3DS Max - Specular artifacts.

Samuel

Hey, I've attempted to use spline modelling methods in 3DS Max to model two sword hand guards. On both of these attempts the light doesn't play very nice off the bottom of the handle.




Any ideas as to what might be going on? The rest of the model is fine.

rollin

if something is strange with one part of a mesh try always try resetting, freezing transform, copy / clone, convert mesh type, export import. that sort of stuff.

If you are sure you have reset-xformed the handle and everthing has the same material and even an export -> import doesn't changes anything .. than there is something wrong


What I can't tell yet from the shots if the topology is correct or the smooting.

Adam L. Gray

You could always try and change the lighting in the viewport settings from a 2-point to a 1-point setup. I think that along with nitrous is what is giving you these black fields here.

Samuel

Thanks for the replies.

The issue isn't so much in 3DS Max but in Skyrim. The bottom of the hand Guard ends up with some weird artifacts. I just assumed the two were analogous.

Anyway I used a symmetry modifier to create the hand guard and it seemed that the welding didn't work, so I manually went in and welded all the verts myself. I haven't had a chance to see if this has fixed the problem but I'll give it a go soon. I'll try your suggestions too and report back in case anyone has any similar issues in the future.

I have not had a good time with the symmetry modifier Always causing problems.

Mark Dygert

I wouldn't be so quick to blame symmetry I use it constantly and I don't have any problems.

Here are some things to keep in mind when working with it.

• It works on the position and orientation of the objects local pivot.
• Non uniformly scaling an object can throw it off, reset transform and scale (in the Hierarchy tab) or don't scale the object, scale the sub-objects (verts, polys, elements).
  
• It is dependant on the scale you are working at, if you work really small it will more than likely weld things together that you don't want welded.
  
• Try to keep your center seam as straight and uncluttered as possible and aligned to the symmetry seam. If you have a raggedy edge some faces will be cut in half and welded in weird spots. If you are using symmetry on Z grab the center verts and use the type in transform tool to set their Z value to 0.

Personally it looks like a viewport malfunction, may be caused (like Adam pointed out) the 2 light setting. Maybe it's an viewport AO error or a material error, but I doubt it.

Samuel

Ok, I'll keep that in mind. Thank you.

Seems to be fine now, I'm not really sure what was going on.