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Comments
Those look really great! Iray doesn't seem to play very nice with displacement maps.. Bump probably wouldn't give is quite enough oomph but your displacement map could be converted into a normal map I bet and give very good results.
Far more complex then just clicking in MS paint as I watch lectures and documentaries, lol.
Now I do recall there being some confusion regarding where the maps go, and that 'Subdivision' setting in the Iray shader. as a hint of some possible directions. Iray has many layers in it's shader, and each layer has a bump/displacement/normal. So yea, I'm not eager to dive into Iray just yet, Especially given spot-renders take hours to get anything meaningful out of them without a dedicated CUDA card in this comp.
(EDIT)
"O" it didn't mater where the crossover happened between the two mesh maps on the Arm bands, it was the UV map alignment that made that work so well. Because the maps were so similar, and the threads matched up between them.
I think I remember what it was. Tho this goes back a few month to when Iray was in public beta.
Bump and normal maps work to an extent. Displacement maps are done in Iray with real polygons, thus the 'Subdivision' setting in the surface settings tab (not the item geometry subdivision setting in the 'Properties' tab smoothing section), needs to be set high enough to have enough polygons to recreate the features in the Displacement map. Yes, "that is not so good, for many reasons", and is completely different from how 3delight deals with recreating Displacement features.
One major pitfall of 'Normal' and 'Bump' maps, is that they do not do real 3d surface features unlike displacement maps. For example a map with a high ridge near the surface edge will only look correctly viewed edge on with Displacement. Now I may have completely misunderstood the two vids and three articles I had read explaining why a 'Normal' map was better then a 'Bump' map. However, none of them continued to explain the difference between 'Normal' and 'Displacement' directly. That was just reading between the lines on 'Normal' maps, vs how Displacement is real geometry (not just a self-shadow-effect encoded bump-map on a flat surface, AKA 'Normal').
3delight is incredibly efficient with it's Voxel-conversion of Displacement maps. Iray apparently needs real Polygons to do that, and a single surface Displacement conversion can end up using an insane amount of RAM in the process, lol.
So given all that, I'm not sure it is worth trying to do real threads cloth in Iray, at least not until 1TB RAM is common on graphics cards, lol.
(EDIT)
Perhaps before getting to frustrated with Displacement on cloths. Here is a simple patron to try on a cube (3x2 tiling) or plain (1x1 tiling). The top-left section has ever smaller steps of detail down to a single pixel in the center.
And here is a render to ilistrate the diferance between bump (left) and Displacement (right) in 3delight.
The map in this post is CC0 (Public Domain).
http://awesomebump.besaba.com/about/
Might need to be futzed with a bit more, but it's a good start.. there's lots of dials to play with to get the sharpness and depth you need.
:ohh: THANKS! that is incredible, far more detail just looking at the maps on the screen un-renderd, then I've seen in any other normal map floating around. Tho I haven't realy been looking for normal maps much at all, just a handful I've seen in passing looking for other stuff.
I guess I should pauses using FW Phoebes Alt shader to make an alt shader for LY Dominique (with considerable backing color adjustments), and try that on the test patron above. To see if my assumptions about obstructive view (not just casting shadows) is true or not with normal maps.
I am curious about the swirls I see, where there would be holes in those to patrons you converted. There would be shadows cast there, tho would that be cast on a separate surface behind it. hmm.
(here is what I got so far with LY Dominique, not exactly an average of Spec1 and spec2 from the original shader, as the blue was to much).
(EDIT)
Ah, there it was, first few posts in this thread.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/46444/
Normal maps don't tile, what!? Tell me that was fixed some time in the past several dozen updates, lol.
Hi ZDG, nice to have you back. :)
There is also a free plugin for Gimp called Insane Bump: http://registry.gimp.org/node/28638
And there is a short video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT4z8J9A87o
Played around with it a little bit and it is a very nice tool. I don´t understand each single parameter. But the defaults aren´t bad. :-)
Yeah they fixed it eventually.. I know it works in 4.8.. and displacement works great in earlier versions in 3Delight so no big deal.
Now I am impressed with the lighting of the single surface with "Normal" maps, I'm not so sold for how that vid did not make it look so good near edge on. I'll just assume that was a limitation of the GUI in Blender, not the "Normal Map" capabilities.
When it comes to the merits of "Displacement" in 3delight v11, that test map render above has me sold. Near vertical 2cm edge, clear and unmistakable edge on, lol. The maps Fisty uploaded (thanks again) looked good, the shader I tried (Daz default) lacked adjustment for the amplitude of the height. I need to try some other shaders, and converting that test map above.
IF, that "Insane Bump" thing can actually produce (full scale, 0 to 255) Displacement maps (not just Normal), it has some very useful applications for me.
