Oz Map -- Another v13 Displacement Fun Thread

[Zaryin]

I just couldn't help myself. I took an Oz Map I painted in PS awhile back (#1). Then made a real quick, sloppy displacement map for it (#2). Then rendered (#3).

 

It took about 16 minuted with 16 passes at this size to render. Original maps were 2000X3000.

 

The "artifacting" you see in the mountainous areas is caused by the rivers gouging through them. Like I said, I didn't spend alot of time making the displacement map. I could probably make it look alot better, but just had to try out the new Displacement.

 

Oh, and 1 patch was used.

[heyvern]

That looks wonderful!

 

Holy cow! I just realized...

 

Using the new displacement you could do that cool time lapse landscape erosion thing... like they did in the remake of The Time Machine.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

[JohnArtbox]

Is this feature fun or what?

Nice map Jeff.

[DarkLimit]

wow this is awsome......... new feature eh!!!

 

"takes note"

[Rodney]

Hey... thats nice!

[Sharky]

Hi Zaryin!

 

Very interesting your displacmented model,and it's only 1 patch!

Nice example!

 

Cheers,

 

Sharky

[Eric2575]

Let me get this straight, the displacement map basically brings out the detail, right? So for scenery like you made, Jeff, it can be just sorta blurry to make hills and such? What if you wanted to make some details on a spaceship for instance with lots of small square and rectangular protrusions?

 

Could someone make a quick and dirty map for something like that and show us the map and render please?

[heyvern]

What if you wanted to make some details on a spaceship for instance with lots of small square and rectangular protrusions?

 

 

Eric... yes.

 

Someone did a city scape using displacement. It had buildings with lights and everything.

 

Keep in mind it must stick "straight out". You wouldn't be able to have undercutting or curved protrusions.

 

I think nurnies for space ships and aircraft... rivets... seams... etc... is going to be the biggest use for this... second to landscapes... and maybe clothes.

 

Imagine putting wrinkles and folds on clothes without having to model them!!

 

Imagine putting in grotesque facial distortions in a displacement map... and animating a transformation.

 

You could animate, damage and holes on... stuff...

 

Holy cow... think how much fun this will be.

[Zaryin]

Thanks guys. This new feature is going to be the most fun to screw around with. And it animatable! It's just great.

[jpappas]

Hope no one minds another example! After reading these threads I had to give it a try myself. In this example I have one patch on the ground with the displacement map. I didn't notice any major increase in render time at all - zipped right along!

test.mov

[Eric2575]

What governs the height of the protrusions? Black and white levels of the displacement map, right?

[DanCBradbury]

Let me get this straight, the displacement map basically brings out the detail, right? So for scenery like you made, Jeff, it can be just sorta blurry to make hills and such? What if you wanted to make some details on a spaceship for instance with lots of small square and rectangular protrusions?

 

Could someone make a quick and dirty map for something like that and show us the map and render please?

Here's a render i did of the Doom3 jumbodoors. Now mind you it was a normal map that i converted to greyscale, so the conversion isnt perfect, but you can get a good idea of just what we can expect from this new feature.

 

I did my render with 6 patches (NOTE: quality of displacemnt goes up when you add more patches)

[Zaryin]

Hey Dan, can you show a 3-4th render of that? Thanks.

[DanCBradbury]

awe, i destoryed the image files already. lol. But just to let you know... the normal map to grey scale conversion made the areas that wree supposed to be flat, bow like crazy.

[Rodney]

What governs the height of the protrusions? Black and white levels of the displacement map, right?

 

Eric,

The colors in the greyscale image dictate the height. Color images obviously get converted to grey for the purpose.

 

Black will decrease the height while white will increase.

Someone remind me what the number is for zero/middle... my brain locked when trying to divide 255 in half.

127 doesn't sound right... gah... does not compute....

 

Rodney

[KenH]

128....don't forget the 0.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Here is my test to verify the height changes per color.

 

I am attaching both the rendered patch picture and the original map used.

 

The original map is 1000x1000 and the white is 255,255,255 and the black is 0,0,0 with the base or frame at 128,128,128. This was a really quick spaceship hull plate simulation. These are exteme transitions with very little if any gradient transitions.

 

I rendered this with the displacement at 400% and a duplicate color map to show what areas did what.

 

Hope this clears some things up.

[JTalbotski]

Which way were the normals facing? The height is opposite what it should be.

