Triggered by the stream about vector displacement, I tried drawing my own 'vector displacement map'. You have to think carefully how to draw it, but it works like a dream. Lots of possibilities :D :D :D
This is freaking cool
8) Great! 8)
Is it required to have a new version of PS?
What bit depth? 8,16 32?
Those alcoves and caves are very good.
impressive
CS3, thats'the newest I've got. I made it in 16 bit RGB and converted to 32 bit before saving as tif, otherwise it won't work. Either painting in 32 bit or opening in TG in 16 bit. 8bit may also work, don't know. Probably a bit cruder.
Wow, have been wondering how to make holes in the rocks. This is great. I will try it, probably with not much success since I don't really understand much of what I do in TG2. ::)
Thats proof of a rather big break through, Ulco!
The interior walls of the cave appear to show the same displacement as the outside of the rock formation, without problem. Is this correct? Can you post a render from inside the cave, please?
How long did it take you to paint the v map, once you understood the working process? How tedious did you find it? How specific did you find you could get and still be accurate?
Ulco, remember the broken moon tests you did. Wouldn't this be a excellent solution? You could make extreme deformations on a new layer over a layer with a proper NASA moon map. Use it to deform a planet2 object, then apply the NASA provided moon map for the texture. Yes?
Also, this is, I think, the way to go for natural bridges and arches. Yes?
image1 in the op is the one I like Ulco. it reminds me of this:
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/348535/348535,1309708657,21/stock-photo-cave-paradise-blue-sea-and-sky-relaxation-paradise-on-beach-tourism-tropical-island-80329102.jpg
Good work, Ulco!
Yes, the interior will look good. The only problem is that you might have overlapping surfaces if you displace too much, or the map is not right. This is of course easier with a model as a basis.
On the other hand, the overlapping areas and the one-sidedness of the planet's surface may be used to get see-throughs ???
I painted the map in 30 seconds :o, but it was just for testing.
For natural bridges this may work as well, I'll have a go at it... maybe.
Another map. Inside cave is now rendering....
Its funny. We could do this for how long? But no one ever did.
I remember reading several posts about caves, and that the people asking the questions did not like what they found. And now you can get a perfect cave in 30 seconds or so. Hope they see this!
Inside.
8-bit works,too.
But I find it hard to get what I want,that's definitely easier with a model.
Géniale ! ;)
One more render with the VDisp method.
I just wanted to look at this one a long time. Striking creation Ulco.
Thanks Bob.
How did I miss this? I'm like Bob............I could look at this all day.
How about a higher resolution render? :-*
Amazing
Wow, this is so obvious in a way. Why did nobody think of it before? Really cool results.
Pretty sweet, Ulco!
WIP's from inside.
Very nice. Looking at this, my imagination goes to work. Many possibilities when you think of it.
The light is a bit difficult here. I envision a misty cave filled with lush vegetation, some water and weird reflected light... might make that.
That vegetation would only be near the cave opening. A bit further back, maybe just some lichen growth.
Unless I can make a cave at the bottom of a crater, so there's a light hole in the roof... or it's just fictional.
Very awkward working in a cave, but there are possibilities.
Possibilities indeed Ulco, this is fantastic.
Wow, this is incredible.
A very bad sample of using vector displacement on waves. Took 5 hours to render, so I will do things differently.
I think this shows the possibilities very well!
I wondered about this but haven't got round to trying it. This where a sculpting program would pay off!
My favourite one is VDISPtest_27-05-13-v3-1.jpg because the rocks look great. Nice lighting and the lighting inside makes it more mysterious.
Very promising, waves and snow cornrices are all possible now through this tecinique.
Snow. That's a good one or ice. Maybe someone can try that. I haven't got around to this yet. The software I'm using is more convoluted to work out how to do it.
The problem with water is that it takes so long to render. And the 'backside' will have artifacts. Makes it no fun to work with. Next I will make some breaking sand dunes maybe ;)
Nice one Ulco, is this the same set up as your earlier 'easy water?
I think one problem with water is that the texture you put over the top tends not to be related to the wave and in real life it would be. Maybe there are ways to change that relationship? Having said that, you did a good job here. Water is the most difficult thing to handle.
