Forum: Freestuff


Subject: UFO Moonbase outfit desired...

paramount opened this issue on Nov 20, 2008 · 225 posts


Morkonan posted Thu, 04 December 2008 at 3:58 AM

JoEtsold, those materials and displacement maps are great!

I started working on the problem of using a displacement map with the tight-fitting jumper I'm working on.  Here's a render before I started:
http://i36.tinypic.com/34nh1jt.jpg

Obviously, any decent amount of displacement is going to cause poke-thrus.  However, we can map that displacement out, somewhat, while still preserving the standard values for the material.  I tried a quick test:

http://i34.tinypic.com/faons1.jpg

After applying a map to the displacement values, the region that was causing serious problems isn't so bad now.  Yet, displacement still exists outside of that region for the entire torso map.  I hooked in a simple 2D Image Map into the displacement node as a test:

http://i34.tinypic.com/978x1e.jpg

I've got it hooked into the Math Function 2 of your displacement node generator.  It removes most of the displacement except the base values in the noise generation  (I think.)

Would there be a better place to hook in a map?  More importantly, this is just a 2D map.  It does not follow the topology of the model.  Would there be a better place to hook this into the displacement generator or, even better, a way to get a 3D Image Map into that structure in order to mask the displacement values in certain areas?

That way, your excellent displacement maps would still be usable as they are except with the addition of a masking node that removes displacement under the garment and in a very small region outside of it (to allow for movement without poke-thrus).  Any ideas you have on this would be greatly appreciated!

PS- This technique could easily be used, IMO, to generate some "seams" in your displacement map so it would mimic the original series' costume more.   They wouldn't be as dramatic on closeups but, for normal renders, you'd see an obvious seam wherever you wanted one.