I have a low and high polygon model, all vertexes and edges are welded, a single smoothing group applied to the whole mesh on both models. Everything up to this point looks good.

I UVW map the low polygon model. Generating the normal map from 3ds Max and the normal map does not tile along the UVW seam - the normals look mismatched. So I export both models out to ORB and render the normal map from there. ORB does a perfect job, no seams on the normal map.

To test, I import the normal map from ORB into Max and apply it to the low polygon model, and the normal map looks as if it would tile perfectly... no visible seams or anything. However, exporting the model in game, there again, is an obvious edge where ever there is a seam on the UVW map.

From what I can gather...

There is no problem with the mesh itself
There is nothing wrong with the normal map I'm using from ORB
There is probably something wrong with the UVW map seams and I have to "weld" them somehow so Max recognizes that it should be a "soft" edge

I don't know how I should do this, so if anyone has any insights or if you can point me to a handy tutorial that would help.

Can you post an image of the faulty result and the uv map?

High poly and low poly models (they are usually occupying the same space, but I moved them around for illustrative purposes)

You can see where I have the UVW seams here

Normal map tiles perfectly

In game shot with an obvious vertical seam on the top of the model. There is also a seam on the inside edge of the ring that you can't see in this screenshot

Resolved: inverted green channel and everything works.

UV seems are always a problem, and there are all sorts of ways to fix them, but most often the practical approach is to try and hide them wherever possible.

is it Green or red channel that is inverted by the ATI compressonator tool? I have somewhere on my computer a little command line utility called normal2displacement.exe and when I run it, a window pops up and it asks if the normal map being input came from the ATI compressonator tool (inverted green channel), and I've been looking at a lot of the assets in Doom 3 and Quake 4, concerning their local maps, and I always get that obvious seem just as you with the original assets from the game, are the local maps in the game ATI (inverted green channel?)

The green channel.

I have a low and high polygon model, all vertexes and edges are welded, a single smoothing group applied to the whole mesh on both models. Everything up to this point looks good.

I UVW map the low polygon model. Generating the normal map from 3ds Max and the normal map does not tile along the UVW seam - the normals look mismatched. So I export both models out to ORB and render the normal map from there. ORB does a perfect job, no seams on the normal map.

To test, I import the normal map from ORB into Max and apply it to the low polygon model, and the normal map looks as if it would tile perfectly... no visible seams or anything. However, exporting the model in game, there again, is an obvious edge where ever there is a seam on the UVW map.

From what I can gather...

There is no problem with the mesh itself
There is nothing wrong with the normal map I'm using from ORB
There is probably something wrong with the UVW map seams and I have to "weld" them somehow so Max recognizes that it should be a "soft" edge

I don't know how I should do this, so if anyone has any insights or if you can point me to a handy tutorial that would help.

Can you post an image of the faulty result and the uv map?

High poly and low poly models (they are usually occupying the same space, but I moved them around for illustrative purposes)

You can see where I have the UVW seams here

Normal map tiles perfectly

In game shot with an obvious vertical seam on the top of the model. There is also a seam on the inside edge of the ring that you can't see in this screenshot

Resolved: inverted green channel and everything works.

UV seems are always a problem, and there are all sorts of ways to fix them, but most often the practical approach is to try and hide them wherever possible.

is it Green or red channel that is inverted by the ATI compressonator tool? I have somewhere on my computer a little command line utility called normal2displacement.exe and when I run it, a window pops up and it asks if the normal map being input came from the ATI compressonator tool (inverted green channel), and I've been looking at a lot of the assets in Doom 3 and Quake 4, concerning their local maps, and I always get that obvious seem just as you with the original assets from the game, are the local maps in the game ATI (inverted green channel?)

The green channel.

I have a low and high polygon model, all vertexes and edges are welded, a single smoothing group applied to the whole mesh on both models. Everything up to this point looks good.

I UVW map the low polygon model. Generating the normal map from 3ds Max and the normal map does not tile along the UVW seam - the normals look mismatched. So I export both models out to ORB and render the normal map from there. ORB does a perfect job, no seams on the normal map.

To test, I import the normal map from ORB into Max and apply it to the low polygon model, and the normal map looks as if it would tile perfectly... no visible seams or anything. However, exporting the model in game, there again, is an obvious edge where ever there is a seam on the UVW map.

From what I can gather...

There is no problem with the mesh itself
There is nothing wrong with the normal map I'm using from ORB
There is probably something wrong with the UVW map seams and I have to "weld" them somehow so Max recognizes that it should be a "soft" edge

I don't know how I should do this, so if anyone has any insights or if you can point me to a handy tutorial that would help.

Can you post an image of the faulty result and the uv map?

High poly and low poly models (they are usually occupying the same space, but I moved them around for illustrative purposes)

You can see where I have the UVW seams here

Normal map tiles perfectly

In game shot with an obvious vertical seam on the top of the model. There is also a seam on the inside edge of the ring that you can't see in this screenshot

Resolved: inverted green channel and everything works.

UV seems are always a problem, and there are all sorts of ways to fix them, but most often the practical approach is to try and hide them wherever possible.

is it Green or red channel that is inverted by the ATI compressonator tool? I have somewhere on my computer a little command line utility called normal2displacement.exe and when I run it, a window pops up and it asks if the normal map being input came from the ATI compressonator tool (inverted green channel), and I've been looking at a lot of the assets in Doom 3 and Quake 4, concerning their local maps, and I always get that obvious seem just as you with the original assets from the game, are the local maps in the game ATI (inverted green channel?)

The green channel.

