[SOLVED] Terraced-like Artifacts in Normal maps

AlexMonops

Hello!

I'm trying to build some normal maps, but I'm often (if not always) getting artefacts like the ones you can see zooming in this one:


It looks like "terraced".

Do you know how to fix this?

RSI

Hi. That looks like an 8 bit artifact. Go into Options & Settings and under maps enable Force 16 bit. Then recreate your project and the "steps" should clear up.

See this thread. http://shadermap.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=88

AlexMonops

RSI wrote:

Hi. That looks like an 8 bit artifact. Go into Options & Settings and under maps enable Force 16 bit. Then recreate your project and the "steps" should clear up.

See this thread. http://shadermap.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=88

Yeah, that did the trick Sorry for not searching Maybe that option should be on by default

Cheers!
Alex

graflax

I'm having this problem in the latest version which I bought a few days ago. The thing is though that the Force 16 bit box was checked right from the start (as it is the default, I think). Checking or unchecking this box appears to make no difference—I'm getting these "contours" either way. I restarted SM and created entirely new projects but it was still happening.

I had previous demos installed (now removed)—could their old settings have anything to do with it?

RSI

Please provide me with a link to one of your source images that produce the artifacts.

graflax

RSI wrote:

Please provide me with a link to one of your source images that produce the artifacts.

In fact it's every one I've tried. I don't have distribution rights on these so I can post them, but I found this very similar type shared on the web and it gives exactly the same results:
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2421/monsterkiddisplace.png

The "terracing" effect is identical to the OP image above. Here's a detail of the SM render:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/daj8ye0mps9lr7b/monsterkiddisplace_NRM_detail.jpg?dl=0

RSI

graflax wrote:

In fact it's every one I've tried. I don't have distribution rights on these so I can post them, but I found this very similar type shared on the web and it gives exactly the same results:
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2421/monsterkiddisplace.png

As I suspected it is not the image processing of ShaderMap 2, it is the source images themselves which already contain the artifact. I cropped a section of the displacement image you linked to and it looks like this...



I used Photoshop's Brightness/Contrast adjustment to show that the steps are already embedded in the displacement...



You could try bringing the images into Photoshop, converting them to 16 bit mode, then applying a Gaussian Filter (5-8 radius) before bringing them into ShaderMap. Please note this will remove the artifacts but sacrifice the detail of the image.

I'm not sure how these displacement images are being produced but it would be better if they were in a 16 bit color mode which allows for 65535 levels of height vs the 256 levels of an 8 bit image.