 

Jim

[DanCBradbury]

Here is my test to verify the height changes per color.

You didn't know that? Well, of course thats how it works. I'm currently rendering another displacement test, it should be done in about 15 minutes.

[Rodney]

128....don't forget the 0.

 

Thanks Ken. My brain's unstuck now.

 

I like your test MMZ.

It is awfully easy to look at the wrong side of a single square patch with displacement.

It'll be more obvious on a more complex model I'm sure.

 

Rodney

[3DArtZ]

A great way to make folds in clothing too.

I hope we can have bone rotation drive the strenght of the map.

So when an elbow or knee bends, the clothing can fold and we can all feel good about it!!!!

 

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[DanCBradbury]

Here's a displacement render I did which combinds a height map, normal map, and color map of a Doom3 floor panel. When you combine the normal map with the height map it gives the displacement a much cleaner look. You guys should realy try it out.

Floor.mov

[DanCBradbury]

I forgot to post these. It shows the difference between relying only on displacement, or using both a height map and normal map.

[JohnArtbox]

blurring you displacement map will soften the hard edges and normally gives a much better result. in effect it bevels the hard shapes.

Nice examples

[rossk]

Wow, these are sweet examples. Loved the OZ map.

[Julian]

If you've got something relatively flat, like a floor tile, and you're viewing it from above, why bother using displacement mapping anyway? The whole point of displacement mapping is to be able to see relief when you view the object from the side.

[DanCBradbury]

If you've got something relatively flat, like a floor tile, and you're viewing it from above, why bother using displacement mapping anyway? The whole point of displacement mapping is to be able to see relief when you view the object from the side.

Not neccesarily. Displacement will give depth and dimension to even these floor panels from any angle. Another good point is that, unlike normal and bump maps, displacement will create shadows where they would normally be. You cant get shadows with normal maps, or bump maps.

[MattWBradbury]

Here's another render. The first one is a normal map render. The second is a displacement map and normal map render. I'm converting normal maps into height maps from Doom 3 and using both of them in the rendering. As of right now, I'm going to have to still stick with normal maps for one reason; they are much cleaner when rendered. Some changes need to be made to displacement mapping because I'm getting dots and a lot of messups with the displacement.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

You guyz were right... I got home and checked it out.

 

I did have the normal pointing in the wrong direction (down).

 

I flipped it and got this... so White is indeed raised areas... black is recessed areas.

 

Much better... I've included the picture I used for displacement and color again for reference.

 

I also did a quick gaussian blur on the map and re-rendered to see the differences...

[Zaryin]

Great examples everyone! I think the Normal and Displacement map together looks pretty cool.

 

Does anyone know of some good site to get some Grayscale Height Maps of real areas? Not DEM files (because I have no clue how to use those ), but jpegs or other image formats. Thanks.

 

Ross: Thanks

[cronos]

my first test

Displace_prj.zip

[MMZ_TimeLord]

The one on the right has your normals pointing the right direction (out form center), the left one has the normals pointing in the opposite direction (in from the outside).

 

I made the same mistake when I did my first test (see my first example earlier in the thread).

 

The second one I did came out fine.

 

Other than that, I'm not quite sure of the question (I want it ??)

[MattWBradbury]

Cronos, you're looking for more of a specular highlight. At least that's what I believe you're asking. To get proper shading and specular highlights, you are going to have to make a normal map of your hieght map. You can do this by downloading the NVIDIA normal map plug-in for photoshop and using the plug-in to transform your hight map into a normal map. A:M uses inverted X and inverted Y normal maps with a Red conversion. Look at the attached hight and normal map to see what I mean. One more thing. Set the Specular Intensity to around 1000% instead of 100%. I hope that answered your question.

[Ganthofer]

It looks like adding a Fractal or a Normal Map makes the Specular show.

 

(example with same image added a second time but set as Fractal)

[cronos]

thank you for your help

Displace_mov.zip

[Zaryin]

Ok here's my Ozmap again. I rendered it at this size with Ambient Occlusion: Global Color. All settings for AO were set at 100%. The plane is 200 patches instead of 1 so I had to up the displacement map to 2000%. There is only one sun light in the scene.

 

I love the detail I get using 200 patches to the model (except in the desert area). And the shadows I get with the sun are great as well. It took about double the time to render than with a 25 light skylight rig, but I love the way it looks.

