Hi guys.
Just wanted to ask for some kind of update on your (staff) thinking or plans regarding the ability to do displacement with RTO on. And in general what are the ambitions of planetside for development of various related displacement rendering issues?
The ability to displace textures with TRO ON has been requested before by others, but Im hoping to gain a better understanding of the whole issue of displacement in general with this thread.
I know we have been down this road before, but lets talk anyway, nothing much else to do while waiting for a render.
So...
In terms of displacement by map, this seems to be a standard feature in all of the render packages I have seen. But its not at all clear to me if the math (methods) behind it is similar across packages. Normally, I would not care at all how things work beneath the surface, but in this case some discussion of the broader aspects of this subject may be in some way helpful. That is, why it may work better in one situation over another, and why one software might be more appropriate than another?
Anyway, its clear to me that the ability to displace textures is fundamental to efficient 3D work; see this thread:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,15679.0.html When it works properly (ideally) there does not seem to be a much better way to do real detail, quickly. Likewise, there does not seem to be a better way to keep objects polly small.
Also, just to cut off the "Badger, just use different software for this", speech right off the top. Let me just say that if there is a faster way to create photo real environments to place assets in, than TG2, I have never heard of it. Its literally a process of open, place, render. And quite frankly, from a creative point of view, the fact that TG2 starts with an earth and sun, is hands down the best creative testing grounds I have ever come across. So yeah, I would prefer to stay in TG2 for all my scene/enviroment work, and just animate objects and figures in other apps. And then composite the two.
