Hi, I've recently begun playing around with displacement maps to achieve different effects, and I came across an issue which is troublesome.
I made a displacement map which corresponds to a texture map, both of which represent a leather strap on a uniform. The displacement map defaults to a value of .0833 when I install it in Poser's material room, and from a distance, renders perfectly. I think it looks great! But a close up render shows the edge of the strap being all jagged. I've attached a pic of the rendered strap, plus the corresponding material room settings. Is there a way to adjust some settings and make he edge of the strap look smooth?

Thanks

I've been messing around with Displacement maps for a few weeks now and had the same problem. There are a couple of things you can do. Either lower the value of the node OR open your map in your image editor and copy the layer, then blur the copy & put it under the original map. Copy the layer you just blurred, blur that layer and put it under both layers, then repeat until you have a nice smooth transition. I typically use 3-5 blurred layers. Blurring layers will create a bit of a smoother transition. :)

Clearly your displacement value is too high. What type of units is Poser using as a default? That will determine your displacement value. I have mine set to inches. Also, if you have the most current version of Poser, set your filtering value to crisp rather than quality.

And just a formality, uncheck the Reflection_Lite_Multi, it does nothing improve your render in this instance.

A displacement map does exactly what the word says. It "displaces" and it is a "map".

Displacement = It moves the texture outwards following the direction of the normals. And it depends on the units you are using in Poser.

It is a map = Pixels. => And Pixels are little squares.

So: A displacement map, displaces pixels to an amount set by the node and the units used.

To get rid of what you see you can do 2 things.

a) Reduce the amount of the displacement
b) Make the pixels smaller. => Use a larger map.

Maps can be:
512x512 => Large pixels, heavy saw tooth effect
1024x1024
2048x2048
4096x4096
8192x8192 => Small pixels, little to no saw tooth effect.

The larger the map size, the smaller the rendered pixels will be, and the smaller the saw tooth effect will become.

So?

• Reduce the amount of displacement in the node
• Blur the edges on the map
• Or use a larger size map

you can also try incr. to 16-bit greyscale.

Wow! This really worked well! I blurred the map and lowered the displacement value and I think it turned out great, Take a look - thank you all so much!

Looks much, much better! Glad all the advice helped.

For future projects and those of you also looking into this, sometimes using a blend of displacement and bump can offset exaggerated effects like this.. Just another approach ... I have used this with skin and sclera maps.

Boni