Digital Art Zone

I’m having a hard time with the raised Letters/Numbers part of the License Plate. I have been trying to use a gray scale bitmap in the bump channel but I don’t see difference in height. I have tried using 60% for the lower outer ring, 50% for the base of the Plate and 0% for the Lettering (% of Black) and 100% for the lower outer ring, 50% for the base of the Plate and 0% for the Lettering (% of Black). Each color does have sharp edges, if that makes a much of a difference.

Link to a picture of a real License Plate…

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/Kansas_license_plate.jpg

Thanks,

Might it work as a displacement map instead?

evilproducer - 12 August 2012 09:26 AM

Might it work as a displacement map instead?

I never had much luck with displacement maps at all. When I tried it this time it went all black for me.

Turk_WLF - 12 August 2012 09:06 AM

I’m having a hard time with the raised Letters/Numbers part of the License Plate. I have been trying to use a gray scale bitmap in the bump channel but I don’t see difference in height. I have tried using 60% for the lower outer ring, 50% for the base of the Plate and 0% for the Lettering (% of Black) and 100% for the lower outer ring, 50% for the base of the Plate and 0% for the Lettering (% of Black). Each color does have sharp edges, if that makes a much of a difference.

Link to a picture of a real License Plate…

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/Kansas_license_plate.jpg

Thanks,

A bump map should work pretty well. It doesn’t create actual geometry, just a lighting effect at render time.

Use a Gaussian Blur on your black and white bump map to simulate rounded edges.

Here’s an image map, followed by the bump map, followed by the Carrara render.

(Click the image for a larger version.)

I took the liberty of downloading your example image - simply made a greyscale and reversed - used a grid set to the proportions of the original.  Placed the original in the colour channel and the greyscale in the bump channel.