Calculating normals between 2 meshes ending up in seams

Question

My Task

I currently creating a terrain for Unity3D which is specialized for mobile-devices with low memory for a running app. Allowing a terrain with a size of 15.000 x 15.000 kilometers and a height from -1.000 meters to 10.000 meters and it's only limits are the space on the hard disk.

Situation

Everything is running fine right now except that the normals between different meshes ( each mesh has a subdivision level ) are not calculated correctly. Here are two pictures which visualize the problem:

The problem only occurs on a transition from one subdivision level to another. If both mesh have the same level it works well. I first thought i miss some faces when calculating the normals but it seems they are all included into the calculation.

Some Code

Normal calculation of each face:

Vector3 u = vertices[item.Face1] - vertices[item.Face0];
Vector3 v = vertices[item.Face2] - vertices[item.Face0];

Vector3 fn = new Vector3((u.Y * v.Z) - (u.Z * v.Y), (u.Z * v.X) - (u.X * v.Z), (u.X * v.Y) - (u.Y * v.X));
fn.Normalize();

After calculating the normal of each face around a vertex i add all the face-normals to the vertex-normal and normalize it. The result is shown in the pictures, and as you can see in the background and on the meshes itself it works as long there is no different subdivision level.

Some more code

/// <summary>
/// This is a static indicies array which contains all indicies
/// for all possible meshes.
/// </summary>
private static readonly Int32[] // Subdivision
                             [] // All borders
                             [] Indicies = new Int32[8][][]; // Indicies

Calculate each normal of the current mesh:

Int32 count = 0;
for (int y = 0; y < length; y++)
{
    for (int x = 0; x < length; x++)
    {
        ns[count++] = GetNormal(x, y, faces, vs);
    }
}

The GetNormal-method:

private unsafe Vector3 GetNormal(Int32 x, Int32 y, Int32[] indicies, Vector3* vertices)
{
    Vector3 normal = new Vector3();
    CalculateNormal(x, y, indicies, vertices, ref normal);
    normal.Normalize();
    // Calculate all face normals and normalize
    return normal;
}

The CalculateNormal-method:

private unsafe void CalculateNormal(Int32 x, Int32 y, Int32[] indicies, Vector3* vertices, ref Vector3 normal)
{
    Int32 p = ((y * Length) + x);
    Int32 length = Length - 1;

    foreach (Face item in FindFaces(this, indicies, p))
    {
        Vector3 u = vertices[item.Face1] - vertices[item.Face0];
        Vector3 v = vertices[item.Face2] - vertices[item.Face0];

        Vector3 fn = new Vector3((u.Y * v.Z) - (u.Z * v.Y), (u.Z * v.X) - (u.X * v.Z), (u.X * v.Y) - (u.Y * v.X));
        fn.Normalize();
        normal += fn;
    }

    SegmentHeighmap heightmap;
    if (x == 0 && y == 0)
    {
        foreach (Face item in FindFaces(Neighbor.Left, out heightmap, TranslateLeftX, TranslateLeftY, x, y))
        {
            Face f = item;
            AddFaceNormal(ref f, ref normal, heightmap);
        }

... /* A lot of more code here for each possible combination */

The AddFaceNormal-method:

private static void AddFaceNormal(ref Face face, ref Vector3 normal, SegmentHeighmap heightmap)
{
    Vector3 v0;
    Vector3 v1;
    Vector3 v2;
    heightmap.CalculateVertex(face.Face0, out v0);
    heightmap.CalculateVertex(face.Face1, out v1);
    heightmap.CalculateVertex(face.Face2, out v2);

    Vector3 u = v1 - v0;
    Vector3 v = v2 - v0;

    Vector3 fn = new Vector3((u.Y * v.Z) - (u.Z * v.Y), (u.Z * v.X) - (u.X * v.Z), (u.X * v.Y) - (u.Y * v.X));
    fn.Normalize();
    normal += fn;
}

The FindFaces-methods:

private IEnumerable<Face> FindFaces(Neighbor neighbor, out SegmentHeighmap heightmap, TranslationHandler translateX, TranslationHandler translateY, Int32 x, Int32 y)
{
    Segment segment = Segment.GetNeighbor(neighbor);
    if (segment != null)
    {
        heightmap = segment.Heighmap;
        Int32 point = ((translateY(this, heightmap, y) * Length) + translateX(this, heightmap, x));

        return FindFaces(heightmap, null, point);
    }
    heightmap = null;
    return Enumerable.Empty<Face>();
}
private IEnumerable<Face> FindFaces(SegmentHeighmap heightmap, Int32[] indicies, Int32 point)
{
    indicies = indicies ?? Indicies[heightmap.Segment.SubdivisionLevel][heightmap.SideFlag];

    for (int i = 0; i < indicies.Length; i += 3)
    {
        Int32 a = indicies[i], b = indicies[i + 1], c = indicies[i + 2];
        if (a == point || b == point || c == point)
        {
            yield return new Face(a, b, c);
        }
    }
}

The TransformPoint-method:

private Int32 TranslatePoint(Int32 point, Segment segment)
{
    Int32 subdiv = segment.SubdivisionLevel - Parent.SubdivisionLevel;
    if (subdiv == 0)
    {
        return point;
    }
    if (Math.Abs(subdiv) == 1)
    {
        if (subdiv > 0)
        {
            return point * 2;
        }
        return point / 2;
    }

    throw new InvalidOperationException("Subdivision difference is greater than 1");
}

And finally the TranslationHandler-delegate and 2 sample handlers:

/// <summary>
/// Handles the translation from one coordinate space into another
/// This handler is used internal only
/// </summary>
private delegate Int32 TranslationHandler(SegmentHeighmap @this, SegmentHeighmap other, Int32 v);

private static readonly TranslationHandler TranslateLeftX = (t, o, v) => o.Length - 1;
private static readonly TranslationHandler TranslateLeftY = (t, o, v) => t.TranslatePoint(v, o.Segment);

Question

The question is simple: Why is it not working for different levels, do i miss something in my calculation?

Answer 1

I still don't know why it happens but when replacing this....

Vector3 u = vertices[item.Face1] - vertices[item.Face0];
Vector3 v = vertices[item.Face2] - vertices[item.Face0];

Vector3 fn = new Vector3((u.Y * v.Z) - (u.Z * v.Y), (u.Z * v.X) - (u.X * v.Z), (u.X * v.Y) - (u.Y * v.X));
fn.Normalize();
normal += fn;

with another AddFaceNormal-method it works. I don't know why this happend but now it works.