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Post by grimwolf on Aug 14, 2020 13:52:42 GMT -5
My custom object is having severe shading issues in game. I followed the instructions on how to set up the normal map, and after extensive testing the map seems to be working fine. As far as I can tell, the problem is with the normals on the mesh itself. The mesh normals look perfectly fine inside Blender, and I even tried comparing them against a base-game object in case they were doing anything out of the ordinary to make it work right in the game. My best guess is that Sims 4 Studio might be changing something on import, perhaps based on some setting inside the .blend I'm not aware of. Here's the issue seen in-game;   The normals look fine inside my texturing software;  And here's the file. |
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Post by sigma1202 on Aug 14, 2020 15:09:11 GMT -5
hmm, it looks fine in my game  |
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Post by grimwolf on Aug 14, 2020 15:18:39 GMT -5
That's even more weird and confusing...
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Post by lavsm on Aug 14, 2020 17:41:15 GMT -5
I couldn't see any problems in my game either. What graphics settings do you use, & do you have any custom lighting mods? I was thinking you could also try removing the occluders in the Light resource in the Warehouse to help narrow down the problem.
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Post by grimwolf on Aug 14, 2020 20:00:44 GMT -5
I couldn't see any problems in my game either. What graphics settings do you use, & do you have any custom lighting mods? I was thinking you could also try removing the occluders in the Light resource in the Warehouse to help narrow down the problem. Normally I run it on Ultra, but I tried lowering the settings after Sigma's post to see if that made a difference, but it didn't. I'm not running any custom lighting mods, either. In fact I have hardly any mods at all. Just MCC and a couple object tweaks. What do the Occluders do, though? I'm wary about removing them. Also I tested it more, and it isn't immediately visible with normal ambient lighting. I can see it if I place a light source next to it like a lamp. I unfortunately cropped it out in that image, but I have a lamp on the table next to it. |
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Post by lavsm on Aug 14, 2020 20:56:19 GMT -5
I was able to see the issue after viewing it with a lamp as the only light source. Occluders affect how the object casts shadows, but removing them made no difference.
I noticed in your blend file that there were edges marked sharp, but the edges weren't actually split. I tried doing an edge split on those edges and it seemed to improve the shading, but there were still some faint shadows which I don't know how to fix.
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Post by simmerish20 on Aug 14, 2020 21:16:10 GMT -5
Edges need to actually be split for it to work ingame. Sharp edges only really show up in Blender. You may also have to fix a few normals here and there after splitting edges.
Textures can play around with the eyes a lot, so if the texture is good enough to fool the eyes for a bit, it's not so easy to see the issue with the normals unless you pick the right angles. If you have textures applied in Blender, you may want to turn them off temporarily ("display textures" at the bottom in the viewport, don't mess with texture settings) while working on the mesh, so you spot the problem areas a bit easier.Normals are a whole lot easier to see on a gray mesh than on a fully textured one.
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Post by grimwolf on Aug 14, 2020 21:49:45 GMT -5
Sharp edges normally transfer fine between software. It was actually made in Maya originally, which is where I marked the hard edges, and then transferred into Blender for final S4S setup. Normally the engine would split the hard edges automatically, but I'm guessing S4S as the middleman doesn't handle them, and that's where they got lost. With that in mind I should probably try triangulating the mesh myself as well to see if that helps. I actually should have done that part anyway, but I... sort of forgot until just now.
-Update- Ah yeah, splitting the sharp edges and triangulating the mesh fixed everything. Thanks for all the help.
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Post by simmerish20 on Aug 14, 2020 22:03:54 GMT -5
Edges don't always transfer fine between software and games, though. And not always software to software either.
I'm used to handling 3D Max to Milkshape to SimPE for TS2, and there you had to split edges to have any chance of getting them right, because if not, then at some point in the process the sharp edges would turn into soft edges. It's probably just safest to assume sharp edges are not going to act like split edges when creating for TS4.
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