Skin modifier (3ds max) cause shading errors O_o??

JetX

Hi guys and girls,

i run into problems and need fire support. I have no idea, why a skin modifier cause shading problems but only, when i apply more then one bone to the mesh.

Many thx for your assistence.

JetX

Reproduced with marmoset.

Obscura

Play around with the import normals setting in unreal. Or with the export normals setting in max. This shouldn't happen.

JetX

Thx. for reply. Nothing so far, tangent space synchronized, different export import settings dont help, also as max reinstall. I go crazy...

Obscura

Ok. I'll set something similar up later today. It can be definitely fixed, with ticking a checkbox in, or by changing one setting. I've met this before and the solution was super simple.

JetX

With morhper modifier on top of skin, or withou skin, making it more worse. I think i missunderstanding some basic animation export principels.

Obscura

Hey. Just wanted to let you know that I was unable to reproduce your error in the test I did. My only guess is that the triangulation changes in your case, after adding skin or morph. So try this adding "turn to poly" before adding the skin, and turn on limit on it, and set it to 3 so it triangulates. If you don't collapse this modifier, you can turn it off any time. Also, make sure that this happened before baking. This way its guaranteed that your mesh triangulation matches the triangulation that was used during baking, and therefore baked into the normal map.

JetX

Hi! I was unable it to, after i maked smoothing groups from UV islands. That was the solution for my problem, but i am not really happy, because it means, that i can use 1 SG only for static meshes and can not fully optimize animated meshes. I hope i am wrong, but only that solution worked for me. 

I am realy thankfull for your help and for your test, after then i decided to go two steps backwards. 

P.S. I didn't know about "turn to poly", usefull modifier. I used "Edit Poly" > select all verts > connect  

Obscura

Hey. In that case, I'm pretty sure it was the triangulation. It is recommended to triangulate before baking anyways, because similar errors can show up if the triangulation is different on the bake mesh and the final export, which can happen quite often. The reason, is that the low poly shading (which the triangulation can change) is taken into the account when the normal map gets baked. Its also not recommended to use a single smoothing group on a mesh that has such extreme angle changes anyways. Please try the triangulation thing, and see what happens, but it should fix your main issue so you could keep baking with minimized amount of smoothing groups - even though its not recommended because it compresses badly in a lot of cases, and because in a non synced environment, it will shade badly.

JetX

Hi again, i have tested triangulation as you said. "turn to poly" > rebake with 1SG and UV SG. The results are the same as on screenshot above.   I know, that 90 degree angle is to sharp for 1 SG, and now i know in wich case it can be a problem.

JetX

I have changed triangulation of top polygons manually, to see how it looks like... It is distorted in some another way.