Also, using a combination of maps, probably would also work quite well. like Displacement and bump settings, rather then just using displacement. It's done for many figures, why not for other things.
3delight version what?
Daz Studio 4.6.2.117 had 3delight 10.0.170, http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/544584/
Daz Studio 4.7.0.12 had 3delight 11.0.105, http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/836249/
Daz Studio 4.8.0.55 currently has 3delight 11.0.130 (used for the bump/displacement test render above).
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/835705/ (thanks mjc1016 and Kettu)
https://3delight.atlassian.net/wiki/display/3DSP/Release+Notes
(despite daz_spooky's warnings, I do have Daz Studio 4.6.2.118 (32bit), 4.7.0.12 (64bit), and 4.8.0.55 (64bit) currently, for map testing).
April 2014 was more like Studio v4.5 not 4.7, !? time to get some more coffee, and continue digging.
Wondered about that myself. But somehow Gimp is calculating the color differences and makes the conclusions what pixel should be higher than others. Kind of funny. :-)
Looked up Fistys link. The Awesome Bump seems to be a stand alone version of the Insane Bump. Pretty sure Fisty has more experience with those things than I have. So hopefully she will reveal some secrets. ;-)
I remeber this thread also a an eye opener to me: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/16812/
And there is even more free stuff out there with Normal Maps included:
https://community.renderman.pixar.com/article/114/library-pixar-one-twenty-eight.html
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/46677/
:coolsmirk: not as bad as I first thought. And saying that it started with something "Pixar" dose have some advantages. hmmm.
I am not completely apposed to 'Normal' maps, I just have some doubts about using them in 3delight when it's 'Displacement' algorithms are so incredibly efficient. Iray on the other hand is seriously lacking in the 'Displacement' department, and 'Bump' maps just don't cut it for so many things (close-up Cloth, floor tills, unworked Stone face, wood grain, etc). Thus 'Normal' is a contender, tho not an outright displacement map replacement.
I need to sit down with the Iray shader, and look at what options there is for 'Normal' map intensity (min/max). I still want the end user to be able to adjust the maps effects/intensity as needed for there scene, and the daz default 3delight shader is lacking in that department with the 'Normal' map settings.
(My k2500R just arrived, time to take some pics. Ah yes, all there including the rack-mount ears, good. I shall return after looking at other shaders settings. Thanks Fisty and MN-150374.)
EDIT. Now a thought. There is a Kurzweil K2000R VX, and a K2500RS in the hands of some one involved with Computer Graphics... :coolhmm: :coolgrin:
Well, absolutely needs more work possibly, tho there is absolutely an interesting result with the lineup. The 'Normal' map (midle) is absolutely more convincing then the 'Bump' map (left), however it just falls on it's face compared to the 'Displacement' map (right).
At least I got that cool normal map converter thing kind of working now, it converts much more then just that.
This id the daz default shader, 3delight.
General rule of thumb...for details that need to cast actual shadows/show 'real' occlusion/etc...use displacement maps. Details that can get by without those...bump or normal maps. And they can be layered, if set up properly (adjusting the levels, min/max values...even down to the map creation level).
If it was just for 3delight, bump and displacement are interchangeable, and the same map can be used in either or both settings without modification. And the test above demonstrating the superiority of Displacement over 'bump' for some things has me sold.
Unfortunately, Fisty is having some difficulty with the 'Displacement' maps in Iray, and I distinctly remembering others having issues as well with a lack of details and other things (for many reasons). For the sake of keeping ram use at a minimum (until Graphics cards with 1TB ram are commonplace), bump and normal is a must use for macro and micro features (like for cloth weave patrons).
'Normal' maps are much beter then 'Bump' for some things, tho not everything. Normal maps are not interchangeable with Displacement maps without translating/converting them (and vise verse). And that is what I've been blindly fussing with the conversion-settings for the past few days (converting Displacement maps to Normal maps). And I've discovered a nasty side effect of the Normal map (I don't know what it is called yet) inner workings.
My thought of using two maps. Make a Displacement map for the larger features of a cloth weave (like the ridges and valleys of the over all patron), and us a Bump or Normal map for the finer thread details. There are two unknowns for me thus far, and a bad discovery about Normal maps as hinted above. I have yet to dive into Iray to see for my self and measure the 'Lack of detail' that plagues the surface shader when using Displacement maps (at a reasonable Subdivision level). I have yet to try making a large and small feature map set to try with any render engine. And the Big pitfall of Normal over Bump/Displacement, minimum pixel feature size.
minimum pixel feature size. It is clear as day to me from the first Normal map test render in a former post above, that the features get completely distorted at small pixel counts. The displacement and bump map accurately show the single pixel point in the center of the test patron section (top left on each cube face), and the single pixel wide diagonal trenches as well. The Normal maps completely destroy such small features, fuzzing up the diagonal trenches and completely changing the point to a 'Plus sign' like feature.
