Invisible line showing on mesh

[jordanit0]

I've been using MD to make mesh clothes then importing the mesh into Zbrush to make it into quad based mesh.

Then I use the UV map plugin to make the UV in Zbrush.  Then I export to blender to do the weight painting and to do the AO map.

When I upload the mesh to SL and apply the texture when I zoom out maybe about 10 meters or so I get this invisible line down the seams of the UV map.  So I tried making a UV map in blender but get the same results.

Though If I leave the mesh as a tri based mesh there is no invisible line but I find it harder to scale parts of the mesh for eg the waist.

Is there something im doing wrong making the UV map?

Sorry for the bad quality pic but I had to scale the image as of the distance that the line shows you probably not see it.

Thanks for any help that anyone has.

Jordan

 

[Sassy Romano]

My first guess is that it has stepped down a LOD from highest to medium so it's just a case of "that's how your mesh is".

As far as sizing, you don't have to have it in quads to be able to resize, you can do it by selection of an area (or opposite vertices) and then using proportional edit.  I know it's not quite the same as selecting an edge loop but it's not that hard once you've found your feet with it.

I suspect that the Zbrushed quad version has less topology than the MD output and so will suffer more if you let the SL importer auto generate the lower LOD's and that's why you're seeing the issue.  The MD one will start with a higher topology (if you have used the default particle size) and thus will suffer less by default.

[IvanBenjammin]

Can you post a pic of what the texture looks like? Often a lower LOD won't keep quite the same UV seams. Often fixing something like this is as simple as filling in the empty texture space with the main color, thereby disguising any potential seams.

[jordanit0]

Thank you both for your replies. 

Ivan I was just using a black colour then cropping it to the size of the UV map after I read your comment I thought that's maybe what I was doing wrong so I just left the whole layer black which got rid of that line, though I never tried It with a pattern so no idea if that look weird.   These are something I want to sell to designers to texture so I'm probably just leave the mesh a tris that MD exports in. 

Unless anyone has any experience with Zbrush and knows what I may have been doing wrong when using the Zremesher?

 

Thanks again for the replies

Jordan

[Sassy Romano]

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jordanit0 wrote:

Thank you both for your replies. 

Unless anyone has any experience with Zbrush and knows what I may have been doing wrong when using the Zremesher?

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Already answered this.  Try manually making a medium LOD from the highest instead of letting the SL decimator do it.  See if that helps but I suspect you could do with making other changes in your workflow if that's the case.

[IvanBenjammin]

No experience with the remesher, but if its anything like other decimation tools, its not going to give you the best result. As Sassy says, you want to build your LOD models manually. Decimation tools can work, but generally best for irregularly shaped objects where topology isn't as important.

You always want to try and engineer some 'padding' into your texture maps by extending colors and patterns past the UV seam.

Happy to give more of an explanation if you need one.

[Medhue Simoni]

Personally, I would not make a custom LOD, unless I had to. The way the uploader works, you take no hit at all when you use the original model for the 2 highest LODs. I've made LODs for the 3rd and 4th, but never for the 2nd, as it is pointless and saves you nothing. If I were you, and the mesh is pretty evenly formed, I'd not make any custom LODs unless you have to. 90% of all the meshes I've made, I can get decent LODs using the auto generator. Plus, the distances are way too far away to see any detail you might keep by making custom LODs. I'd play around with the auto generator before I'd go making custom LODs.

[Drongle McMahon]

"I've made LODs for the 3rd and 4th, but never for the 2nd, as it is pointless and saves you nothing."

That all depends on the object size (details here). Below 5m radius, the effect of 2nd LOD is small, compared with the lower LODs, but between 10 and 30m the second LOD is by far the dominant influence and the lowest two LODs have no influence at all.

[Medhue Simoni]

That's interesting! I don't make many larger items. This does make my want to take another look at my boxing ring and bridge tho. They have decent LODs at distances and are around 10-15 prims right now. If you are correct, I should be able to get a little lower Land impact. I'm sure my customers would love to get an update for them with lower LI.