Hey guys, I’ve been learning how to use normal mapping to add extra detail to my high-poly models, and I’ve been having a little trouble with getting the projection mapping to render properly.

I’ve unwrapped the model, created the higher-poly target and done my projection cage (there are no red areas on the rendered texture).

Problem: When I ‘render to texture’, I get strange occurences in the normal map. It has something to do with the lighting system. I followed advice and used a skylight (to illuminate all of the mesh), but I’ve been experiencing the strange effect you see below (image 1). I can also manage it to render without any shadows (flat colour), but then it’s effectively just a diffuse map!

I’ve also tried just using area omnis (image2), but this creates an inconsistent effect. I’m trying to acheive and even effect.

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I should also state that I’m trying to use a skylight with light tracer enabled to acheive the shadows in a way shown in this tutorial (about half way through):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LGMq4y--Eg

I’m open to suggestions on casting the shadows, perhaps with mental ray?

I’ve also noted that as I change the Ray bias settings of the skylight the weird checker pattern (from image 1) fades to a flat colour, but I still can’t make the detail of the high poly model stand out.

I think if I could find an ambient occlusion setting ithin the light or texture (it’s just a standard at the moment) that would sort out my problem, but I’ve seen this done in multiple tutorials where it seems alot simpler than this.

UPDATE: I’ve been stressing over this for hours now, why does it have to be so complicated? Is there a way to render to a normal map without having to worry about lighting? I see people render their normals out with nothing but a skylight, and they acheive great lowlights in their maps, the only way I’ve been able to do so is using omnis with my skylight, but they don’t light the head evenly.