[FO4][3DS Max 2013] Weird shadows on mesh

[AnOutdatedMind]

Hello all; I'm back from the dead.


This time round when I was working on a mesh in 3DS Max, some parts of said mesh developed this weird shading. I assume it to be dysfunctional shadows, but I've honestly got no clue. I don't even know what to call this problem and I haven't been able to find anything through Google either.

So, what causes this and can it be fixed, or do I need to start over?

PS.: Why are there no spoilers?

[South8028]

Hello all; I'm back from the dead.

 

 

This time round when I was working on a mesh in 3DS Max, some parts of said mesh developed this weird shading. I assume it to be dysfunctional shadows, but I've honestly got no clue. I don't even know what to call this problem and I haven't been able to find anything through Google either.

 

So, what causes this and can it be fixed, or do I need to start over?

 

 

PS.: Why are there no spoilers?

I dont know for sure, but look in nifscop to see if the Vertex Color flag is set in the material settings (in the nif importer plugins, when importing nif from the game, you need to remove this flag (it is exclusively for ck markers). If there is such a flag, turn it off.

[ChuckYufarley]

Have you tried switching to perspective view?

[AnOutdatedMind]

f2jc33c

I dont know for sure, but look in nifscop to see if the Vertex Color flag is set in the material settings (in the nif importer plugins, when importing nif from the game, you need to remove this flag (it is exclusively for ck markers). If there is such a flag, turn it off.

I don't remember what settings I've used at import. It's interesting though that the parts of the mesh that were imported (e.g.: the base console panel) are totally fine. It's my custom backside that's causing problems.

 

Have you tried switching to perspective view?

Believe it or not, that's already perspective view, although I agree it doesn't particularly look like it.

 

As an aside; it should actually show the UI elements for view and rendering settings for the viewport in the left upper corner, but for some reason Max doesn't particularly like Ryzen APUs (at least not with the current rendering engine; you can choose directX but that doesn't work all too well with Beth's 3ds Max plugins last I checked).

[South8028]

f2jc33c

I dont know for sure, but look in nifscop to see if the Vertex Color flag is set in the material settings (in the nif importer plugins, when importing nif from the game, you need to remove this flag (it is exclusively for ck markers). If there is such a flag, turn it off.

I don't remember what settings I've used at import. It's interesting though that the parts of the mesh that were imported (e.g.: the base console panel) are totally fine. It's my custom backside that's causing problems.

 

Have you tried switching to perspective view?

Believe it or not, that's already perspective view, although I agree it doesn't particularly look like it.

 

As an aside; it should actually show the UI elements for view and rendering settings for the viewport in the left upper corner, but for some reason Max doesn't particularly like Ryzen APUs (at least not with the current rendering engine; you can choose directX but that doesn't work all too well with Beth's 3ds Max plugins last I checked).

Maybe your normals are turned inside out? Check it and if it's inverted, apply the Normal modifier.

[AnOutdatedMind]

Maybe your normals are turned inside out? Check it and if it's inverted, apply the Normal modifier.

I've tried it out, but it just turns the textured side inwards.

[AnOutdatedMind]

For anyone interested, I've uploaded the file to my drive and it can be found here.

[pepperman35]

Took a quick look. Have you assigned any materials to the mesh Items? I saw no material assignments. Also, as South mentioned it looks like some of your verticies are black. When you exported the switch, how did it look in nifskope?

[AnOutdatedMind]

Welp, never mind; while working on a custom(-ish) powerswitch in outfit studio I came across the "Recalculate Normals" option. I used it on the exported variant of the problematic mesh and that works. No clue how to do something to the same effect within 3ds Max, but I guess I can simply ignore it from now on.

[AnOutdatedMind]

Took a quick look. Have you assigned any materials to the mesh Items? I saw no material assignments. Also, as South mentioned it looks like some of your verticies are black. When you exported the switch, how did it look in nifskope?

 

Do the meshes look plain white? I've got export materials* set up in this case, so it's probably missing diffuse textures.

Here's what it looks like on my end:

Even though they look like standard empty materials, they do in fact work.

 

*as opposed to the materials automatically set up by the .nif import plugin.

 

 

Here are all the .nif files I've got. I don't know why the switch part isn't black in both the Pre- and PostElrich files, it's possible I've removed the vertex colors flag from it at the time, but I can't remember.

The weird shading can sort of be seen in the PostCleanup file, although it's not as pronounced as in Max itself.

Edited August 3, 2023 by AnOutdatedMind