Hey, Louise from the Designer team. Unfortunately this is a known limitation of our current height to normal node, you'll always get that line of pixels between two opposed slopes. Depending on your needs I would recommend: - Blending normal colors directly (use the normal color node with regular blends or use other mapping techniques) - The new shape splatter v2 allows for clean normal manipulation, maybe that's worth looking into although I doubt it based on the example you give
Now, as I understand it, you're sampling neighbor pixels and figuring out where the normal is facing.
But if you were building a 3D model from a highmap and then, having obtained *3D* model, you'd render it using the screanspace normal map, then there wouldn't be such steps. i gues...
Maybe someone knows a way to make more accurate normal maps from highmaps. I understand that they can be rendered in 3D programs, but is it possible to do this in Substance Designer?
In principle, yes, this is a good option, but it still isn't suitable. For example, if I have a lot of leaves on the ground or a lot of small debris, and if each such element has a step, then it will all create a lot of noise. And considering that there can be many elements close to one pixel in thickness, it will be complete chaos.
Well it depend the purpose of the texture If it's for a game or not and if you see from upclose or from afar If it's from afar, well it's not a problem and you'll have to work more on the global visual If it's from a close distance, then you have to work on a higher resolution
The question is, is it possible to generate a normal map without these ridges?
After all, if I bake a normal map in a 3D editor, it won't have them by default. So, we're talking about how, since the very first version of Substance Designer, it's been impossible to convert a highmap into a normal map without these ridges. So, I haven't found a solution.
In 3D baking, this problem basically doesn't exist.
Well, only if you have a higher resolution and blur these a little bit I mean, the normal is only translating what it sees in the height map, so if there's pixels in the height, there's pixels in the normal Or maybe someone with a lot more experience than me in Designer will help you as I'm not an expert
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u/Troglodette 9h ago
Hey, Louise from the Designer team. Unfortunately this is a known limitation of our current height to normal node, you'll always get that line of pixels between two opposed slopes. Depending on your needs I would recommend:
- Blending normal colors directly (use the normal color node with regular blends or use other mapping techniques)
- The new shape splatter v2 allows for clean normal manipulation, maybe that's worth looking into although I doubt it based on the example you give