I've just edited a mesh so that it could be a sort of 'crossroad' piece. When it's imported into NifSkope and also when ingame, it shows weird shading along the edges of parts of the mesh (see http://114482879919756473-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/Oblivion2010-03-2014-51-44-15_ARROWS.jpg?attachauth=ANoY7creeyR6itgy_1EOiSTUh5MNUAhAtZG3WNCmK-HIhU_4e3k_38p8p8HNHvaSzE4Oj70TaYo_UeBbLNC3BJBU6IH_UX2fAGfQL_Aodu77edBnpSKtKkeR875TIAPigJscWUVnBs2P36StxXjPuKy0CYcvFU7uZs27BsQpVW3ARs7thBTpNhYeMXb2OnivcfWOc4zrldBFx-0RmKh19e2_eW1Ziv8XulBL34ho6qP3v3ZFkrb-oWi4DHuk6qJDI6DsinItuwZf9kyhKK-mt05Rh37OY5scBA%3D%3D&attredirects=0 ingame example). This also persists underneath the rug.

Is there any reason for this to happen; and what can I do to fix it? I'm using 3DS Max 2010 32-bit.
I'd guess something about the normals being out of place or something, but I've really no clue!

Any help would be welcome! Cheers.

Maybe bad smoothing. If you have edges with an angle of 90° and force smoothing on them this may happen depending on the mesh layout. Try mesh>face normals, should get rid of the smoothing. If it doesn't help play with the smoothing in max and make sure you don't smooth hard edges.

Mesh>Face normals didn't seem to do much to it; and I wasn't aware I was smoothing it at all in 3DS Max. There are angles of 90 though, so you may be onto something!
I'll get you a picture of how the edges look, since they follow the edges. It seems suspicious! http://114482879919756473-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/Oblivion2010-03-2014-51-44-15_ARROWSpencs.jpg?attachauth=ANoY7cozsiJKWvlzt7g0cOUGWwmy72qtaoFtC7EQ5GOS5cD-Myb_bUI1J3yJWtL_DKbI_rgjadVvS15Bv20T6vSOzC6N5MUaxMMKguS_KEBBpPjTUnB6iYIr2yZMuiRKiJbDUdq0PCukXD5ZSAsnDROb-LU8lPGIqgk4ydSkKJh2ITolsvOW4RpNRZNjYGV22Gh9ZMrEhanb4dXbbEvX4s01XhlVvHhWLkeCTC0Ue5IjLnr7iRoakc8aOIUTmVEzJnHfhvvlN3ZtIglsZLZR5I8z8Ou9lqWbaQ%3D%3D&attredirects=0
How I made the whole room was by cutting off bits of the end of the straight version of the corridor, so it formed a point with 90 degrees inbetween it (you can see that in the link). Then added 2 planes of symmetry along these new edges (so in effect, pasted this mesh at 90, 180 and 270 degrees around the new point made), thus making a cross shape.
That probably didn't make much sense, but the picture gives most of it away anyhow.

Cheers for your help though!

I think max auto-smoothes by default unless you extrude or change settings. Try to smooth it with 45? in max and export. Or upload the mesh and I'll have a look. Also, is there a reason for all the unnecessary triangles? Vertex colors or multiple textures used on the mesh for example?

Hmm, I'm not all too sure how to change the smoothing settings, so I'll give you the .nif and the .max:
http://sites.google.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/BankHallway_CrossroadswRug_00_demo.nif?attredirects=0&d=1
http://sites.google.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/BankHallway_CrossroadswRug.max?attredirects=0&d=1

Cheers for looking at it! If you need the texture or it exported in a different file type, feel free to ask! I guess you could chuck on any texture though, it's not got a complex UV map at all.

And as for the multiple triangles in the mesh, they're for the Vertex Painting as you may be able to see in the .nif. Just looks much slicker with that on, imo.

Cheers again!

