15
« on: 2023-11-04, 10:25:43 »
Last night i noticed something pretty weird happening with Max's chamfer modifier and I don't know why.
But, by default, whenever I use the Chamfer modifier I always tend to select 'Smooth Chamfers Only' and then enable 'Smooth to Adjacent'.
However, 'Smooth to Adjacent' appears to be messing up the normals of my geometry. It's only really noticeable with a super low sun though.
In the attachment look at the floor tiles, it's just a simple line with floor generator. I've then added an edit poly and welded all verts. Then added the chamfer. The top screenshot is how it should look. The bottom is wrong, super dark, no shadows. Looking at the floor tiles is the most obvious, but you'll also notice it's happening on the small wall upstand to the right of the image. But it only seems to be happening on the poly's facing upwards (Z).
I always thought 'Smooth to Adjacent' was the correct way to go, now I'm not sure. But it's used on pretty much everything in my scenes. I've got 12 images in total, and some of the geometry that used the chamfer modifier is now collapsed, so it's too late to go back. Thankfully this is the only scene where it's really noticeable due to the low sun.
There is another way to fix it and that's simply adding a 'Normal' modifier on top with 'Flip Normals' ticked, that returns the dodgy looking geometry to how it should look.
So there are 3 scenarios:
Chamfer - Smooth Chamfers Only - Smooth to Adjacent On = Wrong Shading/Shadows
Chamfer - Smooth Chamfers Only - Smooth to Adjacent Off = Correct Shading/Shadows
Chamfer - Smooth Chamfers Only - Smooth to Adjacent On - Flip Normals = Correct Shading/Shadows
Can anyone shed any light on why this is happening and what the correct way to go is as it's got me questioning everything I've done previously.
It's not a Corona Sun issue, as the same also happens when using a HDRI with a low sun.