XTGMods

An unfortunate oversight

Added 2024-01-13 14:47:54 +0000 UTC

Hi all, I've been working on the Samus Aran DMC mod lately and unfortunately, I've encounted a problem with the hairstyle. This is an oversight on my part, as I did not realise and take into account the mesh normals of the hair.

The hairstyle that I chose to implement was not suitable due to the amount of normal issues and I didn't realise this earlier. What has happened here is that the flipped normal orientation of the faces are causing any light shining on the hair to form these darkened faces, which shows up as those black spots in the hair.

The red faces in blender are those that have flipped normals. Think of it this way, faces in 3D modelling are like pieces of clothing, there is a front side to it and a back side to it. The front side is the side that should be facing outwards, while the back side is the side that should be facing inwards. Except in 3D graphics, the front side will receive natural lighting when you place it in front of a light, while the back side will receive lighting as if it is the back of the cloth even if the light is placed in the exact same position.

I cannot simply isolate all the flipped faces and flip them again back to how it should be either. Because the hair mesh is a single sided sheet, flipping it again will simply cause the back of the head to form black lines rather than the front.

At this point, I have 2 options, either leave the hair as is and tolerate the strange dark lines, or ditching this hairstyle entirely and replacing it with something else. I think I'm leaning towards the latter, and will probably use Sarah Bryant's hairstyle instead from DoA. The only caveat with this is that the hair will look like a much lower quality mesh. Let me know what you guys think.