Hi, I was searching this forum for some more info on this and didn't quite find yet what I'm was looking for.
I made a map using bump channels for wrinkles in both hands and feet and got it to work fine in Poser 6, but I can't figure out how to get this displacement map to work in Carrara 6.  I loaded to the Displacement tab for the specific body part and used both the map directly and also Flat Mapping/texture map (trying ally the mapping options) and all I get is a deformation of the body part being smaller.

Any wisdon would be much appreciated!

This is not a direct answer to your question, but you could take your models parts into the Carrara Vertex room and, with the Displacement Brush, add those wrinkles etc directly to your model!
Brian

Thanks bwtr,
I've done some of that and it does work well with the slightly bigger details but with the finer details I think I'd have to add geometry for it to work well. I was hoping to use maps for some of this. I'm kinda new at trying this so I appreciate all the info I can get.
Odd I can get it to add this detail in Poser using only a map in the desplacement node, but not yet in Carrara (which I love to work with!).

Hi restif,

I'm not sure if I understand "deformation of the body part being smaller" right (obviously that's my poor english).
It sounds like your displacement is partially "carved" in the object instead of pushed out.

Possibly this might help you:
For displacement maps Carrara uses 50% grey as zero-level of the original surface.
Everything darker than 50% grey is lowered/ carved in the surface. Every lighter is raised/pushed out.

Thanks faba, I'll try that!!

Great,
It seems that solved the problem, plus adding more subdivision in displacement. I had the " uneffected" originally masked in black and that may the whole body part I was working on get smaller and deformed the fingers and toes. Now that the mask is 50% grey, the uneffected areas remain just that.
 
I will experiment more with this to fine tune it a bit.

Thanks again for the pointers!!

Hello, I'm finding that when I add a bump map to the displacement shader, the whole toe geometry swells up.  When you say 50% grey, is this something within the displacement shader that can be tweaked?

I had the same issue, When I did use Displacement for the feet I isolated only the soles/sides of the foot and kept the toe area at 50grey so they woul dnot be effected by the displacement. The main problem I ran into is that I couldn't get the micro detail I was looking for, even if I cranked up the subdivision.
So what I've been doing when I need more detail is to enhance areas of the bump map I want to stand out more so I don't end up making the whole foot look pitted.

I am still working on good displacement with this, haven't completely solved it. Not sure if Carrara would be able to use, say very fine detail maps from Zbrush on a poser model.

Hey Restif, thanks a bunch, question did you do the 50% grey isolation in Carrara or in like Photoshop?  I'll post a pick soon of what I have been able to pull off which is not much.  The feet really need some extra attention since it seems to be the only body part that is modeled as an after though.  Its easy to stuff them in shoes, but if she's barefoot than they need to look more realistic.  Nothing like a real convincing figure, pose and scene to look down and see doll fake looking feet..IMHO.

Look forward to seeing it. when I exported a displacement map from Zbrush, it exported  at 50% grey except for the effected areas.  if you are not using Zbrush Photoshop should do to adjust it.

Ah, I need to get going on my Zbrush displacement map skills....rendering a pic now and should have it soon for you to examine...2 young women I've modeled.

Here you go, my English girl (white girl) the wrinkles of her arch don't show up too well and my Black girl's do.  The reason is also the way the light hits the bump map.  If it hits right on the better chances your bump will show..which is why I want to move away from bumps and go displacement maps.

Let me try this again...this bandwith crap on this site.  This is a draft render and a jpg so quality not the best.

Looks good, I agree with the limitations of bump maps. Looking forward to see more of these experiments. Here is one I did, I use a bump map combined with others and grayscaled photos. Also, the texture adds a huge for detail (texture is Maskedit).

restif

Beautiful image.
Envious!

Brian

Restif, nice job!  Here is a view from the top.  I subdivided her to 2 (the max before I get the memory allocation error) and upped the bumps a bit.  I moved the light source to highlight the bump....but still need to brush up on displacement maps out of Zbrush.  The feet had to be modeled by me since DAZ seems to ignore the feet.  The hands look good as far as bumps go, but I would like to add some tendons to the feet to make them look a bit more realistic.

good job on the toes and overall shape, did you do the morph in zbrush? for displacements maps, I was able to get it quite high but still hadn't achieved the results I wanted, which is why I've been manipulating bump maps instead. Definitely I would prefer to add displacement, if only in key spots, such as to highlight the tendons and subtle muscles in hands and feet.

Yup, I used Zbrush...Zbrush is fantastic...I can whip up foot morphs in like 15 minutes.  I've tried morphing the face..which is my next step to try to get likeness out of it.  I sent you an site email.  Looking forward to seeing more of your work and ideas regarding bumps and or displacement mapping.