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diplacement objects
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diplacement objects // Roundtable
Post by Burnart // May 20, 2007, 3:18pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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When Roman first started writing his Captain's Blogs one of the first pics he posted re. the next update was some very weird looking displacement mapped objects. Has anyone been experimenting with this and would care to show their results?
EDIT: Is this like the displacement mapping in Lighwave - ie it creates extra poly detail at the time of render or is it mapped distortion of a complex polymesh? |
Post by Leif // May 21, 2007, 3:06am
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Leif
Total Posts: 276
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Yes, these (image from Captain's Blog):
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I too would very much like a description of how these was made. |
Post by splinters // May 21, 2007, 3:41am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Rich Levy (Carpenter) I think...:confused: |
Post by Délé // May 21, 2007, 3:50am
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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No, it was SteveBe. I too would like to know how he did these. They're very cool. :) |
Post by SteveBe // May 21, 2007, 9:20am
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SteveBe
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Thanks Délé!:)
Well I plan on setting up a tutorial, but as some may have noticed i havn't
finished my NURBS tutorial yet.:o Still trying to recover from April/May tax time/work load etc.
For starters go here:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html
Grab the Photoshop plug-in at the bottom of the page. If you don't have Photoshop, do a search
for Normal Map creation as there are other alternatives including ATI's (AMD) Developer site and
various dicussion on this subject.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=873766
The key is that a normal map adds extra definition to the displacement map and texture. |
Post by Leif // May 21, 2007, 9:23am
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Leif
Total Posts: 276
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Ah thank you. I was beginning to think that this was some kind of beta features that were removed in final release... |
Post by SteveBe // May 21, 2007, 9:54am
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SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
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You're welcome Leif!:) It wasn't removed but has improved greatly over
early Betas. Thanks Marek!!:)
BTW it's also possible to create your own normal maps with the Modeler
side of tS 7.x. What I do is set up a pattern etc., go into top view and
do a Lightwarks render to file using the normal map option. After the
normal map is rendered in last pass I do a screen capture, paste and
crop in image editor.
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Post by Délé // May 21, 2007, 9:56am
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Délé
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Cool, thanks for sharing your technique Steve. :)
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Post by SteveBe // May 21, 2007, 9:59am
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SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
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You're very welcome Délé!!:) |
Post by rrf // May 21, 2007, 10:54am
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rrf
Total Posts: 319
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SteveBe,
Thank You so much for the info on Normal Maps. If not for you, I would have never found that option within the PSD export.
Thanks Again,
rf |
Post by SteveBe // May 21, 2007, 11:15am
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SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
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You're welcome rf!! :) I guess I forgot that this also works with tS 6.6 with iPak. |
Post by Burnart // May 21, 2007, 12:57pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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Thankyou SteveBe that's looks very interesting - I'm still not clear whether this is true displacement mapping or a mesh distortion. (Perhaps when my disk arrives with 7.5 on it I'll be able to figure it out!) |
Post by SteveBe // May 21, 2007, 1:29pm
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SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
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You're welcome Burnart!:) This is mesh displacement as the mesh is modified.
I don't have Lightwave to know how it works there but the displacement mapper
in tS allows you to apply displacement and modify/adjust the settings
for various parameters which can be animated as well. You can also animate
the U/V position/rotation of the displacement too. eg. waves, clouds etc. |
Post by Burnart // May 21, 2007, 2:05pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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I don't have Lighwave either but I understand that displacement in that program refers to a render process which appears to distort the object. Ie. if a knobbly pattern was displacement mapped onto a perfect sphere when rendered the spehere's surface would be deformed and the silhouette would no longer be circular. I'm not sure of the rquirements - perhaps it needs to be a very dense mesh anyway but it does work with image maps as well as procedural textures. I guess the real beauty is (presumably) you can animate the effect.
(You can actually do this is Poser but I didn't want to admit that I do own that! In Poser you do need a dense mesh to get it to work properly.) |
Post by Délé // May 21, 2007, 2:26pm
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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Yes, displacement mapping actually alters the geometry (it physically moves the vertices). So having a denser mesh is usually best to get a good smooth deformation. Normal mapping is similar to bump mapping in that it "simulates" geometry that is not physically there. Bump mapping actually only uses the Z axis with a grayscale image to simulate bump while normal mapping uses X, Y, and Z with an RGB image. Steve's technique combines both. |
Post by rrf // May 21, 2007, 2:31pm
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rrf
Total Posts: 319
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Burnart,
As I understand it, there are both 'displacement' types in 7.5 - the one that actually makes more polys, and the one that just moves them around.
rf
(I hope I got that right :) ) |
Post by Burnart // May 21, 2007, 5:44pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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Cool! Thanks for letting me know. |
Post by mrbones // May 21, 2007, 9:03pm
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mrbones
Total Posts: 1280
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I found that you can make endless amounts of symetrical objects using this in conjunction with the mirror tool. great fun. |
Post by membrain // May 21, 2007, 9:41pm
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membrain
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so then... is the only method (currently) available for displacement maps in TS to do the full displacement in the scene, in real time? Thus leaving it basicaly a requirement to have ultra dense meshes to get finely detailed maps to show up in full detail on the mesh...