Now with 3delight, I had discovered over the past few months, that an individual thread width smaller then four pixels, tends to get completely washed out viewed from a distance (turning the map into a featureless smooth flat surface). It Appears, that the "minimum pixel feature size" of 'Normal' map mechanics dwarfs that. A thread four pixels wide gets completely turned into something else entirely, without even backing the camera away. It may be my choice of a Test patron (I'll make a different one today), and/or it may be my complete lack of knowing what the dials in the Normal map converter programs are actually doing to the map.
And thus the fun continues. :coolsmirk:
(The attached test renders. Left Bump+Normal, center just Normal, right Just Displacement) Yes, I added the test map again, with the best of the Normal maps thus far (using the default conversion settings).
The maps in this post are CC0 (Public Domain).
And here is an up close look at that section of the test patron. With a grid, so you can see the pixel counts involved.
(EDIT)
Yes the gears are turning in my brain, looking at these side by side for the first time. Perhaps three maps are needed. Displacement and Normal for larger features, and a bump to get that fine grain detail. ugh, the Ram usage of that is a question mark.
(EDIT2)
Well here is the new test patron for varying widths of thread. Time to play. :coolsmile:
The maps in this post are CC0 (Public Domain).
Well, apparently someone brought in the flock of 'birds' to look over some of the test results, lol.
And while that was rendering, I thought of a different set of maps to overlay with the mimicked Iray fuzzy Displacement map. I took the fuzzy map, inverted it, and overlay-ed it with the original to get a 'Not' of the fuzzy map. That I'm guessing should at-least reduce the 'Mushroom head' effect a little, possibly.
*1. Just because I'm trying this with a 'Fuzz factor' of five pixels (Gaussian blur), dose not imply that is what Iray will actually do. The fuzz-factor will be completely dependent on the 'Subdivision' level in the surface tab, and the render resolution of the surface in question.
(edit)
Perhaps I pushed the min/max ("Depth in pixels") in the Normal map converter to far...
OK, forget that idea. Time to try this from a different angle, as soon as that 'angle' comes to mind, lol.
I don't have time to do an expanded comment on it...but it's not pixel size that matters. The render doesn't really care about pixels. It's all in the scale/subdivisions of the geometry of the mesh...and how the renderer handles that. 3Delight can get down to sub-millimeter (scale) sizes without eating all your RAM...Iray can't.
The brainstorm I had this morning, just didn't pan out as I thought it would. So I've gone back to counting pixels, lol.
The maps in this post are CC0 (Public Domain).
The brainstorm I had this morning, just didn't pan out as I thought it would. So I've gone back to counting pixels, lol.
The maps in this post are CC0 (Public Domain).
One of the simplest ways of explaining it...
3Delight has some of the best algorithms and methods for working with displacement around. Other renderers need to specifically be told to subdivide the mesh fine enough to do anything other than large scale movement of fairly large polygons. That's why without doing that, you don't have the detail and when you do it, you eat up massive amounts of memory.
So, no there isn't really a work around. Bump and normal maps ARE the workaround.
It's not that Iray can't/doesn't do displacement 'right'. It just doesn't do it in a way that us normal mortals, that don't have access to a VCA can use without going CPU only renders...
Now, couple that with the fact that texture compression is 'on' and even though it is not supposed to compress control maps, with many of the already existing maps for other than the newest content, there is a chance that it could (depending on how studio determines what is/isn't a control map...it does get a number of them wrong when doing gamma correction...so I'm not counting on it getting them right for the Iray texture compression, either). And then there is the fact that a Iray is much pickier about black being black (0,0,0) and white being white on those same control maps...
And one other thing...as to thread size...try and measure some and work that into the scale used in Studio. It's not going to matter much, because, unless you are sitting right on top of the cloth with the camera, 1 pixel or 4 isn't going to be 'small' enough to make a difference. All that level of detail does is increase the render time, unless you are doing extreme closeups or massive final render sizes, for maybe print work...and even then, you are likely to lose detail when the image is downsized. Now for coarser weaves/knits, when you are talking about yarn, instead of thread, yeah, the details are noticeable...but not for most 'normal' cloth...denim being one notable exception, as it is usually a light/dark pattern to the weave.
lol. And allot of that texture blurring can also apply to 3delight, especially when backing the camera off. And as you point out, some surfaces have directionality to the 'gloss'/'velvet' appearance.
Carbon-fiber-cloth http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/805872/
As for the min/max values in a map for Iray, yes it is very picky, especially if the maps happen to have a total 'Average' other then mid-scale. I do recall many having issues with figure maps at the joints, with maps that clearly were to bright or dark (total average off at say 192 or 64). Such maps are nearly impossible to scale up or down the min/max values in the surface tab in 3delight as well (without pulling out a calculator at least). Unfortunately, because of the number of pixels I'm working with, I can't always get the lowest pixel in a thread to pure black before it is under another thread (Like with that Denim look-alike from way back, I will try to redo that one and some others asap).