Never use face normals- this is important for meshes that you have normal maps baked from highpoly, the face normals and normal map have to match or else you have bad shading. though this is not important for meshes where you have normal maps derived from a bitmap, most architecture.
see this http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1071685-tipzkeeping-correct-normals-into-nifs/page__p__15580169&#entry15580169
Note: the image that displays the messed up shading in nifskope has been fixed in the current developement build. and doesn't apply to oblivion nifs.

always set up your meshes normals up in max correctly before export. it'll export correctly so there is no need to mess with it further, you'll only give opportunity to introduce error

you problem is a known issue http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=198
Offset all your overlayed mirrored UVs or your tangent space calculation will pick up this bug.

I also note in the nif you have some odd sense of face smoothing, I presume that was intentional...
edit: and you have a flipped faces on the rug too.

Kengon, you need to scrub your meshes. I downloaded your .nif file and scrubbed it, removing over 20K bytes of extraneous vertices and probably substantially improving the appearance (I can't tell for sure without the textures).

Try scrubbing each NiTriStrip in the .nif using the procedure shown here: http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u28/VinceB_photo/ScrubbingChart1.png.

@Ghogiel
Ooh err. Baked? Offset? Face Normals? Confusing stuff! I'll try and tackle it, but it does look a little complex! I'm not entirely sure what I've done to make this do weird shading things, but at least I can solve it if I do! Cheers!
Also, I've no idea about face smoothing. Apparently 3DS Max does it for me automatically. I didn't actually know it was doing it at all anyhow! And I think I know where you mean the flipped faces are. When I export that rug, sometimes it cuts faces off and I've no idea why. That happens when I strippify it, at least! :S

@Vince Bly
Ooh, scrubbing sounds easier and more fun.
I did that to the rug (although I didn't strippify it, because that makes it go weird, as I said above), and it looks much better! When I update the tangent space, though, it goes back to normal for the crossroad rug with the creepy shading, so I missed that out - but it worked absolutely fine for some other meshes I was having this problem on! Cheers very much!

lol. Why! do you even understand where you are saving that 10kb from?

ok I'll let you off in this case for promoting that. because it is architecture, and besides when using smoothing, its destroying any face normal groups you specifically set up, it will not break anything ...though i do not agree with it, and there is no reason to do any of that if you are a modeller exporting you own nifs. I think you should remember several stipulations as well.

if you have a rigged mesh- do not stripify. it is skinning is likely better performance as shapes.

you can bugger alpha blending up as well. Be very careful stripifiying meshes with alpha. the more complex the alpha layers are the more likely something like the error in this picture will happen (Hair for example) http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/other/alphastrippifiederror.jpg

Now comes to where you are shaving off that extra couple of kb. basically nifskope is not a modelling program and doesn't afford you the control you one gives you. it has a spell for smooth normals. it won't let you do particular face selections, and set smoothing groups up exactly how you'd like. Now a lot of architecture in oblivion has a specifically set up face smoothing that the artist did in the 3d program. Usually by doing selections and setting up smooth groups- in the case of max. Those are often under a 60 angle. at export those faces split- as is needs. this creates duplicate verts at those seams, and also duplicate verts in the UV array.

Now you come along an globally smooth the whole mesh at default 60degree angle. rmoving the face smoothing set up, and then remove those duplicate verts. obviously you've saved some kb- you've lowered the vert count. but you have affected the mesh. Just be aware that is all you are doing. there is no hidden special optimizing thing that can only be done in nifskope. you can set this all up in your 3d program before export- it exports your face smoothing and splits faces as you intended.

this is particularly important in fallout, you'll [censored] up just about anything, simply because of face normals spell more than anything else. they used a lot of baked normal maps, which specifically rely on the face normals and face smoothing to render correctly, so don't mess with them.

