Strange Pattern on mesh at distance

Development Rendering
1

Hi everyone.

I have this strange issue now for months on meshes that are placed at a distance appropriate for space games, such as planets. They show some pattern or seem to disappear and reappear in wave like pattern.
Example 1: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

This also seems to happen to ships beyond a certain distance.
Example 2: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
the ribs of the ship on the right should not be visible on the side but covered by a mesh. however it becomes see-through at distance in certain spots like in the picture.

I tried everything I can to get rid of that, including playing with the LOD. Do you guys know what I am doing wrong? I didn’t find anything on this online. I am not even sure what to look for.
Every help is much appreciated and thanks a lot in advance.

2

Mehhh, don’t really know. But best guesses are:

  1. LODs. I know you’ve looked at that, but it really sounds like LODs.

  2. Materials. Have you done something fancy in the material that is affected by distance?..

PS ( are you talking about the concentric circles on the planet? )

3

I once had a similar problem with two meshes at the same location with same size (in my case two sky spheres).

4

Thanks for the feedback. I checked extensively the LOD and it is for sure not that because the concentric circles (indeed) move on the planet as I change my viewing direction.

Someone on reddit suggested its the Z buffer precision of the depth as the cause. I looked up how to improve that and found increasing the near clip distance improved the precision and the problem went away at the cost of the camera clipping into things nearby more quickly.
Maybe if someone finds a way to improve the Z buffer precision without sacrificing the near clip distance that would be great. But until then I guess I will have to work my way around the clipping camera, which is feasible in my case.

5

It might be caused by shadow bias in the directional light properties
If it’s Z-precision, then you can’t do anything about that. That would be the case if it’s very far away, the usual map size limit is around 6x6x6km