[SOLVED] Normal Mapping causes sharp visible edges

[cxg2827]

when I have the model loaded with no normal mapping, it comes out fine. But, after adding normal mapping, it causes visible edges. Could it be because of how my UV islands are set up?

In the unity screen everything looks fine. Its only when loaded into the game that it shows.

 

Edited May 19, 2016 by cxg2827

[noonespecial]

That looks like you don't have smooth shading turned on in your modeling program. In Blender, that would be in edit mode, under the shading / uv menu.

[cxg2827]

smooth shading was applied to the model. and then I applied some sharp edges ( not along those areas Im having an issue with) and added the edge split modifier . In Blender and in Unity the model looked smooth like it should (check the full resolution of the second image).

I think something must have happened when I added seams to the upper 2 conic sections to get the UV map I posted easier. I did a bit of reading and it appeared that adding seams to the model can cause that issue with normal maps.

I'm removing all seams and redoing the UVs to see if that might solve the issue.

[CaptainKipard]

Do let us know if you figure out what went wrong.

[nli2work]

smooth shading was applied to the model. and then I applied some sharp edges ( not along those areas Im having an issue with) and added the edge split modifier . In Blender and in Unity the model looked smooth like it should (check the full resolution of the second image).

I think something must have happened when I added seams to the upper 2 conic sections to get the UV map I posted easier. I did a bit of reading and it appeared that adding seams to the model can cause that issue with normal maps.

I'm removing all seams and redoing the UVs to see if that might solve the issue.

some engines have issues with mirrored Normal maps; I don't think Unity has that problem. how did you generate the normal maps? It could be that the Green channel needs to be inverted before importing to Unity.

[cxg2827]

I just generated the normal map by loading a grayscale height map, and checking the box for unity to generate it via the grayscale.

I downloaded xNormal, and will be giving that a try rather than having unity make it.

Cpt. Kipard, I'm going to mess with it probably tonight or tomorrow, so I'll post up my troubleshooting if I manage to figure out what goofed it up.

[nli2work]

The in game image doesn't seem to show the normal map at all. are you using KSP/Bump or KSP/BumpSpecular shader? It could be the edges are sharp, but the normal map in Unity was hiding it.

[cxg2827]

the in-game shot was with just KSP/Bump.

And yea, the normal map didnt come through for some reason in that screenshot. I was modifying the height map to make it pop a bit less and i guess i passed a threshold that it didnt display in game.

Earlier the map came through in game with the sharp edges still coming through so i was seeing if changes the height map might make it go away.

here are my sharps that were applied in blender.

[ximrm]

I know that problem(not from ksp but from modelling).

It has to do with smoothing and baking.

-If you have a too low smoothing angle(eg. 15°) and bake the model, it will have those sharp edges.

-Another thing that can cause it is when you use tools like crazybump, shadermap, njob or others to convert maps to normal.(not sure about the unity conversion, but it shouldn't be very different)

If the settings are not well set, (eg. low detail settings/too low slope/texture influence), the map created might have too sharp or rounded edges, where edges shouldn't exist.

BTW, looking at the picture, I have the feeling that the nrmmap is inverted (-Y), also the parts that should stick out don't seem to have any bump effect.It's more like a diffuse /color map with a bake of the edges without smoothing and converted with an eternal program.

I'm really curious what the issue is.

However, in this case I'm not sure what is causing the problem, but if someone has similar problems, those two things might be the cause for that unwanted effect.

Could you please post a picture of the settings or maybe the workflow of your map creation?

Edited September 28, 2014 by ximrm

[cxg2827]

Ok, I figured out the problem/solution:

Do not use Unity's Normal from grayscale converter

Even when I removed the seams from the model, it still had the sharp edges. faces sharing textures also came out looking funky.

I downloaded and used xNormal to generate my normal, and everything looks fine now. I noticed that the normal mapping is much more subtle with the xNormal map as well.

 

Edited May 19, 2016 by cxg2827

[CobaltWolf]

Sorry for the necro, but I was having the same issue. I was able to use xNormal to fix it. @CaptainKipard could you put this in the megathread?