[Tyler Bundy]

I asked about the white lines a few months ago at trainsim.com and got some good responses, though the fix was not an easy one.

Can you view the mip-maps incrementally on the model in Shapeviewer? I feel like that would be a good testing device. Marc set me straight on the mip-maps, and it seems that much of my white line fever has come from that(AKA mapping too close to texture boundaries). Unless the mapping errors are blatant, the white lines will only likely appear as you gain distance from the model. There is no fix outside of remapping the texture or, if possible, extending the color boundary.

The white lines can also come from having polygon edges that are not welded together. If you take a box and break it evenly in half to add a different modifier to each half, the edges that have been separated from each other can show a thin, see-through line after exporting the shape. The way I've solved this is to overlap the edges to eliminate the line. I think this is more of a cheat to a problem than the final solution.

All of my experience is with TSM and Polymaster. Other modeling programs may not cause these troubles. TSM doesn't allow smoothing and other modifiers to be assigned to polys, only parts. Therefore, if you want a shape of a locomotive nose that has smoothed corners but none of that shadowy look that happens when a large, flat poly is smoothed, you must break it into two parts: smooth and not smooth. Because these have been split into different parts, it doesn't appear to me that Polymaster will weld these back together during final processing. This leaves "holes" in the shape that you can see right through, even though the edges of the polys are PERFECTLY aligned to a tolerance of 0.000. I don't know if this can be avoided.

Paul, I've seen the white lines occasionally on your models, as well as some of the BLW payware. I've come to notice that most of mine have them. I just wonder if using TSM has provided an extra pitfall for us to circumnavigate that other modeling programs have managed to avoid? It's funny that I've repainted other peoples models that don't seem to have much room for over-map, and yet I see no white lines. Maybe they were just more careful and precise than others.

Tyler

[captain_bazza]

Never use white, or oddball colours, for your texture's main background. Floodfill with black, or near black.

Cheers Bazza

[Hack]

 Tyler Bundy, on 17 March 2015 - 08:57 PM, said:

The white lines can also come from having polygon edges that are not welded together. If you take a box and break it evenly in half to add a different modifier to each half, the edges that have been separated from each other can show a thin, see-through line after exporting the shape. The way I've solved this is to overlap the edges to eliminate the line. I think this is more of a cheat to a problem than the final solution.

If true, then it would be a serious shortcoming of TSM, as breaking vertices should never produce a gap or open seam. If it does, then that would be my clue that an error on XYZ calculations is taking place upon export, resulting in two vertices being ever so slightly offset when not welded, but otherwise sharing the same space.

Nevertheless, similar issues from other programs might include if one poly had an additional vertice along its edge to that of an adjacent poly. So long as the two polys share the same XYZ vertice connection points, however, then the only visible evidence of the two polys being separate would be a different smoothing group or broken vertice to give the appearance of two smoothing groups. Some games automatically weld vertices within a certain threshold (Railworks, Trainz), while others do not (MSTS - tho' this can be exploited to the benefit of the object). MSTS also suffers from issues resulting from a broken UV map, where the model appears fine in the 3D app, but looks faceted in the sim, while other games do not (Railworks, Trainz).

[gpz]

 Hack, on 17 March 2015 - 10:13 PM, said:

Some games automatically weld vertices within a certain threshold (Railworks, Trainz), while others do not (MSTS ...).

I believe it is be the exporter triggers the welding function of the art package (3dsmax), not the game does some kind of a welding.

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

Just FYI - in 3DC we have a function called "weld to range" - where you set the threshold and any number of points within that threshold are "welded" into a single point... Works really well and on a complex model it's possible to see hundreds of points welded together in a single operation...

As for the white lines - as Bazza said - never use white for a background and I usually alpha a pixel or two around the edges of a texture sheet... I've starts using 2048x2048 textures as well - since fewer textures makes for better performance and you also has less edges to worry about...

Regards,
Scott

[Hack]

 gpz, on 17 March 2015 - 11:23 PM, said:

I believe it is be the exporter triggers the welding function of the art package (3dsmax), not the game does some kind of a welding.

Gmax/3DS Max doesn't weld upon export. I can't speak for other apps tho'.

[steved]

 James Ross, on 08 September 2014 - 12:20 AM, said:

I don't know/remember this issue. Is there an in-box or freely available route you could point at where this appears? Basically, graphical issues like this are only truly identifiable in a GPU debugger which means I need the content running myself. :good:

It shows up on the Monon.

Steve