"Wood Grain" Artifacts

graflax

I've been using Shadermap CL for some time and I've just downloaded the SM2 demo, which I was very impressed with. However I noticed these contour lines in my test renders (they seem to be apparent on larger images). The results below were created from a colour jpg (3000 x 2600) which I had previously used to make a normal map using CL which didn't have these artifacts.

I thought perhaps the artifacts might only be in the previews and not present when saved, but I can't check this in the demo, of course. Can you advise?

RSI

I think these artifacts may be caused from using 8 bit map generation. You might try going to Options->Maps->Force 16 Bit Maps and ensure it is checked. This will be on by default in future releases.

CL and SM1 did all calculations in 16 bit mode and didn't provide an option for 8 bit processing.

Let me know if this helps. If it doesn't, then please send me the offending source image so I can get it fixed.

graflax

Thanks a lot—that was it. I should have realized these artifacts were down to bit depth!