3ds max tileable texture seam problem

hostilis · Nov 2012

Here's my experiment:

Texture that I'm using:
(EYE BLEED WARNING!)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/63166765/TextureSplitTest.jpg

I've applied this texture into a divided 4 poly plane:

If I want to display one portion of the texture my steps are to break all the poly then snap the vertices to the 4 corners of the map.

You can now see the problem seam:

As I zoomed in it seems that there is a pixel bleeding even though I correctly snap all the vertices. I've also check the texture itself and all of the colors are divided correctly (512x512 per color)

(Desaturated the image to minimize eye bleeding)

My usual workaround to this problem is I use the percent scale of 1% and minimize all the UVs. The problem is if the texture have patterns like marble square tiles, some of the detail are lost.

Here's a more concrete example:

Same procedures as above:

Here's a comparison of a divided texture map(Left | 1% scaled down) vs 1 whole texture map(Right | tiled 2 times):

The middle lines are gone in the divided texture map which I don't like.

I know that it is more convenient to separate the textures but I recently did an art test that has limited texture set requirements that forced me to combine all of my tileable textures.

Does anyone know any solution or other workaround in removing the UV seams?

I use 3ds max 2012 and photoshop cs4.

Thanks in advance.

Kurt Russell Fan Club · Nov 2012

I'd recommend: Use four separate textures. If you absolutely need the mesh to all be drawn at once, use a shader that supports it using vertex colours to pick which texture to use (or UV offsets if you are frightened of the weight of vertex colours).

Combining multiple tileable textures into a single texture is something you should do when the separate tileable textures are all similar colours. You've got basically black and white right next to each other - that's not going to work.

Even if you inset your UVs in by 1% and inset your texture as well by 1% (something you might think of), you'll get problems as soon as your textures get mipped.

Bad Spleen · Nov 2012

I agree with the above post. It's down to the way the texture is being filtered. If you turn off mip-mapping, or filtering, then this problem will cease. However your textures will look nasty.

Essentially, 4 separate textures is the way forward.

GeeDave · Nov 2012

He can't separate the textures, he says this is for an art test and combining tileable textures on the same UV sheet appears to be a requirement.

Customize > Preferences > Viewports > Configure Driver

For mip-mapping options and there's some texture res stuff here too which is worth bumping up to full if not already. I think you need to restart Max for the changes to take effect here.

Edit
Oh, will you be rendering the final result, or taking screenshots? Because I'm going to assume the render is fine at this point?

hostilis · Nov 2012

Ohhh I understand now, it was the mip-mapping all along.

Thanks guys, that dissolve my doubts of using separated textures.

EDIT:

@GeeDave

I've missed your post earlier, I've been required to import the assets in a game engine of my choice then take screenshots from it. Basically the spec requirements are for consoles.

Teclis · Nov 2012

For me it looks like it is the pixelpadding from the mipmapping (as mentioned before me)
You could make the textures core information 1-2 pixels smaller and use the same colors as in the center for the 'border' pixels.

cw · Nov 2012

this has been discussed before - point sampling removes the problem and we can only use the sampling methods hardware supplies, so for linear or anisotropic sampled textures these seams will always crop up (even with a couple of pixels of padding - in fact I have padded a lot of pixels and there is some hardware thing where the seam persists despite all efforts to tweak it to work.)

It's covered here:

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TerrainAdvancedTextures.html

esp this line:
"Note that due to this technique usually resulting in small texture seams appearing at various locations across the terrain, it should be used only if the game design allows. For terrains where the player or camera are close to the surface this issue may be too visible for use, unless meshes or foliage are used to cover the seams."

you can also create textures which only tile in one axis and stack them vertically/horizontally into a kind of tiling atlas if it is more appropriate to what you are making.

3ds max tileable texture seam problem

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