I've been using Poser to create artwork since version 2 and thought I would share some tricks and techniques I use when creating images. While not as fun or elegant as Dr. Geep's tutorials, I hope some will find them helpful.

Here's a little trick for creating a greyscale displacement map from a texture map. In the Material Room, simply add a Math_Functions node. Plug the texture into Value_1 and change the Math_Argument to Subtract. This will create a greyscale copy of the texture in the Math_Functions node. You can increase the value in the Value_1 argument to lighten the image. Plug the Math_Functions node into the Displacement channel, set the channels value and there you have it, a displacement map.

You can use the same technique to create a greyscale version of a texture to use in the Bump channel, although it's better to use displacement when you can. The difference being that Bump maps emulate a texture on an object but Displacement alters the surface geometry to the actual texture, which can be much more dramatic and appealing.

I use this technique often in my images. You can really see the effect in my latest image Miss Muffet's Bad Day. I used displacement on the ground, the tree bark, the hedge, and the curds and whey on the ground.

The curds and whey (which are basically cottage cheese) are actually a digital photo of spilled cottage cheese (yes I cleaned it off the counter after :P) which I took into photoshop where I created a transparency map and a displacement map. I mapped both images to a flat plane, and voila...instant curds and whey. If you look closely, you'll see the lumps of cottage cheese along the side of the bowl. You couldn't get that effect with a bump map. The texture would be there but the edge would be flat instead of lumpy.

I hope you find this useful. I'll include a copy of the settings I used in the material room for the ground as an example, in the next post. One thing to note...my Display Units in General Preferences are set to inches instead of Poser Native Units. That's why the value in the Displacement channel is set to 2.5. Using Poser Native units it would have been .024.

You can find some additional tips and tricks I to create another image in this thread.

Just curious...is anyone finding my "tips" posts helpful? Should I continue posting them or am I just being redundant and posting stuff everybody already knows?

I find tips like this extremely useful. Keep it up!

Yes I do, I just used it! Thanks so much!

Quote - Just curious...is anyone finding my "tips" posts helpful? Should I continue posting them or am I just being redundant and posting stuff everybody already knows?

By All Means, please keep them coming.

I save them in a Poser 6 Folder. Is there a way to Save these Mats as a DisplBump Texture Map??

Using PaintShopPro, How would I start out a Displacement Map or Bump Map????

Thanks

DR

helpful ! 

please keep sharing

thanks

Quote - > Quote - Just curious...is anyone finding my "tips" posts helpful? Should I continue posting them or am I just being redundant and posting stuff everybody already knows?

 

By All Means, please keep them coming.

I save them in a Poser 6 Folder. Is there a way to Save these Mats as a DisplBump Texture Map??

Using PaintShopPro, How would I start out a Displacement Map or Bump Map????

Thanks

DR

 

I'm not sure what you're asking, but if you mean can you save out the grayscaled version of the texture created by the Math_Functions node, no you can't, not directly. You can save the entire material to the Material Library which will save all the nodes. You could then reapply the material to the object the next time you used it.

To create a displacement/bump mat from an existing texture map using Paint Shop Pro? I'm not sure since I use Photoshop. The practice would be to desaturate the color texture map to create a grayscale image, then adjust the brightness/contrast and save the image. You could then load that image onto an Image_Map node that you would plug into the displacement or bump channel.

To creat a displacement map from scratch, you would make greyscale image, where black would be no displacement and shades of grey would increase displacement with white being the highest level. Load this image onto an Image_Map node and plug it into the displacement channel. Adjust the value of the displacement channel to give you the amount of displacement you desire.

 Hope that answers your questions.