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Any advice on displacment textures?
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Any advice on displacment textures? // Roundtable
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 17, 2007, 8:36am
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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I ran into some problem making some textures for a futuristic city.
For some reason ... the honeycomb you can see turned out grainy!
For that rendering i used a targa at 20 cm x 20 cm at 72 dpi.
So that is not realy small.
So I made another displacement map at 20 cm x 20 cm at 300 dpi
and I get even more jagged results.
My question is pretty general ....what are the basic things
to consider to avoid problems like these... I ask about 2d related
answers too ..... file formats etc.
In Photoshop everything looks 100 % smooth .... in 3d it looks trash ... WHY ? |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Aug 19, 2007, 5:58am
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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I'm kind of shooting in the dark here without knowing your exact method of introducing the photoshop maps into trueSpace and utilizing them from there, but it ~seems~to me from the images you provided above that the issue could be the render engine seeing details in that photoshop displacement map which are not apparent to the human eye. That said, I would try using Wilbur ( http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/software.html - it is free and can do a great many neat things with images including create excellent normal maps) on the image(s) before introducing it(them) into trueSpace. I have found that simply trusting trueSpace to accurately convert bumps to normals via bridge crossing has not always worked well for me, but sometimes it does. (Inconsistencies in images - not trueSpace)
I haven't played with trying to get crisp displacement edges myself yet in trueSpace in all honesty, so if I were the one running into the problems you've encountered above I would first seek a vector format image approach if one is possible within trueSpace, and failing that approach would seek alternatives to the conversion of the displacement map into a normal map prior to trueSpace introduction. Again, not from experience, just from guessing at a likely solution.:p
Hope that works!
- 3dvisuals dude |
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 19, 2007, 3:20pm
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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Thank you for your suggestions!
I was doing some research on that topic too in the
meantime and found pretty interesting guidelines here !
They are made fo vue but I guess they can be transferred
to any kind of software that supports displacements.
The file format from photoshop he uses he says in png !
and there are steps in the results that cant be taken away ...
here is one http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/VueLab/TerrainMappingII.htm
and here is the other http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/VueLab/TerrainMapping.htm
looks pretty cool what he is doing...
he is modeling the front panel of a computer server just with
displacement !
I must email him .... he should be a good point of reference!
He used to use bryce terrains for displacements too he wrote ! |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Aug 19, 2007, 10:11pm
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Thank you for your suggestions!
I was doing some research on that topic too in the
meantime and found pretty interesting guidelines here !
They are made fo vue but I guess they can be transferred
to any kind of software that supports displacements.
The file format from photoshop he uses he says in png !
and there are steps in the results that cant be taken away ...
here is one http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/VueLab/TerrainMappingII.htm
and here is the other http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/VueLab/TerrainMapping.htm
looks pretty cool what he is doing...
he is modeling the front panel of a computer server just with
displacement !
I must email him .... he should be a good point of reference!
He used to use bryce terrains for displacements too he wrote !
Wow!
Those links are very interesting... lots of stuff there to explore!:)
Yeah, I think an e-mail directly to him may be a great idea, his work is very innovative in these areas and these skills are largely transferrable between rendering applications. Good idea.:)
I think you may like dabbling with that software I recommended to you above too, in spite of it being a freeware application it is actually quite powerful in many related ways.
- 3dvisuals dude |
Post by kena // Aug 20, 2007, 9:57am
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kena
Total Posts: 2321
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Looking at your renders above, I would say that you have "hidden" colors on teh edges of your honeycomb shape. white next to white or black next to black where they look the same on the monitor, but are actually different. Try using reduced colors to even them out a bit. |
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 20, 2007, 1:12pm
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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Looking at your renders above, I would say that you have "hidden" colors on teh edges of your honeycomb shape. white next to white or black next to black where they look the same on the monitor, but are actually different. Try using reduced colors to even them out a bit.
No colors at all.... thats reflections ... the displacement made the
surface so bumpy.....Thats what the question was can one keep
the transitions in the displacement maps as smooth as possible.
With what formats ... and with what workflow in 2d program .????
What file format saves smoothest .. bmp.. targa... or png? |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 20, 2007, 5:33pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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bmp, tga, and png are all lossless formats so the data is the same no matter which format you use.
If you need the image data smoothed, that needs to be done in the paint program.
I also notice that you mention the image sizes in print dimentions and dpi. For 3D graphics, pixel resolution is what you want to use and all that TS cares about. Something to keep in mind is that TS being only a 32 bit app and strongly integrated with DX9, there can be problems with large textures (anything over 2048x2048).
Hope that helps! |
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 24, 2007, 5:44am
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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[QUOTE=Jack Edwards;44984]bmp, tga, and png are all lossless formats so the data is the same no matter which format you use.
