Maya - Normal maps triangle errors

[mbrzezicki]

See what you make of these screen shots. I'm getting annoying little triangles in my normal maps when using Maya's transfer maps (xnormals isn't being much help either). I've softened the normals before transferring and so I'm not sure what it is. I know it's generally wise to avoid long triangles but some of these triangles aren't at all long or thin. In fact, it's happening with any triangle in the mesh.

It doesn't seem to be a resolution issue, as I'm using a 2048 x 2048 normal map and have tested with a 4096 x 4096, and the UV space given is fine.

I've had a good look around the model and I can't find any sneaky stray verts - everything's merged and clean.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I'm making sure I get this solved before I move it to UDK because these kinds of errors often can look 10 times worse in the engine.

Huge thanks in advance to any that can help.

[mbrzezicki]

Another screenshot

[Dr. D]

It'd better if you will show normal map instead geometry. You can see normal in viewport if you have good video adapter. What's render like?

[mbrzezicki]

Originally Posted by Dr. D

It'd better if you will show normal map instead geometry. You can see normal in viewport if you have good video adapter. What's render like?

Hi Dr D. It looks the same when I render it. I've attached the normal map with the most troubling areas circled.

There has been something strange happening with the envelope in transfer maps. With all other models, the transfer maps envelope behaves correctly and scales up and down when the 'search envelope %' slider is moved, but when used with this particular geometry, it won't update. This only happens with this particular piece of geometry.

The UVs seem fine to me. I've tested it with various UV layouts to check. It very much does seem that there must be an error in the geometry. It's as if there's a problem with its normals; not the actual normal map but the geometry's normals.

I don't think the normals are locked (Normals>Lock Normals), as I've selected 'Unlock Normals' several times to be sure.

Thanks for taking a look