Seams between prims?

Does anyone have a cure for the seams that appear between prims with darker textures?

I aligned them with prim docker, also tried to align them manually based on the measurements, but I can't seem to eliminate what looks like dotted white lines.

I've attached a picture.

Thanks (I hope!)

~Coco

I usually change the color of the sides you cannot see to a darker color, that helps sometimes, depending on the light and what is on the other side of the prim. If one side is darker and other side is lighter, then you have to find middle color that works.

What you may also see are edges of the prims because of rounding errors.

This little script is handy to move the prim very small. I was surprised first time to use it because I thought a prims position set in Build Tool was 'accurate'! I will zoom in as close as possible and make minute changes to the position values. It is tedious sometimes. Other times, I just move with the mouse if possible. At the closest zoom, it is in that 4th and 5th decimal point accuracy.

Other times, problem is solved by minimizing rotatation of objects. Simple explaination:

1 take to prims 10x.5x10. Line them up end to end. Then, rotate on 180 on Z axis. Zoom in where they lined up and they will be off a little.

// Put this script in a prim and use the format
// <166.76400, 204.19600, 25.88700> +/- .00001
// in the object description
// uncomment llSetPos line when ready to move.
// otherwise, it just reports position of prim

default
{
touch_start(integer total_number)
{
// llSetPos((vector)llGetObjectDesc());

vector position = llGetPos();
llSay(0, (string)position);
}
}

I texture the butted together prim edges with the same color/texture as the most visible faces. That way the little glitches that you see in your picture become unnoticable, because they are the same color as the visible faces.

The tricky part is when both the top and bottom of the same seam are readily visible, and the colors vary greatly. As an example, say the top of a roof is dark brown shingles, and the underside of that same roof is white-washed pine boards... If you make the abutted edges solid colored and matching the shingles, you get a dark glitch from below. If you make them match the interior ceiling, the roof shows a pale glitch. So you either pick a color that is a compromise between them (almost anything is better than the 'plywood' default), OR you make a special texture for the butted edges that on top matches the roof and on the bottom matches the interior ceiling boards...

Thank you both for your help, it looks like a combination of these two fixes might work for me.

I too will attempt the graduated texture as Ceera recommends. That may be excellent solution. Another tip, when building. When nearing completion, change the time of day with menu World->force Sun to various times, or, if you know how, move the Sun, and see how adjoining prims behave with various forced lighting from different angles. Since version 1.14 or so, light has the extreme effect on those hidden sides of prims, and trial/error is best method to find solution.

Also,

Another problem here is that when the texture was designed, if the designer was using a background colour that was darker than the front layer (if designed using layers) then the front layer needs to be slightly stretched before completion, that way eliminating any background colours coming through which would not be so obvious in a paint shop package until you start to tile in it SL.

If in SL you have a texture that does this, check these settings first:

Repeats per face are set at:
Horizontal: 1.000
Vertical: 1.000

and the Offset:

Horizontal: 0.000
Vertical: 0.000

The lines edges you see are right on the edges of the prim then just changed Repeats per Face to
Horizontal: 0.995 or 0.990
Vertical: 0.995 or 0.990

99% of the time the will solve the problem if the texture has been designed as above.

However, if the Textures Repeat per face is greater than 1.000 on both Hor & Ver and you see thin black/grey lines or sqaures on the prim then the texture was designed badly.

Also, when aligning 2 prims look at the last digits of the x,y,z positions you are aligning,
if you are working say for example on the Y position then the last digit must be the same, depending on prims sizes the second number will differ.

Although, as i can establish from the picture, this line is caused by the renderer rounding errors. (And i suggest using the texturing tips for that, as mentioned before).

A lot of seams nowadays are caused by rotational rounding errors. Often a prim on rotation or link/delink or by changing the values will suddenly jump from round angles (0,90,180 etc.) to angles like 179.95. This will cause misalignment and seams. Sometimes it requires multiple tries by changing the number to fix this rounding error.

Also linking structures with one or two misaligned prims, due to this rounding error and a set of correctly rotated prims, will make the whole linked set enter a state of flux. As the system is constantly trying to 'calculate' a total rotation which will end up outside of the precision of SL's rotations.
Often it's necessary to delink this set first before trying to fix the errors. As fixing the prims while linked will constantly throw them off again.

Dang!

Thunder and cataclysm!

I thought you just have to live with those lines. I've seen them in most of the prefabs I looked at. Is there any way to select a butted texture without taking your entire house apart?

