Nitrous viewport comparison between 2012 and 2014: Banding problem

[xtravolution]

So I have very recently moved over from Max 2012 to 2014. I was looking forward to the improvements that have been made to the nitrous viewport. While there are definite improvements, I have also had some serious problems with banding happening on my shadow maps when using 2014.

I have the exact same scene in 2012 (same camera, same lights, same everything) and there is no banding at all.

I have included a jpg to show the comparison.

I use the nitrous viewport all the time, so it would be great to know how to fix this. Thanks in advance.

[BenBisares]

I don't see it in my tests. Could you attach an archive of your scene (Application Menu > Save As > Archive)? I'm curious as to why you're getting that behaviour.

Also do you have "Improve Quality Progressively" enbabled?  (Viewport Configuration > Display Performance)

[xtravolution]

Thanks for the feed back and sorry it took a while to get back to you. I have had to really dummy down the scene in order to send it.

To answer your question - yes I do have "Improve Quality Progressively" enabled.

Looking forward to hearing your results, and thanks again.

[BenBisares]

No worries. Thanks for the scene. I just downloaded it and will do a bit of testing.

I'll keep you updated.

[BenBisares]

Ok so I see the problem you're talking about. (With Nitrous only, Legacy Direct3D and OpenGL are OK) Tested with 3 different systems and GPUs and Max2014 with and without SP1.

There's no obvious way to fix this. I'll discuss things with my colleagues to see what they think.

I will probably log this one as a bug.

[xtravolution]

Good to know that it wasn't stupidity on my side 😉

Just an intersting note: When I change the shadow type to Vray shadow map, I get perfect results. Weird. I will use this as a workaround until the bug is fixed.

Anyway - thanks for the help.

[BenBisares]

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@xtravolution wrote:

Good to know that it wasn't stupidity on my side 😉

Just an intersting note: When I change the shadow type to Vray shadow map, I get perfect results. Weird. I will use this as a workaround until the bug is fixed.

Anyway - thanks for the help.

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My pleasure.

From our testing so far it seems like issue happens with Shadow Maps only. If you're in the mood for a little experimenting playing around with the shadow map size affects (but doesn't fix) that shadow artefact only with sizes under 512 (I was just going by powers of 2 for the time being). Possible clue as to what is going on.

Because of that, tried playing around with the maps sizes for the Nitrous Display Performance but it didn't seem to do anything.

In any case, logging this one as a bug. If there's any info of note I'll post it here.

[spacefrog_]

guys - this is no bug,

using a shadow map with high sampling range on a sunlight which comes in on flat angle on a terrain is in no way an adequate technique. If you insist using it though, it helps turning down the sampling range ( ~1.0 )  .

But i repeat, using a shadow map in such a situtation gives you problems in the viewport and most probably later on in the rendering too. Thats nothing to do with Nitrous, more like that nitrous in 2014 displays shadows more close to the real render output. This is in fact a render and light setup problem, shadow maps as a technique will break or are at their limits in situations like this scene

[xtravolution]

Thanks for the input. However it is still a bug since these problems do not occur in the exact same scene when using Max 2012. This is a Max 2014 bug.