I'm trying to use the Game Baker ROP and running into close-but-no-cigar normal maps.
Here's a simple test that shows my issue:
- Create a default grid. Add normals and UV Texture node. That's the LOW.
- Copy to Points small (0.5 scale) poly spheres to every point. Re-Normal. That's the HIGH.
- I expect to see little screw-top/rivet things in the normal map.

Result: Game Baker kind of clips the spheres so they have edges but flat tops.
Substance Painter normal bake gives me exactly what I expect: Nice rounded spheres.

Anyone know if this is a known bug? Or something I'm missing? I'm pretty new to texture baking in Houdini.

Thanks!
-Len

You mean Bake Texture ROP? If I had to guess, your high-res mesh is intersecting/poking out of the low-res mesh and bake ray bias isn't high enough to cover the amount of protrusion. Please try increasing the “Ray Bias” value under “Unwrapping” tab (in the baketexture rop), or try “trace closest surface” unwrap method.

I'm actually attempting to use the “Games Baker” ROP that's in the games toolset. It doesn't expose any of those controls. At your advice I did unlock it, tweak that bias out and Voila! It works! Now my spheres are looking correct!
Thanks!

PS: Maybe SideFX should expose that (and other) controls? Or have them set themselves more intelligently….

Is this Games toolset something that ships separately?

It is, you can download it here

https://github.com/sideeffects/GameDevelopmentToolset/tree/Development [github.com]

We're working on bringing it into future versions of Houdini.

On the baker questions, the Ray Bias and Distance are exposed in the Advanced tab. I'll work on exposing the matching mode as well as the UV attribute in future versions.

Thanks! Those controls must be exposed in the Development branch?
I grabbed the Houdini 16.0 one and Advanced tab doesn't have them.
I'll update!