normal mapping meshes with hard edges

Evak

26-06-2006 21:24:07

I'm having a problem with my normal maps created on mashes with hard edges.

The problem is that the sharp edges seem to be creating dark lines depending on the angle that you view them from.



There seems to be enough padding un UVW unwrap, so I'm not quite sure what the problem is.

I created the simple bumpmap with a noise nap applied to the brick, I made all the smoothing groups the same to try and avoid problems with the edges. ANd then rendered the texture.

Anyway, I'm at a bit of a loss on how to get around the problem so any help would be really usefull. Havent done much normal mapping in the past, since I never had a capable engine to display them well.

Lioric

27-06-2006 02:57:57

Test by creating a bevel on the edges, because of the way tanget space normal maps works, its impossible to produce correct results at 90 degress angles, and you will have some issues in this cases

Adding a bevel to the edges will improve the quality as shap edges are a "retro" look on these days, adding a few more polys wont affect on your fps as the video chips dont differentiate (in performance) between 100 or 200 polys as an example

This link has some information that can be relevant to your issue if your image uses alpha:

http://cgkit.sourceforge.net/tutorials/baking/baking.html#texture-seams

Test with the "filtering" settings as this seems to be related to mip map filtering