Now if you want to tinker. and try to refute anything I have said. DL this- http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ABLPQLZB
make sure you ahve the latest experimental development build of nifskope.
they were exported from max.
I did nothing in nifskope besides naming/adding some nodes and messing the shaders/materials and texture set. there is a simple box nif as well that can demonstrate it in as simple a mesh as possible.
The meshes have a 180 degree face smoothing. the normal map itself takes care of the sharp edges. This is a classic example why you wouldn't want to do any "scrubbing".
you can't optimize it- no matter what you do. you can't undo face smoothing in nifskope, once a mesh has been smoothed to for example 60 degree. you can't get a 45 degree angle back into it. you have to re export.
Face normals will cause errors in the shading. after that spell has been run you will not be able to get correct normals matching your normal maps, until you reexport the mesh again. < will totally make you mesh look messed up

It looks much better at a certain point because you have removed the vertex normals/ tangent space. doing that scrubbing thing will never solve the mirrored overlayed UVs and tangent space bug. As I have explained- You have to edit your UVs.

Max does not set up face smoothing automatically- you do that. its called smooth groups in max. (but it does give you a default smoothing of 45 on meshes- but that will not carry onto many types of modelling you do to the mesh, all extrusions will be their own group for example.

it exports it automatically, saving you from manually splitting the faces before export.

The scrubbing technique described in: http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u28/VinceB_photo/ScrubbingChart1.png can be very helpful on a variety of newly imported meshes. I have used it to good effect on hundreds of meshes, mostly architectural, clutter items, and plants, and continue to teach it in my modeling classes. I have also discussed it with Amorilia at the NifTools forum. I have not tried in on particles, hair, or NPCs. Below I give some examples. I would ask the reader to not let one person (me or anyone else) convince you to use or not use this technique. If you do 3D modeling, try it and decide for yourself.

Here are screen shots in NifSkope of a vase and horse shoe before and after scrubbing. Both were exported from Blender. Rem Double was used on both before export. Not all meshes will be improved so dramatically.

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u28/VinceB_photo/Vb2010/VaseB4.png

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u28/VinceB_photo/Vb2010/VaseAfter.png

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u28/VinceB_photo/Vb2010/HorseShoeB4.png

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u28/VinceB_photo/Vb2010/HorseShoeAfter.png

I have also posted the unscrubbed .nif file of a small morning glory vine at:
http://www.mediafire.com/?wnjwnlvzovj

If you scrub it, you will reduce the file size from 223 Kb to about 80 Kb.

The horse shoe and morning glory can be seen in game in the upcoming revision to my Abandoned Mountain Shack (presently in beta).

I'm not sure I understand...it looks like the vase didn't have any smoothing when you exported it while the horse shoe did have (an undesired) 90° smoothing. In Nifskope you smoothed both globally with 60°. You could have done that in your 3d app as well before export and the result would be the same.

The morning glory nif you posted seems to be buggy nif Bethesda overlooked. The stem doesn't have any smoothing at all and thus has far more vertices than needed, certainly not what they wanted to do with that model.

I generally don't use face normals and smooth (in Nifskope) for my models since there is simply no need for it, but some problems forum users post can be solved easily with it. I also see nothing wrong with it if the whole model can have the same smoothing angle. I'm sure it doesn't work well with baked normal maps if Ghogiel says so, but I have never messed with that to be honest. It is good as a last resort for a quick fix in some cases. Nothing more, nothing less.

What Phitt said.

You haven't addressed any of the points made. In this particular case, the person in question is exporting their meshes.
There really is no need to do any mesh scrubbing if you are exporting your own meshes.

What I am saying is set it up correctly before you export. trying to fix your mistakes/problems post export, only tells you that you have erred before you hit that button. There just is no special optimizing technique you can only do in nifskope, or even should do. the only spell you need is update tangent space.

The morning glory nif is my case and point.