I'm going from 255 white, to 0 black, in less then sixteen pixels of thread length in most of my maps. There is many funny pointers regarding that, lol.
Flashback normal test from this patron.
simple lace (Including the Opacity map) http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/751428/
The next post down has an odd step, it dose look close to Denim, tho that was not what I had in mind when I conjured that up. Wow, no specular mask for the Denim look-alike, I'll need to fix that,lol.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/751430/
So, what of that fuzzing effect in 3delight, it is there (looks at the test render of the simple thatch lace).
The maps in this post are CC0 (Public Domain).
"O" here is another, full-scale stagger (unlike the not-full-scale above).
Original Displacement/bump map here, http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/751669/
I just made a spec map for it as well.
The maps in this post are CC0 (Public Domain).
Using the norm and Spec map above, Here is a start for Denim colors, a start.
ZdgCloth16micro_Stagr001001_spec_512
ZdgCloth16micro_Stagr001001x512_n
FW Destiny HD (FW Faylinn "Alt Shader")
Let's Get Physical outfit (not completely fitted, just tossed on to see the shaders)
Tsukiakari Hair.
The leggings is the other simple lace patron above.
(EDIT, and again with the tiling set to 20x20 on this outfit)
You are now running into some of the other drawbacks of trying to render fine cloth details...Moire and anti-antialiasing (or the lack of).
And the thread scale is still off, even at a tiling of 20...probably should be 25 or 30, looks more like corduroy than denim, but if you do up the tiling then you would probably lose the detail.
Now, for a little trick that may help...put the displacement map into the Diffuse Strength slot (not sure where it would go in Iray) and use the Skin lighting model...
The cloth, at scale, is a 16 inch square. Tiling is at 15 and the maps are from a couple pages back...rendered in the standalone so I could keep going, instead of waiting for one to finish.
The first is a pretty 'tight' shot, the second a mid shot...and you've already lost the details.
Yea, the 'Moire' is a big issue (yet not to all). I've seen that same affect so many times in pics, and the eye doesn't suffer from that. Impressive test renders, and good point as I'm unable to tell what patron out of a few that is, lol.
Yea, my scale on that outfit was on the course side, even looking at my shirt... on that note. 16 inches square, as in 4inches by 4inches of cloth? That dose help quite a bit, again looking at the sleeve of my shirt, there is about 4 inches of cloth (and some change) going about half way around my wrist. A good photo test moment, for the sake of a reference to others that are unsure of what scale we are talking about (it's not a flat 4 inches).
My shirt is not exactly denim, tho it also has a diagonal weave (not exactly the same at thread level). More importantly, the ridges produce a felt like affect that is (I'm guessing it's called) polarized of sorts. Light glosses from one direction more then from another, and I've yet to see the AoA or Omni shader produce such an affect (without using special maps or Spaghetti-land bricks, lol).
(edit)
So yea, if you never want to see the weave or threads of cloth, and your not doing polarized-like cloth. The Velvet and Specular settings alone in the AoA or Omni shaders would get you all the cloths you would ever want. I wanted something a bit more then just that, lol.
Yep, or even the Skin lighting model, in the Default...
Denim is actually twill weave, if you want to look up references on how it's woven.
And technically, so are canvas and duck...and couple of other 'heavy duty' cloths.
And technically, so are canvas and duck...and couple of other 'heavy duty' cloths. So it's what I called a "TwillDiag2x1" somewhere (I didn't look in this thread yet, just my hdd).
So I flipped the maps horizontally. The red/blue mask I changed the colors to Off-cyan (128r 255g 255b) and off-Blue (128r 0g 255b). So you can adjust the green and red backing color as needed. There is one for Blue 'High thread', and another for Cyan 'High thread', as I only have black geans here as a reference.
I need coffee before trying to make a spec and normal map, tho I'm not sure the spec map is needed.
The maps in this post are CC0 (Public Domain).
(edit, added a guess-settings converted Normal map)
Yep, or even the Skin lighting model, in the Default...I never looked at that in depth, I did try the Daz Default shader 'Skin' thing once by mistake. It wasn't what I was looking for at the time, over a year ago in my n00b-ness, lol.
I can also get a vague idea of how bad a weave will look, just looking at the thumbnail view on my computer. Most of them are kind of pointless at a distance, and only start to apply when getting a tad closer. And there is that 'Moire' to contend with as well.
It just dawned on me, I never did a basic 'Satin' weave in that base16 thread. Well, that is now fixed, partially, lol. Norm pending.
The maps in this post are CC0 (Public Domain).