G3F Displacement issue on Leg

3dOutlaw

Today was my Art day (no tinkering, just make a picture)...but I ended up tinkering "to" make a picture, and ran into a problem.  Ugh...

Someone made this Geoshell Stocking displacement freebie, which I thought was cool, and since all female Anime characters are required to wear thigh-high's, I was going to try it.  I needed to lower it a little on the leg, which I could do...

Problem is that only 1/2 of the leg is displacing.  See attached.  I have a full grey image with a white line (blurred a little) for the displacement

That is applied in the Leg Displacement channel, with settings as seen.  Problem is that only the inner and back of the thigh is displacing?

(NOTE: the grid in the displacement texture is just showing so you can see where I put the line, it is jsut grey/50 in the actual applied displacement image)

Any idea why the displacement is not going around the thigh? 

3dOutlaw

Side view showing the back is displacing, and barely a little of the front inner thigh can be seen...

3dOutlaw

NM, I figured it out, I had to bump the Sub-D Displacement level up to 3 to make it work...still a little bulgier on the inner thigh, but that's typical, right?  

Padone

Displacement in iray needs real geometry to work with. So you have to push the poly count with subdivision. This is not a good thing at all anyway. For example 3Delight doesn't need this because it features sub-polygon displacement.

A better way with iray is to use a normal map or a bump map. These don't require real geometry to work with.

If you feel brave enough, you can try to export both the base geometry and the displaced geometry as obj. Then convert the displacement into a normal map in Blender or any 3D app you feel comfortable with. It may be possible.

3dOutlaw

This intrigued me, so I made some normal maps, based off of the displacement maps, using the site below and putting them into the Normal Map channel with a strength of 1.  I got nothing but flat legs.  

The displacement and subdivision worked well, so I am not sure the downside, but it works for me!  Thanks for the reply though!

http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

Padone

This is just to show you that it works fine. I didn't even use a iray shader just the default one. So you may like to play around to see what's wrong. To see it in the viewport you need iray in draw settings. Otherwise you have to render.

The site you pointed to doesn't work for me. The downloaded pictures are always black. Below a link with some maps you can use. But just google it and you'll find much more.

http://polycount.com/discussion/89636/free-textures-to-use-i-only-ask-one-thing

3dOutlaw

OK thanks.  Since displacement is working, I am good.  I am sure it is probably user error, but your response said, "A better way with iray is to use a normal map or a bump map. These don't require real geometry to work with."

So is that plane you have there just a few polys?

Padone

Yes of course. Actually it's a single polygon. I did it with the plane primitive (menu > create > new primitive). Normal maps are also very good to use in architecture for walls and floors and decorations.

3dOutlaw

Cool!  Here is the normal map that site made...perhaps it was the wrong color/format for DS?

Padone

I don't have any trouble using it. It works fine.

One thing to note though is that a normal map will not create new geometry, so it gives the illusion of more geometry and details, but the silhouette will not change. If you need to create real bumps then a displacement map is the only way.

 

EDIT: and here is a tutorial to bake displacements to normal maps with Blender just in case you may want to play around with it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0FwsMkWm0k

Padone

And just for the sake of completeness here is the 3Delight displacement that doesn't require the geometry to be subdivided. I guess for this particular feature 3Delight stills more "advanced" than iray ..

3dOutlaw

Thanks for the info!  I would need the displacement, since the illusion of displacement does not show on the inner/outer thigh in this case, which then makes it look like a shadow...but good to know for the future.