I've got a weird renderbump problem. I'm in the process of learning how to use it, and I did the old crappy subdivided extruded cube already. So I figured I'd try a semi-complex object. So I made a low poly tall cylinder, and modelled some simple horizontal grooves, and rings. Then I made a high poly version of that object and made the grooves/rings highly detailed and smooth, then sent it out to renderbump.

The problem I'm having is weird vertical seams forming in the renderbump (see a section of the renderbump below). The low poly is a 16 sided cylinder, the high poly is 96 sided. When I use this renderbump ingame on the model it makes it look like it has 96 facets, each one having it's own shadow/hilight. So it looks VERY unsmooth. However, if I just make a flat bumpmap in Photoshop for that area, the cylinder looks perfectly smooth ingame. I'm just not quite sure what I'm doing wrong to get a nice smooth cyclinder render like on the stock Q4 models.

Note: I've tried using the ingame renderbump, as well as orb. Both yield the same results so it must be something I'm doing wrong. Also for what it's worth, I'm using Blender v2.41.

It appears that the 96 sided high poly model's faces are not being treated as one mesh but rather each face is being treated as an individual mesh. That would cause smoothing to only affect the faces individually rather than the object as a whole. Have you tried removing double verteces on the mesh to make sure that isn't the case?

Yes I have done that, just gave it a quick double-check to make sure as well. The only doubled verts are the top/bottom rims of the cylinder since I wanted those to be separate smoothgroups.

In other words... :wink:

.. it looks lilke you've not turned on smoothing for either model in Blender before exporting them - in 'Object mode' select the object and hit the "Set Smooth" button.

Also try using ASE models not LWO as that doesn't have smoothing iirc.

kat wrote:

In other words... :wink:

.. it looks lilke you've not turned on smoothing for either model in Blender before exporting them - in 'Object mode' select the object and hit the "Set Smooth" button.

Also try using ASE models not LWO as that doesn't have smoothing iirc.

Well now I know what that button does, lol. Thanks, it rendered a nice smooth normalmap within minutes =)

for those using maya, to solve this you would set to face mode.. highlight the whole object except the top and bottom cap surfaces of the cylinder. Ensure your menu set is the modelling set.

choose: "edit_ploygons\normals\soften/harden, slide all the way to soft.

this will preserve the hard edge at the ends of the cylinder but will smooth out the normals for the sides so the normal mapping will look nice.

All we need now is someone to detail the method for 3ds Max.

In 3ds Max, you simply select all the polygons on the high poly, then in the modifiers tab, you scroll down to "smooth groups" and select the same only smooth group for these polygones.

For a clylinder, you should assign another or no smoooth group to the top and bottom faces.

I've got a weird renderbump problem. I'm in the process of learning how to use it, and I did the old crappy subdivided extruded cube already. So I figured I'd try a semi-complex object. So I made a low poly tall cylinder, and modelled some simple horizontal grooves, and rings. Then I made a high poly version of that object and made the grooves/rings highly detailed and smooth, then sent it out to renderbump.

The problem I'm having is weird vertical seams forming in the renderbump (see a section of the renderbump below). The low poly is a 16 sided cylinder, the high poly is 96 sided. When I use this renderbump ingame on the model it makes it look like it has 96 facets, each one having it's own shadow/hilight. So it looks VERY unsmooth. However, if I just make a flat bumpmap in Photoshop for that area, the cylinder looks perfectly smooth ingame. I'm just not quite sure what I'm doing wrong to get a nice smooth cyclinder render like on the stock Q4 models.

Note: I've tried using the ingame renderbump, as well as orb. Both yield the same results so it must be something I'm doing wrong. Also for what it's worth, I'm using Blender v2.41.

It appears that the 96 sided high poly model's faces are not being treated as one mesh but rather each face is being treated as an individual mesh. That would cause smoothing to only affect the faces individually rather than the object as a whole. Have you tried removing double verteces on the mesh to make sure that isn't the case?

