Overlapped Edges with Decimation
I'm having a bit of an issue with decimation and using it in a workflow that I've picked up elsewhere.
Generally what I'm trying to do is create a mesh in Zbrush (say for some cliff elements in this case). I have it all sculpted, I decimate it and I want to port the mesh over into max at around 550k triangles for normal map projection. Generally at higher polycounts, this issue isn't as noticeable.
Where I really run into issues is when I try to use the same asset and decimate it in zbrush to bring it down to 2-4k triangles for my low poly mesh. I've seen this method referenced many times from guys like Epic, but I always seem to get these really nasty overlapped edges that show these awful shading errors.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/3563/decerror2.jpg (Original Vertex placement)
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/4853/decerror3.jpg (Fixed Manually)
As far as I can tell, there isn't an easy way to fix this. One fix is to simply slide the vertex along an edge until the shading error stops. Another is to throw a relax modifier on the mesh, but generally it takes quite a bit of relaxing before the shading errors cease and you lose the shape of the mesh.
At this point I'm thinking I'm not going to bother with this anymore and simply mash together a low poly mesh from scratch, but I'm also thinking that there's some trick to this that I'm overlooking. The two decimation utilities I've used are Zbrush's decimation master, and meshlab. Both work to varying degrees, but they still show up with half a dozen-20 little errors that need to be fixed.
Anyone have any tricks to fixing this? Also keep in mind that ideally I'd like to preserve my UV's so any massive vertex welding or edge modifications wouldn't be ideal.
Generally what I'm trying to do is create a mesh in Zbrush (say for some cliff elements in this case). I have it all sculpted, I decimate it and I want to port the mesh over into max at around 550k triangles for normal map projection. Generally at higher polycounts, this issue isn't as noticeable.
Where I really run into issues is when I try to use the same asset and decimate it in zbrush to bring it down to 2-4k triangles for my low poly mesh. I've seen this method referenced many times from guys like Epic, but I always seem to get these really nasty overlapped edges that show these awful shading errors.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/3563/decerror2.jpg (Original Vertex placement)
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/4853/decerror3.jpg (Fixed Manually)
As far as I can tell, there isn't an easy way to fix this. One fix is to simply slide the vertex along an edge until the shading error stops. Another is to throw a relax modifier on the mesh, but generally it takes quite a bit of relaxing before the shading errors cease and you lose the shape of the mesh.
At this point I'm thinking I'm not going to bother with this anymore and simply mash together a low poly mesh from scratch, but I'm also thinking that there's some trick to this that I'm overlooking. The two decimation utilities I've used are Zbrush's decimation master, and meshlab. Both work to varying degrees, but they still show up with half a dozen-20 little errors that need to be fixed.
Anyone have any tricks to fixing this? Also keep in mind that ideally I'd like to preserve my UV's so any massive vertex welding or edge modifications wouldn't be ideal.
Replies
I tip my cap to you sir. Thanks for the advice.