I have to say I don't like this up close. But from a certain distance it may be perfect? I know your just seeing what can be done still. But If you have time, what does a render from a far distance look like? I have stayed away from trying to do any waves by any method because of what people say about trying to do it them selves. maybe this can work though depending on the nature of the shot.
I was trying to get a real curl procedurally. Well, this is procedural, and I may succeed in a real curl yet, but this attempt works better than the ones I did more than a year ago.
@Bob: no, this is a completely different setup, like I said with some x to scalar, sinus, and some VD nodes in varying setups and follow-ups. But I will continue rendering as sand dunes, not water. The calculation of transparency through transparency gives these black dots.
@ Michael: I will do a distant one. You're right that it will look lots better!
@Efflux: what do you mean by texture put over the top not being related to the wave? You probably think of the foamy, more displaced tops, starting to break. I was trying and almost succeeding in finding a relation between when the wave would be at its steepest/highest and where the curls would be. I might get there still, but it's tricky.
There's a set of nodes I need to re-invent to get more black space between a sinus...
As been said, 'nothing is impossible' - you'll get there Ulco.
Nearly there
What am I doing wrong here? I got mudbox, made a sculpt, extracted VD map, but no matter how I do that, I don't get the same result as in mudbox. Can anyone (Mick?) explain how to go about it exactly?
I have a feeling that TG does not correctly use the displacement maps - try playing with the function multiplyers and offsets. There is a thread on displacement offset in tg maybe that will help
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16183.0.html (http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16183.0.html)
If you rotate the view so that the two are the same way round you might be able to see better what is going on. There seems to be some twisting how are you setting up the displacement. If you are using an .exr you only need an image map shader and a vector displacement node
Thanks Mick, but I already found it. I added a rotate vector (-90), and that worked. I'll try your shortened setup.
I'm getting the hang of this, but I still don't understand why the shape is dipped at the base. Even if I pull it up more. I'll try dipping it in MUD, see if it comes up then.
Very interesting. The arch appears as an accretion composed of many rocks.
that arch is excellent!
8)
Good going Ulco, that was a really fast switch!
Just a simple arch pulled up in Mudbox, made into a 1024x1024 VDISP map,and covered in fake stones. You can't see the seam, which is somewhere in the middle. It's really fun.
Can you make fake stones that are perfectly square, rectangle?!?
Maybe if you displace them by angled strata shaders....
As for the dipping unfortunately I haven't had any idea what's causing it.
One thing I'd try though is offsetting the plane in mudbox a small amount
just to see what happens in TG then.
Sorry that I can't be of much help,hope you'll get it sorted soon.
Thanks Jochen. I still got problems. They don't show up as they should.
Here's how they ending up if I make them in Mudbox. Pretty 'not nice'. If I connect the 'normal' way, it looks even more terrible.
One that did turn out nice.
Just re-read what paq wrote about his mudbox VD workflow over in the other thread.
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16110.msg157216.html#msg157216
Unfortunately some of his settings in mudbox are not visible in the picture,so you can't
compare everything,but some at least.He has the checkbox for creases and hard edges
ticked and although I can't imagine that this is causing the problems you have I still would
try it,just to be sure.
Theoretically the mudbox VD map should work without swapping channels or rotating a vector,
if I got paq right.
Thanks again, Jochen. I think that may be my problem, using the same sculpt as target mesh for the high poly mesh. Have to try adding an extra plane.
Yes! That was it; make another plane as target. Works like a dream.
Looks like a stone troll! or some frozen mythical animal - great stuff.
Wow! That is really nice Ulco.
Cool one!
Glad to see you got it working now.
Good result of your test Ulco. It does look like an animal though. Maybe a bear, a wolverine, or a honey badger.
So what do you think now, about the way Terragen deals with the import and translation of a sculpted vector map? Is it ideal, or can improvements be made to Terragen to make anything better in this regard?
When I look at the node trees people are posting I still feel like something could be optimised somehow. But its more of a feeling then something I think I know for sure. Do you think its the best it can be in terms of how Terragen takes and uses the vectors?