I have a low and high polygon model, all vertexes and edges are welded, a single smoothing group applied to the whole mesh on both models. Everything up to this point looks good.

I UVW map the low polygon model. Generating the normal map from 3ds Max and the normal map does not tile along the UVW seam - the normals look mismatched. So I export both models out to ORB and render the normal map from there. ORB does a perfect job, no seams on the normal map.

To test, I import the normal map from ORB into Max and apply it to the low polygon model, and the normal map looks as if it would tile perfectly... no visible seams or anything. However, exporting the model in game, there again, is an obvious edge where ever there is a seam on the UVW map.

From what I can gather...

There is no problem with the mesh itself
There is nothing wrong with the normal map I'm using from ORB
There is probably something wrong with the UVW map seams and I have to "weld" them somehow so Max recognizes that it should be a "soft" edge

I don't know how I should do this, so if anyone has any insights or if you can point me to a handy tutorial that would help.

Can you post an image of the faulty result and the uv map?

High poly and low poly models (they are usually occupying the same space, but I moved them around for illustrative purposes)

You can see where I have the UVW seams here

Normal map tiles perfectly

In game shot with an obvious vertical seam on the top of the model. There is also a seam on the inside edge of the ring that you can't see in this screenshot

Resolved: inverted green channel and everything works.

UV seems are always a problem, and there are all sorts of ways to fix them, but most often the practical approach is to try and hide them wherever possible.

I have a low and high polygon model, all vertexes and edges are welded, a single smoothing group applied to the whole mesh on both models. Everything up to this point looks good.

I UVW map the low polygon model. Generating the normal map from 3ds Max and the normal map does not tile along the UVW seam - the normals look mismatched. So I export both models out to ORB and render the normal map from there. ORB does a perfect job, no seams on the normal map.

To test, I import the normal map from ORB into Max and apply it to the low polygon model, and the normal map looks as if it would tile perfectly... no visible seams or anything. However, exporting the model in game, there again, is an obvious edge where ever there is a seam on the UVW map.

From what I can gather...

There is no problem with the mesh itself
There is nothing wrong with the normal map I'm using from ORB
There is probably something wrong with the UVW map seams and I have to "weld" them somehow so Max recognizes that it should be a "soft" edge

I don't know how I should do this, so if anyone has any insights or if you can point me to a handy tutorial that would help.

Can you post an image of the faulty result and the uv map?

High poly and low poly models (they are usually occupying the same space, but I moved them around for illustrative purposes)

You can see where I have the UVW seams here

Normal map tiles perfectly

In game shot with an obvious vertical seam on the top of the model. There is also a seam on the inside edge of the ring that you can't see in this screenshot

Resolved: inverted green channel and everything works.

UV seems are always a problem, and there are all sorts of ways to fix them, but most often the practical approach is to try and hide them wherever possible.

I have a low and high polygon model, all vertexes and edges are welded, a single smoothing group applied to the whole mesh on both models. Everything up to this point looks good.

I UVW map the low polygon model. Generating the normal map from 3ds Max and the normal map does not tile along the UVW seam - the normals look mismatched. So I export both models out to ORB and render the normal map from there. ORB does a perfect job, no seams on the normal map.

To test, I import the normal map from ORB into Max and apply it to the low polygon model, and the normal map looks as if it would tile perfectly... no visible seams or anything. However, exporting the model in game, there again, is an obvious edge where ever there is a seam on the UVW map.

From what I can gather...

There is no problem with the mesh itself
There is nothing wrong with the normal map I'm using from ORB
There is probably something wrong with the UVW map seams and I have to "weld" them somehow so Max recognizes that it should be a "soft" edge

I don't know how I should do this, so if anyone has any insights or if you can point me to a handy tutorial that would help.

Can you post an image of the faulty result and the uv map?

High poly and low poly models (they are usually occupying the same space, but I moved them around for illustrative purposes)

You can see where I have the UVW seams here

Normal map tiles perfectly

In game shot with an obvious vertical seam on the top of the model. There is also a seam on the inside edge of the ring that you can't see in this screenshot

Resolved: inverted green channel and everything works.

UV seems are always a problem, and there are all sorts of ways to fix them, but most often the practical approach is to try and hide them wherever possible.

I have a low and high polygon model, all vertexes and edges are welded, a single smoothing group applied to the whole mesh on both models. Everything up to this point looks good.

I UVW map the low polygon model. Generating the normal map from 3ds Max and the normal map does not tile along the UVW seam - the normals look mismatched. So I export both models out to ORB and render the normal map from there. ORB does a perfect job, no seams on the normal map.

To test, I import the normal map from ORB into Max and apply it to the low polygon model, and the normal map looks as if it would tile perfectly... no visible seams or anything. However, exporting the model in game, there again, is an obvious edge where ever there is a seam on the UVW map.

From what I can gather...

There is no problem with the mesh itself
There is nothing wrong with the normal map I'm using from ORB
There is probably something wrong with the UVW map seams and I have to "weld" them somehow so Max recognizes that it should be a "soft" edge

I don't know how I should do this, so if anyone has any insights or if you can point me to a handy tutorial that would help.

Can you post an image of the faulty result and the uv map?

High poly and low poly models (they are usually occupying the same space, but I moved them around for illustrative purposes)

You can see where I have the UVW seams here

Normal map tiles perfectly

In game shot with an obvious vertical seam on the top of the model. There is also a seam on the inside edge of the ring that you can't see in this screenshot

Resolved: inverted green channel and everything works.

UV seems are always a problem, and there are all sorts of ways to fix them, but most often the practical approach is to try and hide them wherever possible.