I imported it into max. Did all the smoothing there. welded the all the split extra UV verts. Basically it's set up how I would have done it. reexported, set up the alpha etc.

if file size is all you are interested in. Mine came out at 71.3kb. Significantly lower than 80kb. Everything looks correct, no smoothing errors, alpha is good.

take a look at the nif if you want.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AEJYVQFV

I think I understand why people are slagging off this scrubbing lark now, but not entirely. I'm not exactly a novice at 3D modelling, but I've only just got to use 3DS Max and using the Civ4 Exporter. The weird shading doesn't show up in 3DS, so I'm not sure how it's getting it so wrong in NifSkope. I know you've all probably spent a generous proportion of your time trying to explain this already and finding appropriate links (which I'm loving, btw!); but could someone give me a step by step guide on how I could rectify it without using these Face Normal and Smooth Normal things? I guess they're no where near what I'm wanting them to use, since (as someone very rightly said) NifSkope is only a middle man between making the mesh and using the mesh. It's no good for finding out how it works or editing it - it's just a posh conversion tool.
Actually, I'm not sure why I'm telling you that. It was you that told me in the first place!

I've got no idea what a Baked normal map is, and I did check out http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=198 to the Fallout 3 fixing example, but it says things like Tangent Space and Binormals and UV Shells and things; so at that point I phase out and probably just stop listening to it. I can just about see how it would work for a sphere, but I'm not sure how that would translate to a rug!
I think maybe I'm a little too noob atm. Is there something that I did to cause this bug that I could avoid in the future; or is it a common problem that has to be overcome - not avoided?

Sorry for being so slow; and cheers for all your time so far! I'm feeling more profession just by reading all this technical lingo.

EDIT I still don't understand this smoothing thing, either. I didn't tell 3DS Max to smooth something for me! Stop smoothing things, 3DS! Stupid smooth angles and stuff. I just want faces, not curvy-smoothy faces. :'(

All it seems like is that Vince was giving the OP another option for smoother sides and lesser file size, not a flamewar

Just my lowly 2-cents

in this situation use the niftools plugin not the civ4 plugin. I recommend only using the civ4 for kf animations, particles, and all the animation controllers that niftools cannot export. Niftools performs better imo for everything else as it saves you from doing any post export processing in nifskope.

your problem is primarily your UVs. ignore the face smoothing or any perceived problems with that for the moment- you will come back to set that up later.

Anyway example. rug.

your UV- http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/other/YourcurrentUV.jpg

Possible solution to fix uv- http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/other/possiblesolutionUV.jpg

as long as those verts that meet in the middle of the rug- in your UV do not share the same UV space, it doesn't matter where you offset them to. As long as you offset by any whole number

you layed your UVs out so the tangent space mirrored overlayed UVs bug happens on everything. ceiling, walls etc.

Face smoothing, I guess you don't have it yet, it's really simple. they are used to create hard edges on your mesh, sometimes they are called split edges, face smoothing, hard/soft edges. etc.
in max its called smoothing groups. in the edit poly modifier you should be able to find it. basically, just select some faces, set the desired smooth angle. hit auto smooth and bob's your uncle. or can add a smoothing group modifier and do it through that.

if you want no continuous face smoothing any where on your mesh, and split every edge, just select all the faces and set the smooth angle to 0. hit auto smooth. I'm sure you don't want to do that though- I think it'll look very faceted and not the desired effect you want.


this directed at me? I think you are reading too much into my reply. I have only addressed technical issues. here is the data of my experience, it happens to be what it is. I cannot change it. Do whatever want you want with it, including ignore it.
Not interested in flamewars.

actually not really just you at everyone.

Aah, cheers Ghogiel! I think I just about understand this face smoothing lark, and my my UV's are buggy.
One small thing (and sorry for the late reply!) - which ones do I move?

So each of them needs to have it's own UV space, since all 4 have a vertex that meets in the middle? I'm not sure I understand, since your linky image shows 2 UV spaces.
Also, I've just realized that there are 3 'element's in the UV map, but no 4th? It's shown to be hiding down at the bottom left corner without any area at all. Could that be a problem?

Cheers for all the help so far though, I really appreciate it!

EDIT Also, is there a feature to offset by a whole number? I'm not sure if I'm moving it by the right about, so it might not be in a separate UV space. If not, then I can just move it so it looks like the fixed UV image you linked. Cheers again!

