artifacting/noise around bump map on mia_material_x

#1

I’m trying to apply a bump map on an mia_material_x. The bump is a text that I would like to appear on a metalic surface as if it is engraved into it. My result however never becomes clean text but there is always some noise around it:

What causes this and is it possible to get rid of it using the bump or do I need to use another method?

I have piped the bump map into the overall bump of the mia material x. Changing it to standard bump doesn’t seem to make a difference and also brakes my render for some reason. The scene is lit by an hdr using the mental ray production shaders. The bump is a jpeg made in Photoshop.

Thank you!

#2

That definitely looks like jpeg artifacting. Even at 100% quality, jpegs for bump maps, especially this kind where you need clean edges, are a bad idea.

Switch to a .png or .tga or something lossless that won’t give you artifacts.
Also saving your current jpeg as a tga wont fix it as those artifacts are baked in. You’ll want to do it from the .psd.

#3

Thanks! That seems to have worked!

I’m still getting some jagged edges on the text. How can I get rid of these?

#4

Perhaps increase the resolution of your bump file? Try quadrupling it, or more. You don’t really need the gray balance in your file though; you can do that from within Maya - so perhaps that’s also affecting your bump.

In your file node for that bump file, what kind of filtering are you using?