Mesh/UVW or Material problem

[andregonweb]

Hi all,

I'm having a slight issue with a file I have had in my pipeline a short while (over multiple versions of Corona and Max).

There is a distinct seam visible directly on top of the underlying geometry (in both mutli-geo and collapsed geo setups - please see screenshots attached.)

I've tried removing UV's via the built in Max utility, exported and re-imported the mesh itself, and all to no avail.

I'd really appreciate a second pair of eyes on the problem and all of your input.

Regards -

[romullus]

Maybe i don't know where to look at, but i don't see any issues in your screenshots. Maybe it's worth to make them more obvious, paint a big red arrow perhaps?

[andregonweb]

Ah - yes of course.

Please see herewith where I have indicated the seam on the rendered version.

Its causing the artifacts that are making those area seam to pop out unnaturally.

[maru]

Does this material look different in other renderers, even just Scanline? Maybe the UVW mapping itself is done like this.

It seems that those seams are appearing in places where there are some geometry edges or other objects in place. Could it be related?
If you are using displacement in this material, you can also try subdividing the mesh. Otherwise it may get pushed a little bit in the direction of the normals, which may result in some overall deformation. (compare a simple box object with displacement and no tessellation and with tessellation). 

[andregonweb]

I didn't try that - no.

I am using displacement, and just plain old UVW Box mapping.

Also checked for geometry overlaps but there were none. However, there was a residual horizontal piece of geometry which I deleted - and it has solved the problem.

It's odd though - I can't say I have had exactly this problem before - and all the other models for this project (about 10 in total have retained their geometry and Uv's perfectly. Guess it's one to ascribe to the "corrupted geo" category.