Visible seam in Arnold render

[Anonymous]

help! I'm having trouble with normal map seam in Maya.

In my Maya screen my mesh doesn't show any seams but in the Arnold renderview I see my horrible seams all over the mesh.

why is the seam only visible in the render view? How can get rid of the seam? 

Normal map is baked in Maya and the mesh is imported from Zbrush.

thanks.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

This may be a problem with the edge being hard.

If you select that edge and go to Mesh Display->Soften Edge does the hard line still appear in the render?

Let me know if this helps or if you need any more assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

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[Anonymous]

Thank you Sean  for the reply, unfortunately soften edge didn't help with visible seam.

I don't know what happened but now the seams are visible not only in the render view, but also visible in the Maya scene.

The seams only visible when I apply normal map. What's the best way to get rid of the visible seam?

I have attached the scene file.

Thank you.

[sean.heasley · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous

Ah ok yeah this looks like it's an issue with your normal map.

You had the normal map set to Tangent Space Normals when you actually want it set to Bump.

I also went and reversed the values of the green channel in photoshop and saved it as a TGA instead of a TIFF so its a little higher quality!

Please let me know if this helps or if you need any more assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for your help! 

Is there a reason why I want to use Bump instead of Tangent Space Normal? I thought Tangent Space Normal is better than setting it to Bump.

How can I decide which one to use when it comes down to applying Normal map? How can I properly use Tangent Space Normal?

Thank you.

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

It's a little bit hard to explain in simple terms so here's an article breaking down normal vs tangent space normal.

Funny thing is, if you're exporting to a game engine or other texturing program like Substance Painter for example, you don't have to worry about this problem.

When I first opened your scene I actually imported it into Substance Painter first just to make sure it wasn't an issue with the model/normal map.

Basically whether it is bump or tangent space changes how Maya "reads" the map and model and how harsh the seam will come through.

Please let me know if this information is helpful or if you need any more assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Your answer clears a lot of things, thank you so much I'm learning a lot from you.

I really appreciate your help!