Your carpet consists of four pieces that meet in the middle, right? Each of these four pieces has exactly the same UV map. The game doesn't like it when you mirror a mesh with exactly the same UV map, it creates strange seams where the mirrored parts meet if you update tangent space (ask Ghogiel for the technical explanation for this ). Afaik this only can be seen when you have a specular map, the brighter it is, the worse it looks. To get rid of that you need to move the four UVs each to a separate UV space. There are two options you have:

1. Select one of the four rug pieces in UV modifier mode and zoom in very closely in the UV editor. Move the piece you selected by a tiny amount, less than a pixel. This will offset the UV enough to prevent the seam effect from happening, but not enough to notice in game that the textures aren't aligned 100% perfectly (since it's less than a pixel). Do that for three of the four rug pieces (the last one can stay where it is since there are none left in the same UV space)

2. Do as above, but instead of zooming in move the UV one tile along the U or V axis.

I suggest you download http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=60392 to do that (link in second post). Very useful utility that gives you the option to move the UV exactly by a specified amount with one click. And lots of other options.

There are 4 UV shells(islands) in that image. there are 2 pairs, which are offset by 1 on the V, but still overlayed. I can do that- the faces might be overlapped, but verts do not share the same UV space. which is the important thing.


Yes, that could definitely be a problem. you could potentially run into the same Tspace issue. And can cause the niftools plugin to freak! that is likely why you get a flipped face at export, i bet 10-1 you find a correlation between, flipped/dropped faces at export and issues in the UV map.
it's planer it'll take 2 seconds to unwrap, so you might as well do it. It's things like that, that do not save you any time, as you inevitably end up having to go back and make a fix because it causes some sort of issue.

read the tutorial!!! http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=198
5th picture from the top shows clearly the UV offset tools at the bottom of the UV editor window.
You do not need to copy what I did in the linked image. There are an infinite amount of possible UV layout solutions. I suggest doing it different. just understand the rule here. if any geometry verts are welded, and have mirrored overlayed UV shells, if those verts share the same object and UV space, and are mirrored overlaped in the UV, Tspace freaks. solution - offset all mirrored Uv shells.


Yup I have it on my Max8. The offset uv shells is a standard tool in the max UV editor. I think only the space\straighten tools are the only things max doesn't do by default< which are extremely essential!!!!

for Max 9 and up, the free TexTools plugin is awesome http://www.renderhjs.net/textools/
Max2010 basically had a lot of polyboost functions built in. including its Uv tools, but might as well have a toolset you are familiar with

Additionally, you know when niftools max plugin drops a face at export sometimes? well I have just found out why that happens in most cases, and how to fix. Its the UV map! check the UV where the faces get dropped/split and and chances are there are split verts in the UV map. I imported a mesh from Zbrush and tried to export it, got dropped faces. the then I noticed that every vert in the uv was split because the zb import/export. problem solved when I welded every UV vert.
I think I notice that Max 2009/ as opposed to V8, exports smaller nif files :S. need to test more to confirm though. ..

Alright, I think I understand what you're saying now. Sorry for being such a noob!
I've struck a problem though, and instead of telling you, I'll tell the story through some screenshots. I'm almost certain I've done it as you've said, but it's gone wrong again.

Here's the images, in some sort of chronological order:
http://sites.google.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/BrokenUV_3DS_Verts_01.png?attredirects=0
http://114482879919756473-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/BrokenUV_UVMap_01.png?attachauth=ANoY7coN2yVEkXs1iXZ5iZrwkUzW3MI8X970K9uDf31UGL36iMRiXuraQDVEctGdm8McnMLX_pXKLmOGvCmWU7sAVEEfN81v_2-j2ilfmYrl8M3wBUrUEUe_vBTXZr8aRniVqGG9WJ6zU5fRnFxCPj4Uct5XYw2xmRRRmeG21UUoPVR5OGzd9P5ADGgjeqPULGD35cJ1E6TwBLXnQ9DJXtoXjwTkrV6HR3aBycPh-84GQzmRrIZ4Rfm77NmH11QcLq-5Ps4hIrWn&attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/BrokenUV_Nif_Export_01.png?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/BrokenUV_NifSkope_01.png?attredirects=0
http://sites.google.com/site/gregsimmonds2/hosting/hosting-general-02/BrokenUV_TES_CS_01.png?attredirects=0