Guess I'll drag myself back into construction mode . . . -- KC

If you're handy with the alt-cam you can move your view inside obstructing prims and get a click on a face that way. Also you can use the debug menu "hide selected" option to first select (and therefore hide) prims in the way, then switch to "select texture" and click the texture face. You'll lose sight of it, but you'll be able to apply the texture.

Either way should get you able to click on a hidden surface without unlinking anything, though it can be awkward sometimes.

Definitely think of making even a really cheap light/dark texture- doesn't have to be graduated, just two tone even.

To remove those lines from your view, go into your graphics cards settings and assign a profile to SL that includes anti-aliasing. The amount and type of AA you can assign will depend on how powerful your graphics card is. In most cases, even a small amount of AA will eliminate those kinds of lines and dots.

I'd still follow the advice of others here just because you know other people won't all have turned on AA for SL, but for your own enjoyment of the world, it's worth turning it on for yourself. You'll really be amazed at how much better the world looks.

As for how to select the hidden edges for texturing, you can do as Ace said and carefully maneuver your camera into place, or you can try messing with Hide Selected (which I personally find annoying), but there's a much simpler way:

1. Select the prim(s) you want to affect, and then turn on Select Texure. All faces of all selected prims will now be selected.

2. Shift-click the faces you don't want to change to remove them from the selection. Since you can't easily get to the hidden edges to deselect them, there's little chance of error here.

3. Assign an appropriate texture and/or color. You'll affect all the hidden edges at once this way.

Are you saying the AA setting in the Advanced Graphics tab in Preferences doesn't have the same effect as hard setting AA in the graphics card?

I have AA turned on in Preferences and I still see the "ants" on butted textures.



I remembered seeing that somewhere else several months ago, but at the time it didn't sink in as to how it would be useful. Now I know. Thanks!

There is no AA setting in Preferences. Are you perhaps confusing anti-aliasing with aniosotrpoic filtering? The two perform similar functions, but they act on very different things. Anisotropic filtering helps to smooth the appearance of textures that are angled obliquely from the camera, but it does not smooth the edges of 3D objects. That's where anti-aliasing comes in.

The cause of those dotted lines where objects meet is that without anti-aliasing, all objects will always have pixelized hard edges. By definition no two adjacent objects can ever be angled relative to the camera in exactly the same way, so the pixelized shape of their edges will always be a little different. End result, you get some unused pixels here and there which appear to form a dotted line between the two edges. Give the scene a little AA though, and those unused pixels get blended with their neighbors, eliminating the dotted line.

Doh! Yep, I sure did. Posted at work. WORK + SL = NONO! So, no SL at work = not able to reference it.

I knew the difference. But, brain patterns were split in two places at the time, resulting in confusion flowing from my fingertips.

But what you said brings up a good point: Why doesn't LL put AA in the viewer preferences? Most other game viewers have it.

Ahhhh - it's like a big weight off the shoulders. The alt cam method of reaching hidden or butted textures worked fine -- and just in time for the Open House several of us are starting this weekend on another thread. Thank you! -- KC

No idea. I've been asking that for years.

Problem with client AA is that the build may look good to me but I prefer to think it will look its best to most of the people viewing so I'll try sort it without changing settings.

With a bit of work the worst I end up with is the occasional flash of ants out of the corner of my camera as it pans & even then you'd have to be looking for it.

to get rid of these seams i did the following:

imagine two cubes with one bright side (white) and one dark side (black). if you put them together you usually have have the seams.
but if you create a texture that is half black and half white and put it on the faces where they meet, the seams vanish.

Not following you here. Can you explain further?

explaining with my bad english, LOL=))

ok what i mean is the textur of the communicating faces should be splitted in colour like the outsides of the prim look like. maybe a picture explains better than me^^. ich use this technics often because i hate seams.

here is a sample pic:

That's a good solution if the two sides are solid colors.

If both sides are custom textures to which you don't have full access, then it is more work. But it's still doable.

A couple of screen captures of the needed textures should be good enough resolution to get rid of the ants in the seams.

Or in my case, I have a wall with a top face that is part of a floor above. To get rid of the little lines I'll have to upload the wall texture again but with a thin line of the floor color/ texture blended in along the top. It's worth 10 lindens to me in lieu of inserting another prim.

But it sort of dashes my idea of making a skybox or home that anyone could re- texture easily (still lining up if they stayed with 256 or 512 square textures). I'd have to redesign so that aliasing or whatever it's called wouldn't be an issue. :-/
--KC

remember with the edit linked parts you can move the individual piece to get to the face you want to texture. just jot down the x y z cords so you can easily snap it back in place