QUOTE]
Just found this ... wanted to pass it on to you....a good reference
on file formats http://www.art-head-start.com/tutorial-image-file-format.html |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 24, 2007, 6:21am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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The article is misleading. GIF and PNG are only lossy if you convert to a lower color depth than your original image. Why would you do that?
If you need to preserve alpha transparency you need to use TGA though. For preserving layers PSD and XCF. TS doesn't read PSD or XCF though so you'd have to flatten the image and convert to PNG, TGA, or BMP before loading into TS.
-Jack. |
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 24, 2007, 11:04am
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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The article is misleading. GIF and PNG are only lossy if you convert to a lower color depth than your original image. Why would you do that?
If you need to preserve alpha transparency you need to use TGA though. For preserving layers PSD and XCF. TS doesn't read PSD or XCF though so you'd have to flatten the image and convert to PNG, TGA, or BMP before loading into TS.
-Jack.
Jack !
I understand your point !
From a discussion i had with chip (the guy who made the displacement
tutorial..) I have the impression he favours 16 bit tiffs without compression
for any kind of bump and displacement work (when the program allows it that
is.......). So I think we should consider that too.I think you have forgotten to mention that one. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 24, 2007, 12:11pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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If he's talking about 16 bit per channel RAW source images directly out of a camera (48/64bit images) then of course you'd take a loss saving to a format that is 8bits per channel (24bit/32bit). Compression has nothing to do with it.
But that's only relevant for WIP textures and source images since you have to convert your finals to 8 bits per channel (24bit/32bit) to use in TS anyway. Also keep in mind that your monitor only displays 8 bits per channel... ;)
Still I wouldn't save them uncompressed. If you're app doesn't support lossless compression with 16-bit formats, then I'd recommend at least zip/rar archiving the files you aren't currently using, LOL. That or buy a new 1000GB HD. Or two 500GB HD like I did... :p
-Jack. |
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 24, 2007, 12:23pm
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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Still I wouldn't save them uncompressed. If you're app doesn't support lossless compression with 16-bit formats, then I'd recommend at least zip/rar archiving the files you aren't currently using, LOL. That or buy a new 1000GB HD. Or two 500GB HD like I did... :p
-Jack.
Its just for the pretty rare cases where you run into trouble .. like
on those I did.
thank you very much for your opinion Jack !
I´ll ask 3d vis how to work wilbur now ! want to make some normal maps! |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Aug 24, 2007, 12:33pm
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Its just for the pretty rare cases where you run into trouble .. like
on those I did.
thank you very much for your opinion Jack !
I´ll ask 3d vis how to work wilbur now ! want to make some normal maps!
Hi Rayman,
I just spotted this!
I don't really know a whole lot about using Wilbur but I have used some of it's many capabilities before, mostly for making and customizing Normal Maps for use within trueSpace7.51, and it does an outstanding job of that.
There is an awful lot of things you can do with Wilbur and it is astonishgly powerful for a freeware application for sure!
You can paint normal maps with a brush, edit them in interesting ways, load terrain data from the US Government into it and work with it to generate all manner of things, the list is quite long and I've only scratched the surface with that program myself!
So on this particular subject I'm afraid I'm not much help, although recommending Wilbur is something I can definitely do whether it solves the issues you need solved now or not, it will certainly come in handy for many things as a trueSpace companion program.
- Mark / 3dvisuals dude |
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 24, 2007, 12:54pm
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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Hi Rayman,
I just spotted this!
I don't really know a whole lot about using Wilbur but I have used some of it's many capabilities before, mostly for making and customizing Normal Maps for use within trueSpace7.51, and it does an outstanding job of that.
- Mark / 3dvisuals dude
Hi !
Thank you for joining in on this !
Ijust PM´d you about that.I have painted terrains with it up to date
but did not use it for normal maps.
Please tell me more just about creating normal maps with it.
My bmps dont transform int normal maps in it.
I hope you can help out just with that.
Peter |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Aug 24, 2007, 1:25pm
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Hi !
Thank you for joining in on this !
Ijust PM´d you about that.I have painted terrains with it up to date
but did not use it for normal maps.
Please tell me more just about creating normal maps with it.
My bmps dont transform int normal maps in it.
I hope you can help out just with that.
Peter
Well, as I mentioned in PM I am certainly no expert with Wilbur's many options but here is a simple "one-picture-shows-all" tutorial for you, but beyond that I'm afraid you are on your own, sorry!
- Mark / 3dvisuals dude |
Post by RAYMAN // Aug 24, 2007, 3:51pm
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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Mark !
Thank you very much !
That helps a lot.Now I know I have an old version
of Wilbur not this one. downloaded the new one
and hopefully will find my way around it.
Crazy bump that I would like to use crashed
a few times severely on my system.:(
So thank you very much...tell you if I manage to
get it going;) :D
Best regards
Peter |
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