Reflection with seams on my table

[masterdunx]

Sup Guys, first post!

Just a trivial one I'm sure.
I've just imported a freshly made victorian table complete with diffuse, spec and normal maps.
One problem is that the lighting doesn't seem to behave as it should and seems to show seams where the UVs end. Observe from my link:

http://www.duncangallienne.co.uk/Pag...sets/Table.jpg

I beleive this has somthing to do with the spec map.
Originaly the table was modeld as a quater and then mirrored in Max and exported as a full table with no open edges.

I'm wondering whether there's some setting that would allow for lighting to cope with mirrored UVs or somthing similar.

There's only one light in the scene.

Any thoughts?

[percydaman]

I have noticed the exact same thing. I don't understand it either. Doesn't show up if you convert the object into a dynamic lit object.

[pulse0o0]

I thing I understand your problem. You said it was modeled as a quarter and mirrored it, well then I think it caused seams in your lightmap which is also why a dynamically lit object would not have the same seams.

[masterdunx]

Hmm, it apperas not to be anything to do with dynamic lighting as I changed
both the surface properties to recieve dynamic lighting and converted the light
to be dynamic.

It must be somthing to do with how the specular map interpolates between repeated instances of itself. Maybe there's a setting I need to change in the
material editor?

[percydaman]

Here's what I was referring to. Image on the left is using lightmass, image on the right robot was converted to kactor. You can see that where the uv seams are, there's a definite smoothing issue. Remove the specular and just use a diffuse color, and other then some very minor GI shadow issues, you can't make out any smoothing problems.

http://img859.imageshack.us/i/roboproblem.jpg/

[TorQueMoD]

Actually, it might be due to your normal map not being imported properly. When you imported the normal, did you make sure you chose TC_Normalmap in the compression settings drop down list? Your normal textures should be dark blue, not light blueish purple.

[masterdunx]

Ah, excellent responses.
I did not know that you needed to give normal maps that compression setting when imported, and although it hasn't sorted out my problem, it has made my normal map more beautiful.
As for converting to a KActor, although this would seem like an ideal solution, my aim is to use specular maps on my models. It's an industry thing. I think I've worked out the problem though anyway:

Lighting maps are seen differently in engine to say a diffuse map. Lighting maps can't have overlapped or mirrored/flipped UVs. This means that I'll have to create a seperate set UVs for the lighting map on a differnt cannel and import the new map along with the updated model. I would then have to somehow work out how to apply the maps their respected UV channels (which I'm sure is simple enough).

Thanks for you help!

[masterdunx]

Rejoice brothers! It is solved!

For those of you who face the same problem:

• I ended up creating another UV channel in max where the table top was a whole face instead of 4 mirrored faces.

• I then edited the spec map to match the new UV's.

• I then re-imported the model and map in the UDK.

• In the material editor, I used an additional function called ‘TextureCoordinate’ which allowed me to specify the channel by which the map should apply itself to; in this case the spec map to the second channel (or index 1 since the UDK goes from 0).

Below is a look at my material properties:

http://www.duncangallienne.co.uk/Pag...Properties.jpg

The result is a smooth looking table top!

http://www.duncangallienne.co.uk/Pag...FixedTable.jpg

Awesome!

[TorQueMoD]

Good job man, glad it worked out. I ran into the normal map problem a few weeks ago and it was adding some really weird seams to my mesh that weren't there so I thought that might be the issue. Glad you figured out it was the secondary UVW unwrap... I keep forgetting about having to do that with UDK models.