VaM 1.x Substance Painter stitch glitch

[Demorfeus]

I can't solve the problem with the seam. Substance Painter has

such a glitch with seams. I use these layers. The template for the model is made of a standard mesh

The most amazing thing is that in VAM these layers look smooth and undamaged

What did I not take into account or am I doing wrong?

 

[Origin69]

I can't solve the problem with the seam. Substance Painter has View attachment 608467 such a glitch with seams. I use these layers. The template for the model is made of a standard mesh View attachment 608470
The most amazing thing is that in VAM these layers look smooth and undamaged View attachment 608472
What did I not take into account or am I doing wrong?

It's not a glitch. You are looking at the normal maps. Normal maps work by how the uv unwrapping is on the flat 2d texture, not how they appear on the 3d model.

The purple looking 2d textures show normal information (how light should bounce off of the surface texture) as colour. For Open GL (like vam uses) that means that anywhere on the 2d texture a bump will always look green at the top, red from the right, and blue from the left, regardless of how the models uv islands are rotated or positioned on it. The seam you are seeing is just the uv unwrap of the legs being rotated differently on that map than the torso texture, but that doesn't matter, because the 2D textures orientation is correct. That's why it looks fine in vam.

 

[hazmhox]

Due to the unwrap and the texel resolution of Gen models, you will always have weird discrepencies in normal maps.
In your first shot, your normals look widely different tho. Substance is quite bad at handling the difference between DirectX/OpenGL, ensure you have the proper setup in the channels settings.

But for what it's worth: if you see incorrect things in Substance, and you have zero problem in VAM, then you have no problem

 

[Demorfeus]

For some reason, this bug is only with these normals, I have not observed such seams with others. If you use these normals in the VAM atom as a Diffuse layer, the seams will be noticeable.
It also does not work to disguise this seam.

 

[Origin69]

For some reason, this bug is only with these normals, I have not observed such seams with others. If you use these normals in the VAM atom as a Diffuse layer, the seams will be noticeable.
It also does not work to disguise this seam.

Again, not a bug. Normal maps are not the same the other maps. The colours on the map represent normal vectors, and how it looks in game is calculated from the 2d texture orientation, not how the uv islands appear on the model.

Creating new normal textures is hard because of this, as you can't paint them. Some people bake the normals from high poly models, but most are painted as black and white images that relate to the height of that point on the texture and then converted to normal maps with 2d software.
Here's an example of a grey image with white as high points and black as lower. I turned it into an openGL normal map. If you unwrap the uv's of a 3d model onto it, regardless of how those uv islands are positioned or rotated relative to each other, the areas from the lighter text will always look raised, and the dark text will always look engraved.

 

[Origin69]

 

[Demorfeus]

Again, not a bug. Normal maps are not the same the other maps. The colours on the map represent normal vectors, and how it looks in game is calculated from the 2d texture orientation, not how the uv islands appear on the model.

Creating new normal textures is hard because of this, as you can't paint them. Some people bake the normals from high poly models, but most are painted as black and white images that relate to the height of that point on the texture and then converted to normal maps with 2d software.
Here's an example of a grey image with white as high points and black as lower. I turned it into an openGL normal map. If you unwrap the uv's of a 3d model onto it, regardless of how those uv islands are positioned or rotated relative to each other, the areas from the lighter text will always look raised, and the dark text will always look engraved.

View attachment 608483View attachment 608484

I understand this and do exactly the same thing from the black and white version by correcting the curves. But I don't understand why it's not possible to mask the seam in these maps! Everything works out in other maps

 

[Origin69]

Here's an example. I just duplicated and shredded the top of the cube I just showed you, and then randomly laid out the uv islands. I then baked the normals across from the original.
As you can see, the normals on the new model look the same (1st image), but because i shredded and re-orientated the uv islands, when putting the normal map as the diffuse it looks all over the place on the model with visible seams with the colours flipping direction. The main thing you should notice is that the flat uv map on the left still has all of the normals oriented the same way (green from top, red from right, blue from left.), that's why using it as a normal map still works fine. If you actually get seams on a model from a normal map, it is mostly due to the bleed area around the uv's on the 2d map from bad baking. You can't just paint over the seams like other textures.

 

[hazmhox]

I understand this [...] But I don't understand why it's not possible to mask the seam in these maps! Everything works out in other maps

So no, you don't understand then. Ok, consider the next sentence not a mean answer, but a way to try to anchor it in your head

BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT IMAGES.

Origin told you two times already how normal maps work. I also explained this several times in the texture/assets tutorials. Normal maps showing "a colored picture" is just an effect of the way they are encoded, but they are fundamentally data: Vectors.

So since UV islands can have different orientations and vectors are stored based on that (since normal maps work in tangent space) you cannot expect to have a "smooth linear image" (again putting this in quote as normal maps ARE NOT images) on seams. For VAM, Gen 2 character will pretty much all have that, here's kit for instance:

... yet, no problem ingame (except again, the obvious texel discrepency, especially at that range).

And as mentionned above, as you have very wild different texel resolutions on Gen 2 characters, the effect might even be more visible. (as it shows on the shot above).

So there's 2 possibilities now:

• Either you try to wrap your head around the fact that normal maps are NOT images, and that the visual representation of the texture cannot be trusted compared to the ingame/rendered result. Maybe you can try to read some papers/explanations on how normal maps are rendered.
• Or, you have to accept that it might go over your head (technically speaking)... and that you should stop trying to fix that "seam" and only trust the VAM result.

TL;DR : Stop looking at the normal like it was an image, it is not. Stop trying to fix the seam, you probably will only make things worse for the final result.

Finally, don't fix what ain't broken.

 

[Demorfeus]

So no, you don't understand then. Ok, consider the next sentence not a mean answer, but a way to try to anchor it in your head

BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT IMAGES.

Origin told you two times already how normal maps work. I also explained this several times in the texture/assets tutorials. Normal maps showing "a colored picture" is just an effect of the way they are encoded, but they are fundamentally data: Vectors.

So since UV islands can have different orientations and vectors are stored based on that (since normal maps work in tangent space) you cannot expect to have a "smooth linear image" (again putting this in quote as normal maps ARE NOT images) on seams. For VAM, Gen 2 character will pretty much all have that, here's kit for instance:

View attachment 608495 View attachment 608496

... yet, no problem ingame (except again, the obvious texel discrepency, especially at that range).

And as mentionned above, as you have very wild different texel resolutions on Gen 2 characters, the effect might even be more visible. (as it shows on the shot above).

So there's 2 possibilities now:

• Either you try to wrap your head around the fact that normal maps are NOT images, and that the visual representation of the texture cannot be trusted compared to the ingame/rendered result. Maybe you can try to read some papers/explanations on how normal maps are rendered.
• Or, you have to accept that it might go over your head (technically speaking)... and that you should stop trying to fix that "seam" and only trust the VAM result.

TL;DR : Stop looking at the normal like it was an image, it is not. Stop trying to fix the seam, you probably will only make things worse for the final result.

Finally, don't fix what ain't broken.

I perfectly understand what vectors are, how they work, and what the normal layer is in general. That's why I contacted the community, because I know that this layer can be masked. The problem here is clearly in the different encoding of limbs and torso.And I'm going to try to figure it out.

 

[hazmhox]

Good luck finding the same answer we already gave you.