Sandbox Z-Fighting

Teaco27 · Apr 26, 2009

I was forging on sandbox today, and i made a few interlocks. they looked fine, no z fighting, and then i saved and
quit. When I returned I found that there was really bad z-fighting. My questions are:

1) Has anyone else had this problem after save and quit

2) Does anyone know how to stop this from happening

3) Why does this happen

Thanks in advance for you help.

Caretaker · Apr 27, 2009

Just try moving the objects around a tad bit to make it stop.

Goober · Apr 27, 2009

This doesn't apply directly to your problem at hand, but on Foundry I learned a little system to knock out z-fighting when it did occur.

Brace the item. That way you can grab it and it won't move from that specific place.
Grab the item, against the braces.
If the flicker is still there, switch to the other object and repeat until its over.
Sometimes you may need to delete one or two or however many items in the sequence in order to get rid of it.

Ethrock · Apr 27, 2009

Bungie explained this problem in a recent weekly update. there's a problem with the save and quit making things slightly readjust, this deals with positioning and angling, and one being overridden in importance above the other for memory save issues.

1) It happens to everyone.

2) You can't. Learn to live with it.

3) As stated above.

That's the main reason that it occurs, however you can work around Z-fighting or temporarily repair it, the problem can easily arise again in the future.

Matrix React · Apr 29, 2009

I've been having this problem and looking every where for an answer to fix it. My problem is specifically with the Double Blocks. I've found (so far) that it doesn't happen if the interlock is done with both Double Blocks having the hieroglyphics facing upwards. I have not noticed it with any other items so far.

DimmestBread · Apr 29, 2009

the way to not get it is by slightly interlocking the edges of whatever you want to. If you interlock too much of the say box together with another, then it will z fight, but if you just do the edges it should be fine.

makisupa007 · Apr 29, 2009

What Objects

What objects are you having a hard time with? Some objects can be worse than others especially if you lay them on their side. Below is from a thread I started on the same topic:

makisupa007 said:

I am currently building a map in the sky bubble. I'm pretty far in and I just realized I am having serious issues with my flooring. The issue is with double walls being turned on their side and used as a floor. After saving and quiting, when the game is reloaded, the floors will be incredibly bumpy and angled, even though it was perfect when I saved. After doing some research I found this on Bungie.
Read More ...

Bungie said:

Enter the Engineer

The Problem

When using double walls (or some other objects) to create a "floor," sometimes the objects become "bumpy" after saving and reloading the map.

The Cause

There are a near-infinite number of possible orientations that an object can be placed in. While you are editing a map, the objects are allowed to be in pretty much any orientation. When we save the map, we quantize the orientation in order to save space in storage. What this means is that the orientation you get when you load the map might not quite be what it was when you saved it.

Specifically, we store what direction the object's 'up' vector is pointing, and a rotation around that vector from its default position. When you first create an object in forge, its up vector is pointing straight up, and its rotation is zero. If you leave the object in a straight-up position, we use a special quantization method that preserves more precision for the rotation.

But if you tilt it (on its side, for example), then more of the storage space has to be used for that direction, and the rotation can lose precision. What this means is that when you are creating a floor out of walls, it's using the less precise method. The good news is that it's usually easy to predict which way the quantization error will go.

"Why can't you fix this?"

This problem is really inseparable from the way we store Map Variants on the disk. If we change the way the maps are encoded, then all the content saved in the old method could become invalid. It's a complex problem, and complexity means high risk. And risky changes are not something you want to make in a patch to a console game.

The Forge engine was built before we ever knew that maps like Foundry and Sandbox would exist. And this problem, of course, has been present since day one. It only now became apparent because people are building truly amazing maps and demanding more fidelity out of Forge.

"How about some good news?"

As outlined above, you should leave objects pointing 'up' if you can. If possible, create your floor out of double boxes instead of double walls. No effort, no bumps!

If you must use double walls for the floor, pay close attention to the location and direction of the helper gizmo (the blue/white orb that shows the origin of the object). When saved, walls placed horizontally tend to rotate such that the "forward" end of the gizmo is pointing slightly downward. You can use this to your advantage by placing walls that are end-to-end rotated 180 degrees from each other, so that both edges will be either high or low. Walls placed side-by-side should have the same gizmo orientation. See the following diagram:

Blame Stosh

Again, this is an issue that only crops up when you are rotating objects around their Z-axis, and most commonly, when shifting objects out of their initial orientation (i.e. laying a wall onto its side). The easiest solution is to make such shifts to orientation as sparingly as possible, or if you must, to simply follow the diagram Cable has laid out, juxtaposing the objects based upon the "gizmo," so that any variation you come across becomes uniform and therefore, less noticeable to players who traverse your map.

Yanking the network cable from the back of your Xbox 360, as some have suggested, does not resolve this issue.
Read More ...

I am trying to find out if anyone has had success using their alternating direction suggestion to fix this problem. I have been trying this for a while now and I can't get them to stay smooth using this method. If anyone has a technique that can salvage my map, please let me know. If I am just wasting my time and there is no way to make a smooth wall floor, let me know, too.

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Sandbox Z-Fighting

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