Hard UV Seams, Even with Triplanar projection turned on

[WeThePuppets]

Hey guys having another issue.

I've tried all sorts of FBX and OBJ export options, but I'm still getting hard seams along my UV Edges in Substance. I thought Triplanar would fix that, but they are still there..

Is there something I have to do in Maya in order to Soften Edges or something? Because I've tried unlocking normals, softening edges, etc. and the seams still show up.

I'm sure it's a checkbox I'm not checking, but I don't know what it could be at this point.

Here is what's going on, and it's happening on all the UV seams on this mesh, which is mostly cylindrical.


Any guesses, ideas, or suggestions would be very handy!

Thanks

[Jeremie Noguer]

It's hard to say without seeing how the project is setup.
Did you bake a position map and world space normal map?

[WeThePuppets]

Sorry I haven't been able to get back to this, but this has become a constant problem now and is happening on every mesh I bring into Substance Painter, which makes me think it has something to do with my export settings from Maya.

Here is an image of this hard UV seam problem happening on another mesh:


Here is .fbx file of said mesh:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B47cFWX2cub7bzBQS181Y0d4ZW8

I've tried softening all normals in Maya, that didn't work. Or I didn't do it right. Either way, it seems like the UV edges are getting hardened, but I can't seem to figure out how to stop that from happening.

I'm exporting out the .fbx's with the following settings from Maya:

Literally everything else in the .fbx is turned off. And the .fbx year is set to 2013.

Edit:

Okay so I should have inspected the channels before assuming it was the mesh, and it looks like the Curvature map is the culprit for these seams. If that's the case, how do I rectify the curvature map?

Edit Edit:


Okay so switching the baking to perVertex instead of PerPixel and disabling seams seemed to create a much better result for the Curvature map. f&*k!

Nevermind, this didn't fix the seams still showing up in the final material view. Which is weird, because the other maps seemed okay (seamed, seemed...okay, I'll see myself out).

If there are any other tips to creating seamless textures, I'd be all ears.

[DorianDogg]

Hi man,
Triangulate on(if u don't want to triangulate by yrself), smooth mesh off, smoothing group on, tht's wht i use in maya, maybe the auto smooth is acting on uv too. Why smooth on anyway?

[WeThePuppets]

Why smooth on anyway?

I don't have a good answer, I thought that meant that the model would export with the smoothed normals from Maya, if I did soft edges or other stuff like that. Should that be turned off?

Also, I've edited the above post quite a bit. Going through a lot of trial and error.

[WeThePuppets]

Okay so the only other channel this seam is really showing up is the Thickness channel. Trying to play around with some settings for that. There are a few small errors in the other maps, but none that stretch the seam across the entire surface like the Curvature and Thickness maps are.

Still fiddling..

Also I tried exporting per your recommendation, DorianDogg, still get these errors after rebaking the maps.

[WeThePuppets]

Okay I'm back to square one. So far none of the baker settings have change the fact that these seams still show up. I'm convinced it has to be something mesh related because I exported both a .fbx and .obj, brought them in, baked the maps, and still get these seams.

And it isn't related to this one mesh, it happens to all the meshes I bring in. Any Maya users who know what would cause this?

[DorianDogg]

Hi!
You will always have seems, but u can try to minimize them hiding them on the 'back' of the object for example. Also the orientation of the uv island can help (for example if u got bricks running horizontally u must orient two adjacent faces of a wall accordingly). Don't know how your mesh look, but for example to minimize seems in the sphere of the first pic u can use a cylindrical projection when generating your uvs!
 

[WeThePuppets]

You say that, but I thought the whole point of triplanar projection was to remove seams.

[WeThePuppets]

Just a friendly weekend bump, ha. Still looking for the problem/solution.

[staughost]

Hey I also have some serious issues with seams. At least in substance viewport. But one thing I think you have problem with in thickness is UV stretching. And one big thing I think problem is with seams is that painter isn't actually supporting full 16bit normal map in viewport so the gradients for mixing parts of normals on two seams aren't mixing well enough so you get the seam. But I might be wrong.

[Jesterofthesky]

You say that, but I thought the whole point of triplanar projection was to remove seams.

Substance triplanar projection does remove seams, but only to a point. You're still dealing with what will eventually output to a flat texture, so if there are discrepancies in relative texture density, UVedge orientation, face/edge normal direction then you'll still end up with seams.

The point should also be made that there's a difference between the triplanar projection we see in a texture package like substance which has the caveats I listed above and 'true' (pure?) triplanar projection which has to be done in-engine (or render package) as a shader trick, discarding all UVs (with their seams!) and instead using the direction of the face normal to mix between three (X,Y,Z) projections of a texture. This method will eliminate all seams, but is a lot more restrictive than the 'triplanar' mapping in Substance Painter

[julian_1]

I am also having a lot of problems with seams, but I think part of it is that I thought it was possible to paint over whatever seams, on an object like a rock, or worse, a sphere, where the seams are in plain sight, using the camera projection.  I'm using Lightwave, which doesn't support smoothing groups, but even so, it seems from this thread and others that it is not possible to seamlessly paint over seams (unless they have some relative alignment) and have that map bake out.

That'll teach me never to assume things, like I shouldn't know already.

I've had more luck with triplanar projection, in Painter and Designer, but clearly it's ultimately still down to hiding those seams, where possible.  That attached shows just the height channel, which is weird because for the most part, the shapes seem to cross the seam pretty well.  Unfortunately the seam is still plainly obvious when rendered, either in native LW or in Octane.

[fxcfxc]

OMG，can you slove this problem？   i have no ideal

[fxcfxc]

I am also having a lot of problems with seams, but I think part of it is that I thought it was possible to paint over whatever seams, on an object like a rock, or worse, a sphere, where the seams are in plain sight, using the camera projection.  I'm using Lightwave, which doesn't support smoothing groups, but even so, it seems from this thread and others that it is not possible to seamlessly paint over seams (unless they have some relative alignment) and have that map bake out.

That'll teach me never to assume things, like I shouldn't know already.

I've had more luck with triplanar projection, in Painter and Designer, but clearly it's ultimately still down to hiding those seams, where possible.  That attached shows just the height channel, which is weird because for the most part, the shapes seem to cross the seam pretty well.  Unfortunately the seam is still plainly obvious when rendered, either in native LW or in Octane.

OMG，can you slove this problem？   i have no ideal