 

size: 922X392

 

16 passes

 

38 minutes

[MattWBradbury]

So you're using a skylight and ambient occlusion? It's designed so that you only have to use one or the other. Looking pretty good, though why did you make it a 200 patched model?

[Zaryin]

So you're using a skylight and ambient occlusion? It's designed so that you only have to use one or the other. Looking pretty good, though why did you make it a 200 patched model?

 

 

Hi Matt, and thanks. For this image all I used was one sun light and AO. I used the light rig in my first image (on the first page of this thread) without the AO. I decided to see how much more detail I would get from 1 patch to 200. If you look at the first image (the one at the top of the thread), you'll see I get alot. And 200 patches isn't alot either. Especially when I get detail like this from a displacement map that really isn't as detailed, or good, as it could be.

 

Thanks again .

[KenH]

That's brilliant. I'd love to see what it's like being in amongst those mountains.

[Dhar]

What happens if you cast a shadow on that map? Let's say you put the Emerald Castle (?) model in the middle, will its shadow conform to the moutainous terrain or will it expose the flat patch?

[MattWBradbury]

will its shadow conform to the moutainous terrain

Yes. That was one of the first tests I did.

 

The problems that I have noticed are regarding quiality. If you have really fine detail on a map and you're really far away with a camera, that fine detail is not even rendered. If you move the camera closer, those details come into view.

 

I'd love to see what it's like being in amongst those mountains.

I'd like to see it too! The task of doing that, I found, is quite tedious. I would have to move my camera about 15 times in order to get an acceptable shot. Sometimes the displacement maps would mess up because I was too close to them, or there would be noticable holes in the map.

[KenH]

The problems that I have noticed are regarding quiality. If you have really fine detail on a map and you're really far away with a camera, that fine detail is not even rendered. If you move the camera closer, those details come into view.

 

I think that's a general render issue rather than to do with displacements. I'm noticing it with regular models that are "low res" rendering when far away, yet if you zoom in they render fine.

[Zaryin]

Thanks everyone.

 

I did try a shot where it was in the mountains. It actually looked pretty cool, but it took forever to render. I just realized not long ago that I forgot to turn the AO down from 100% when I tried that. I now have it at 15% and the pic (above), now with sky, renders in about 15 minutes at that size.

 

I'll post that one when I finish rendering my big version of it (2400X1021).

 

I'll also see if I can do that pic from in the mountains when I'm done.

 

OH, and I tried putting The Emerald City in with displacement, but it didn't look all that good so I took it out, haha.

 

Thanks again.

[Zaryin]

Ok, here's the newest render. I rendered it at 2400X1021. It took about 1 hour and 50 minutes to render with 15% AO Sampling.

 

I will probably still be adding the cizilization details and maybe some color differences to areas, but this will probably be my last post of this until I actually finish it. This is the SHowcase area, not the WIP.

 

Thanks.

[KenH]

Man, if you could put some snow on some of those peaks, that'd be the icing on the cake!

[DanCBradbury]

Zaryin, did you add a normal map to your set? If you havent you realy should.

 

I've found that ambient oclusion does very odd things with the displacement. Is that what happend to your desert?

[Zaryin]

Ken: Yeah, that's one of the thing I was planning on adding for the terrain. And thanks

 

Dan: I made a normal map for the terrain, but it really didn't make a difference at all. To get a result I have to crank it pretty high and it doesn't really add anything, so I decided not to use it. I think my displacement map is just pushing the terrain too high for the normal map to help with this.

 

I haven't had any difficulties with AO and displacement that I am aware of. Tell me what problems you've had, and I'll let you know if something like that has happened with me.

[KenH]

You know, if we can't use this map, we could use something similar to make the distant mountains....maybe make them into an image and put them into backgrounds of sets.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

I realize this is going backwards, but it's too bad we can't 'bake' the displacement.

(i.e. - convert the patch(s) to a 1 patch per pixel mesh)

 

I know it would create HUGE meshes, but here's the upside... We could then copy the part of the mesh we need for a scene, such as the the mountain scene you were talking about.

 

Just a thought... probably thinking while sitting on my brains again...

[MattWBradbury]

I made a normal map for the terrain, but it really didn't make a difference at all.

Really? The tests I did had high thumbs up for the use of normal maps. This is the normal map I came up with. Put this in the same decal as your displacement. Set your dispalcement to 0 and change the values on the normal map until they look like your mountains would. If their backwards, which sometimes happens, just use negative values for the normal map.