It looks much better in NifSkope now, but it still shows the same problem in the Construction set, which is really confusing! I've tried updating the tangent space for everything in the .NIF, welding the verts in both the UV and the mesh itself, and making a new .ESP and putting the mesh in that; but nothing has worked to fix it. I've even checked and double checked that I'm using the right .NIF in the Construction set.
I've not completely remade the mesh; and I'm importing the rug into the same .NIF (after deleting the node with the previous, buggy rug on, and adding a new node with the new, still buggy rug on), if that helps at all. As ever, I'm stumped!

Again, cheers for all the feedback and help! I'm determined to get this fixed.

EDIT I did a bad link

possibly if those circled verts are sharing the same UV space. :shrug: I'd have to see what part of the UV belongs to what part of the mesh
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/other/Maybe.jpg

it's quite obvious here as well
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/other/Hereaswell.jpg

and the ceiling and wall corners were last I saw. Just saying.

export settings- untick hidden nodes< if you have anything hidden in the scene it'll export those as hidden objects. I often have several things hidden in my scenes, which I don't want in the nif if you know what I mean. tbh always leave it off. I mean you'll always have whatever you are exporting visible in the viewport right? :S
You might as well have Update Tspace on as well. Though you will probably always use that spell in nifskope to be sure, some times I get a black face if the mesh has to triangulate itself at export, or like if you have left any Ngons on faces. or if the UV isn't super tightly laid out. its a bit particular.

Lots of interesting info but the problem is being caused by vertex colors. There are several non-white verts that are throwing that surface effect. I tested it. Set them all white or plan your vert colors better.

If you really tested it -> post some research if you want to tell me what it is and isn't. :whistling: otherwise it's very hard to convinced me you tested properly. And if you did you would have come to the same conclusion I have. But I would say that wouldn't I?

Yes there are some dodgy vert painting. For the most part the vert paint is ok though. I would drop it on the rug and where its not sitting in the real recesses. But it is not what I am addressing. What I am addressing, is absolutely what I am saying it is. vert paint won't even look like that. the problem is that he has used dark vert paint in a few not so ideal places, those green dots i made, imo, are tspace freaky dance. I wouldn't confuse what I am talking about with vert paint . ok I might. but probably not on the green dots. Give me the mesh and I will tell you for certain...

if you are looking at the nif on the first page. No, vert colors is not causing the mirrored-overlayed UV seam and tspace bug. It is this http://www.fallout3nexus.com/articles/article.php?id=198


nif that was posted on first page.
NO vert colors
flat grey diffuse map
flat featureless normal map.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/other/mirroroverlaydeUVseam.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/other/mirroroverlaydeUVseam2.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c85/lego-botz/other/mirroroverlaydeUVseam3.jpg

Any questions?

Right, I can just about see what's going on, but the whole process of fixing it is easily taking longer than it took to make it - so by that logic, I might as well just make it again, and make it properly this time, since everyone seems to be laughing at my UVing or vertex colours or whatever. Seems I've hit a wall, and I can't get round it, or over it or whatever; so I'll just delete the wall and carry on from there.
Can anyone suggest how I should go about it? I can't think of any logical way to do it apart from how I did it earlier, and that seems to be buggy. It seems the sort of thing that people should do quite often (turn straight corridors into crossroads), but I'm stumped as to how I can do it. Specific help with 3DS Max would be really generous, but I know that's asking a lot!

I guess I'm not adverse to fixing the problems the mesh has at the moment, but now I know all the stuff I do, it seems to make much more sense to implement them earlier on, as opposed to trying to force the mesh into doing things that it isn't really capable of.

Cheers for all your help so far!

My apologies to you Ghogiel and the OP. I wasn't even looking at the same NIF. Disregard.