing up across the surface, especially on the skull area. This made the model look faceted and “broken” instead of smooth and clean.

Problem I Faced

While baking, the normal map was capturing visible polygon/edge lines. In the render preview, the shading also looked inconsistent and I could see the low-poly edges more than I should. After checking the mesh, I realised the issue was coming from face normals / smoothing (how the model is shading across surfaces). Because the shading wasn’t set up correctly, the bake was basically baking those shading problems into the normal map.

Research & Solution

To solve this, I researched the issue and found a tutorial that explained a clean workflow using weighted normals to improve shading and reduce visible seams/edges.

Tutorial used: Christopher 3D — “Weighted Normals” https://youtu.be/60E-26Ydbh8?si=EvjvVA3tln_yfHOA

What I Learned (Weighted Normals Workflow)

From this tutorial, I learned a better workflow to get cleaner shading and bakes:

Enable Auto Smooth: Turn on auto smoothing so the object shades based on an angle threshold. This helps control where smoothing should break.

Use a Weighted Normals approach: Apply a weighted normals workflow so smaller angled polygons inherit shading from the larger flat faces they connect to. This helps keep surfaces looking visually flatter and cleaner.

Keep Sharp / respect hard edges: Make sure sharp edges are respected so the shading doesn’t “melt” across areas that should stay crisp.

Manual refinement (Mark Sharp if needed): If the shading still looks wrong in certain spots, manually mark those edges as sharp so the smoothing breaks correctly.

Fix special cases: For tricky areas where shading is still weird, adding a small supporting loop can help control how the surface shades.

Finalise for export: Once everything looks correct, the normals data can be finalised so the shading stays consistent when the model is moved to other software.

Result

After applying this workflow, the shading became much cleaner and the mesh lines were greatly reduced in both the normal map and render preview. This made the bake look more solid and helped the skull surface read smoother, which is important because it’s a hero detail that will be seen up close.

Next Steps

Re-bake the full set of maps with the corrected shading (Normal/AO/Curvature, etc.)

Check the prop under different lighting to confirm the seams are gone

Move toward texturing once the bakes are clean and consistent

References

Epic Armoury (n.d.) Bone Chopper – 100 cm. Available at: https://epicarmoury.com/products/1916-bone-chopper-100-cm