UV Seams with Normal Maps

gruntpunch

Hey Polycounters,

Been experiencing seams on my objects in Toolbag 2.06 with my normal maps. Normals were rendered out in Xnormal (x64). I'm not getting any seams in Maya 2015 or in engine at Sony. When I throw my normal map on my material in marmoset I get this nasty seam.


Update...

Just imported the Mesh into a new marmoset scene. Created a new material, threw my Normal Map on there and now the seam's gone...

I don't understand. I've done this before and the seam still remained.

EarthQuake

What is your tangent space set to for the mesh, in each scene? Make sure its set to where the normal map was baked.

gruntpunch

They are both set to Marmoset's tangent space. Switching it to XNormal (where it was baked) doesn't have an affect on the seam. I was unaware of these mesh options :P It looks like the material was broken...As soon as I created a new material and assigned it (in correct tangent space) with the same normal map, the seam was gone.

Thank you for your speedy reply EarthQuake!

almighty_gir

In xNormal, go into plugins, tangent calculator, and make sure that it's set to mikktspace and that "compute binormal in pixel shader" is checked in the plugins settings.

Teyon

That looks to me like the seam is in the albedo, not the normal but I could be wrong.

Regardless, you should rethink the seam placement anyway. It would be smart to put it along the natural seams of the bag. You'd probably avoid this problem entirely doing that. Glad you got it resolved though.

gruntpunch

Thanks for all the replies and input

I checked the plugins almighty_gir and the tangent calculator was set to mikktspace, which I guess is default. Compute Binormal was off in Pixel Shader. Is this something that should always be on? I was oblivious to the plugin settings prior to you dropping some knowledge on me.

Thanks Teyon. I will heavily reconsider my seam palcement on my current project to avoid these possible complications

Will post this character and the one I'm currently working on within the next week and a half to get feed back from everyone.

Cheers

-Gruntpunch

almighty_gir

Toolbag2 and UnrealEngine 4 both prefer for the binormals to be calculated in the pixel shader for best results. I just wanted to check if this was causing the issue.