There is mention of Lightwave, which has an option to adjust the params for both your scene, and render time... letting you work with a lower poly version of the mapped object in real time, while rendering ultra hight polies at render time. My understanding is that TS does not do this, right? |
Post by SteveBe // May 21, 2007, 10:37pm
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SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
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There are a few options:
1. SDS can be applied to a lower density mesh prior to render to add detail.
2. The normalmap tool (which is really simplify mesh & normal map) can be used
to simplify the mesh on a percentage basis and creats a mesh shape normal map
to enhance detail. |
Post by e-graffiti // May 22, 2007, 4:21pm
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e-graffiti
Total Posts: 171
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The key is that a normal map adds extra definition to the displacement map and texture.
SteveBe you mentioning "Normal Map" with the displacement tool caused me quite a bit of confusion as I did not see any mention of normal maps with the displacement tools. So I began a small journey to better understand normal maps and how they are implemented in tS and with the displacement tool. I found a really good resource to explain normal maps at:
http://planetpixelemporium.com/tutorialpages/normal.html
Now that I understood normal maps better I went on to look at the tS displacement tool to see if it had an "option" to load a normal map as I realize it must know if the image it is loading is a normal map or just a regular image (color map) in order to perform the appropriate calculations. I did not see an option for normal maps in the displacement tools. I then downloaded the plugin you mentioned and made a normal map. My results are below:
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My results show that the displacement map tool does not seem to distinguish between image types (ie normal vs color map) but brightness/contrast values as the two right images both produced the exact same displacements and they are not normal maps but regular texture(color) maps but they do have the exact same brightness/contrast values. The normal map image produced "less" displacement then the regular texture images which is the total opposite of what a normal map does! The last image on the left is simply a grayscale version of the normal map which produced the same displacement as the normal map. Why? probably because the two normal map images have the same brightness/contrast data which is quite "flat" producing very little displacement.
So SteveBe let me know if I missed something in relation to having the displacement tools use the normal map data as my experiments show that it does not distinguish normal maps from color maps. |
Post by SteveBe // May 22, 2007, 5:33pm
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SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
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Hi e-graffiti,
As soon as I read your post I could see my explaination was not very good.
So I'll try a quick step by step.
1. Set up your base mesh and drag and drop the TextureBump material onto it. (it's in the Materials DX9 Library)
2. In the LE enter your object and enter Mateial List and then Material Chunk.
3. You should see the materal, ctl double click the DiffuseTexture and load
your texture.
4. Click the material title bar and click the Bump aspect and load your normal
map.
5. Click your object in the 3D view and apply Displacement Mapping and use your texture for displacement.
That should do it, you can navigate back to the root of the object and change
settings for displacement.
It's a good Idea to keep you mesh at a lower poly count until you get the
displacement the way you want it to speed up feedback. Then you can subdivide the mesh to add detail. Then you can add a level or 2 of SDS to smooth. |
Post by Leif // May 23, 2007, 2:46am
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Leif
Total Posts: 276
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This is cool (or "not hot"??) :cool: |
Post by e-graffiti // May 23, 2007, 5:22am
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e-graffiti
Total Posts: 171
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Hi e-graffiti,
As soon as I read your post I could see my explaination was not very good.
Thanks for more explanation SteveBe. I can understand your point of enhancing the overall displacement with the normal map and displacement mapper tools combined. I have spent a good few hours playing with normal maps, link editor, and displacement tools and can see that the possiblities can be quite diverse and endless!
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Right now I am making displacement mapper option adjustments via trial and error. I expect the new manual will address some of the options and option combinations for the displacement tools in more detail. |
Post by Steinie // May 23, 2007, 6:07am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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E-Graffiti, After you play with this a little more why not add a short tutorial to the "Tutorium" to help others get started. Your getting cool results already. |
Post by SteveBe // May 23, 2007, 8:53am
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SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
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Those look great e-graffiti! You'll find that a well defined texture with sharp
color boundries (eg. an illustration) will result in a more controlled displacement
as in your checkerboard exanple. Where an image will be a more oganic or freeform
type of shape.
I like mrbones idea of combineing this with the mirror modeler, (thanks Joe!)
will have to try this out.
Attached video of a quick set-up. |
Post by Steinie // May 23, 2007, 9:39am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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That was a really cool example SteveBe!
I hope everyone that owns TS7.5 or those thinking about it checks this one out.
Thanks.
E-Graffiti, over "Her" head should be "Not Normal":D |
Post by SteveBe // May 23, 2007, 10:21am
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SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
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You're welcome Steinie!:)
Now go forth, and displace.:D |
Post by Burnart // May 23, 2007, 4:13pm
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Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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I will go forth and displace when the disk arrives with 7.5 from Caligari. (Come on guys - US$9.95 to put it on a disk plus $10 to post - I was expecting airmail not steamship!) My zen calm is slipping and I am getting very frustrated reading peoples posts and not being able to look at this stuff yet. :( |
Post by kena // May 24, 2007, 7:27am
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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Courage Burnart.. I understand that the shirpas were having a bit of difficulty getting over the Alps... :lol:
seriously... It will be worth the wait. |
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