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Can you avoid the stitching type lines?

Ciaran Laval
Mostly Harmless
Join date: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 7,951
08-17-2009 10:52
I'm not sure whether to put this in the texturing forum or this one but it relates to building. I see this lot, a stitching type line on buildings, even when prims are perfectly aligned and the textures are the same, there's a sort of line of dashes where the prims join, is there any way of avoiding this?
yondaime Larsson
Registered User
Join date: 23 May 2007
Posts: 5
08-17-2009 11:05
From: Ciaran Laval
I'm not sure whether to put this in the texturing forum or this one but it relates to building. I see this lot, a stitching type line on buildings, even when prims are perfectly aligned and the textures are the same, there's a sort of line of dashes where the prims join, is there any way of avoiding this?



try put invisible texture on the side of each prim, i mean on the surfaces beetween the 2 prims.
Rolig Loon
Not as dumb as I look
Join date: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 2,482
08-17-2009 11:17
Or apply a dark texture -- that works too. The line is there because the prims really aren't perfectly aligned, even if you think they are. You can either spend a LOT of time fiddling to get the alignment as near perfect as you can, or you can try minimizing the "stitched" appearance, as yondaime and I are suggesting. Or you can just take a deep breath, sigh, and walk away. It all depends on your tolerance level.
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Osprey Therian
I want capslocklock
Join date: 6 Jul 2004
Posts: 5,049
08-17-2009 11:45
It's pointed up by WindLight day changes. You can cut the ends so they get the same type of light hitting them as part you want to match. Also, if you put a fullbright texture (to match in tone obviously) on the inside faces it won't change due to light changes. That can help for some things.
Ceera Murakami
Texture Artist / Builder
Join date: 9 Sep 2005
Posts: 7,750
08-17-2009 12:03
You can never eliminate that glitch 100%. It will always be there at certain lighting angles and certain angles of view.

The problem is that no prim edge on your screen is actually a true, straight line. They are made of pixels, and unless exactly horizontal or vertical on your screen, that pixel edge consists of tiny stair-steps, and the stairsteps on the edges of two perfectly aligned prims will still have a few very small "holes" where the stair-steps do not exactly align. Through those holes, you can, at certain angles of observation and certain angles of lighting, see a little bit of the abutted edges of the prims, which have a different angle to the light from the more visible faces, and this show lighter or darker.

If you make the abutted faces 100% alpha, they don't reflect light, but they may show the terrain beyond the prims, or other prims beyond those prims, which may be just as bad.

If you make the prims fullbright and put the same texture on the abutted faces that you have on the visible faces, it does minimize the issue, but your structure glows at night like a neon sign,

You can minimize the problem by backing each seam with another prim that is at the same angle as the visible prims, has the same texture, and is just fractionally below the visible surface. But as you back off, you'll get a flicker at the seam that looks worse than the edge glitch.
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Ciaran Laval
Mostly Harmless
Join date: 11 Mar 2007
Posts: 7,951
08-17-2009 12:42
Thanks for the tips guys, I'll try them out and then probably try not too worry about it or I will find myself fiddling for hours, and then I'll ruin everything and spend hours more trying to put it back!

As an aside, I'm sure I read somewhere that there are more decimal places than the three we see in the standard viewer, did I imagine that?
Rolig Loon
Not as dumb as I look
Join date: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 2,482
08-17-2009 12:58
Yes, there is a hack for modifying your in-world Edit window to add another significant figure beyond the ones normally there. You can find it if you dig around in forum archives, or maybe some kind person will repost it here. If you want to go to the trouble, you can also set prim size and position parameters by script, in which case you can specify as many decimal places as you like. Given the resolution of monitors and the practical limitations on image size, it's hardly worth pushing for much more fine control than you have by default, but that's a choice for you to make. If you are creating microprim jewelry, though, it could be just the trick for you.
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Amaranthim Talon
Voyager, Seeker, Curious
Join date: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 12,032
08-17-2009 13:10
Emerald GreeLife comes with the additional decimal points.. something to think about.
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Chosen Few
Alpha Channel Slave
Join date: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 7,496
08-17-2009 15:02
In addition to what's already been suggested, you can minimize the appearance of those dashes dramatically by enabling anti-aliasing in your graphics hardware preferences.
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Gaia Clary
mesh weaver
Join date: 30 May 2007
Posts: 884
08-17-2009 15:57
I have been playing around with Genetica a while ago and created some high quality tiled textures which seem to reduce the stitching effect dramatically. When i use these textures, then i can not see any seams with my computer, even when i completely turn off anti-aliasing.

So maybe it is a combination of good graphic card, good textures and very precise building that helps ?
Isablan Neva
Mystic
Join date: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 2,907
08-17-2009 17:35
What Ceera said.

The only *real* solution is to use strategically placed prims to hide your seams. Think of them as "architectural features."
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Airt Pexington
Registered User
Join date: 6 Jun 2009
Posts: 72
08-17-2009 21:02
Another technique is to embed the edges of the prim into its abutments as often as you can.

As others have mentioned undercoating works as well. Remove the plywood and color the entire prim with an RGB coating close to the primary texture color and then apply the top coat (the texture) to the visible surfaces. It rezzes a little quicker when you do this as well.

IME most light leak on buildings is caused by the sun/moon. Lamps and local lighting you can do something about, simply by moving the light source, The sun/moon is another matter. So flip the world lighting periodically as you build.