Yes I have done that, just gave it a quick double-check to make sure as well. The only doubled verts are the top/bottom rims of the cylinder since I wanted those to be separate smoothgroups.

In other words... :wink:

.. it looks lilke you've not turned on smoothing for either model in Blender before exporting them - in 'Object mode' select the object and hit the "Set Smooth" button.

Also try using ASE models not LWO as that doesn't have smoothing iirc.

kat wrote:

In other words... :wink:

.. it looks lilke you've not turned on smoothing for either model in Blender before exporting them - in 'Object mode' select the object and hit the "Set Smooth" button.

Also try using ASE models not LWO as that doesn't have smoothing iirc.

Well now I know what that button does, lol. Thanks, it rendered a nice smooth normalmap within minutes =)

for those using maya, to solve this you would set to face mode.. highlight the whole object except the top and bottom cap surfaces of the cylinder. Ensure your menu set is the modelling set.

choose: "edit_ploygons\normals\soften/harden, slide all the way to soft.

this will preserve the hard edge at the ends of the cylinder but will smooth out the normals for the sides so the normal mapping will look nice.

All we need now is someone to detail the method for 3ds Max.

In 3ds Max, you simply select all the polygons on the high poly, then in the modifiers tab, you scroll down to "smooth groups" and select the same only smooth group for these polygones.

For a clylinder, you should assign another or no smoooth group to the top and bottom faces.

I've got a weird renderbump problem. I'm in the process of learning how to use it, and I did the old crappy subdivided extruded cube already. So I figured I'd try a semi-complex object. So I made a low poly tall cylinder, and modelled some simple horizontal grooves, and rings. Then I made a high poly version of that object and made the grooves/rings highly detailed and smooth, then sent it out to renderbump.

The problem I'm having is weird vertical seams forming in the renderbump (see a section of the renderbump below). The low poly is a 16 sided cylinder, the high poly is 96 sided. When I use this renderbump ingame on the model it makes it look like it has 96 facets, each one having it's own shadow/hilight. So it looks VERY unsmooth. However, if I just make a flat bumpmap in Photoshop for that area, the cylinder looks perfectly smooth ingame. I'm just not quite sure what I'm doing wrong to get a nice smooth cyclinder render like on the stock Q4 models.

Note: I've tried using the ingame renderbump, as well as orb. Both yield the same results so it must be something I'm doing wrong. Also for what it's worth, I'm using Blender v2.41.

It appears that the 96 sided high poly model's faces are not being treated as one mesh but rather each face is being treated as an individual mesh. That would cause smoothing to only affect the faces individually rather than the object as a whole. Have you tried removing double verteces on the mesh to make sure that isn't the case?

Yes I have done that, just gave it a quick double-check to make sure as well. The only doubled verts are the top/bottom rims of the cylinder since I wanted those to be separate smoothgroups.

In other words... :wink:

.. it looks lilke you've not turned on smoothing for either model in Blender before exporting them - in 'Object mode' select the object and hit the "Set Smooth" button.

Also try using ASE models not LWO as that doesn't have smoothing iirc.

kat wrote:

In other words... :wink:

.. it looks lilke you've not turned on smoothing for either model in Blender before exporting them - in 'Object mode' select the object and hit the "Set Smooth" button.

Also try using ASE models not LWO as that doesn't have smoothing iirc.

Well now I know what that button does, lol. Thanks, it rendered a nice smooth normalmap within minutes =)

for those using maya, to solve this you would set to face mode.. highlight the whole object except the top and bottom cap surfaces of the cylinder. Ensure your menu set is the modelling set.

choose: "edit_ploygons\normals\soften/harden, slide all the way to soft.

this will preserve the hard edge at the ends of the cylinder but will smooth out the normals for the sides so the normal mapping will look nice.

All we need now is someone to detail the method for 3ds Max.

In 3ds Max, you simply select all the polygons on the high poly, then in the modifiers tab, you scroll down to "smooth groups" and select the same only smooth group for these polygones.

For a clylinder, you should assign another or no smoooth group to the top and bottom faces.