Shading/artifact issues on flat surfaces after applying the “Soften Edges” feature

Replies

• 
  Offline / Send Message

  Neox grand marshal polycounter

  Mar 6 2026

  Normalmaps cant do magic. Each pixel overwrites the normal of the lowpoly shading with the highpoly shading. The stronger the difference between high and lowpoly the more issues will arise. 
  You are simply asking too much of a normalmap.
  
  You could give it a lot more texturespace and bit depth or you need to minimize the amount of lowpoly shading by introducing hard edges and UV seams accordingly.
  
  
  Making sense of hard edges, uvs, normal maps and vertex counts — polycount https://share.google/9bZw5UoErTn0uHQ4I

  3 · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
• 
  Offline / Send Message

  Fabi_G godlike master sticky

  Mar 7 2026

  Hi! Did you bake a unique normal map from a high poly to a lowpoly, then changed the lowpolys shading? If so, I would expect the final shading (mesh shading + normal map) to no longer look correct. The normal map stores the difference in shading of the meshes it was baked with. So if you change the lowpoly shading, you will have to rebake.
  
  But as Neox wrote, and the thread illustrates, having gradients in the mesh shading isn't without consequences, best learn about it to make good decisions.
  
  I would go probably go with hard edges and UV splits or tiling trims (Creating Trim Textures by PixelMasher)
  
  Good luck!

  3 · Share on FacebookShare on Twitter