Help with Softimage normals.

synergy11

I am getting weird seams in my normal map. This is just a basic trim baked down into a tilable trim texture which I then projected on my window model.

I've done this before in Softimage. I'm not sure why it is giving me a problem now.

The screenshot will show the result and set up.

I used Ultimapper.

I'm getting this seam at each of the four corners. But there is no actualy seam in my normal map!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

synergy11

Sorry to bump this. But I had to change the title. As it might not even be Softimage Specific.

ZacD

Try viewing the model with the normal map in an actual game engine. Don't use Mental Ray or any non-realtime render to preview normal maps. Also most of Softimages viewport shaders suck, so you'll be best to preview the model in whatever realtime engine you want to put the final model in.

cryrid

What are you using for the tangent property (tangents, CAVs?)
And have you changed any of the settings in the bump node?

.Wiki

Have you defined the edge in Softimage as a Hard edge?

Select Edge -> Right klick -> Mark Hard Edge / Vertex

synergy11

Cryrid I'm pretty sure I used Tangents and didn't do anything in the bump node. I will check and screen shot right after work.

ZacD thanks for the advice. I will try this right after work.

.Wiki. I have not selected and made hard edges. However I was using the Geo Approximation to adjust the discontinuity angle to get the edges hard. Even adjusting that slider to various settings still gave me this seam.

I will try that and post my results.

Thanks for the help.

synergy11

For Cryrid. Here are all my settings thus far. The tangent property is tangents.

For wiki. I did select all the edges and mark them as hard. The seam is still showing.

I've also tried opening the tangentOp2 in the Clusters to adjust the smoothing.

synergy11

Alright check this out.

It appears to be related to the lights. I tried moving my point light around and the corners with the bad shading now changed. Top right looks perfect now. But now the other corners are shading bad.

synergy11

Ok the closest I can get it to look right in Softimage render was by adjusting the smoothing value of the tangents. (Is it ok to adjust this? Or will it be bad further down the line when I'm exporting to UDK)

However when I exported it to UDk it looked fine (except from the horrendous black lines around the edges which is probably a light map issue) compared to softimage render as ZacD suggested.

Am I on the right track here?

Thanks for all the help. Wish I could get my preview correct in Softimage as it would save boat loads of time.