Arnold is rendering soft edges hard

BatouYukinawa · Apr 2019

I'm at my wits end, I've tried about everything I can think of. When I render out my asset, the soft edges appear hard. If anyone has an idea what may be causing this, please help me.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/xk/k1a1wcqfn3gy.jpg

musashidan · Apr 2019

Where did you bake this? Max/Maya are using their own tangent basis so this could be your issue.

BatouYukinawa · Apr 2019

I baked it in Substance Painter then exported the textures in Metal Roughness in EXR format.It's not the texture maps, Arnold is not rendering edges soft when I make them soft. You can see the edge is clearly hard but I have smoothed the edge multiple times. It's like Arnold is not seeing the edges are soft for some reason.

musashidan · Apr 2019

I didn't say it was the maps I said it was the tangent basis. Does it render like that with just a default aistandard?

The normals could be locked. What does it look like in the viewport?

BatouYukinawa · Apr 2019

The viewport shows edges as hard when I have them soft too. If I make a edge hard it doesn't change the edge at all. And yes it shows hard edges without any maps applied even when I turn the whole thing to soft edges.Applying the maps just makes it more visible and obvious.

poopipe · Apr 2019

Sounds like the normals are locked. Try unlocking them, it will knacker your normal maps though

BatouYukinawa · Apr 2019

Doesn't seem to be the case. The edges still render out hard. It's something to do with the Arnold render it seems.

musashidan · Apr 2019

BatouYukinawa said:

It's something to do with the Arnold render it seems.

Didn't you say above that it's an issue in the viewport as well? Where did the mesh come from? Did you create it in Maya? Did you export/import it? What were your export/import settings?

BatouYukinawa · Apr 2019

Apologies, I was mistaken. Viewport is fine. I modeled in Maya. I exported in exr format with a Metal Roughness workflow. The maps really aren't the issue tho. The Arnold Render is just rendering soft edges hard for some reason. Even without the maps applied and a fresh Standard surface shader I get the exact same results.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ps/xl2kz3fhynsh.jpg

You can see the edges are hard here in this render. However, this is right after I smoothed them. I tried unlocking normals, they are fine, actually unlocking the normals as well and re softened these exact edges, yet they still come out hard. Also those edges are not 90 degrees or more so softening them shouldn't cause any issues.

Shrike · Apr 2019

are you sure you dont just have 2 models inside each other?

BatouYukinawa · Apr 2019

Yes, that would be impossible considering I imported just the low mesh into my pre built lighting scene. Arnold just doesn't seem to want to render out the edges as they have been assigned.

Arnold is rendering soft edges hard

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