I could've sworn I saw something about that in one of the releases but I can't find anything now and that's a pretty important issue. The last article I saw mentioned new nodes, so I'm wondering.

If you use Firefly render engine yes. Not in Superfly. Superfly does only have normal Displacement.

Unambiguously this means: As long as Poser uses the Cycles Render Engine, there will be no Micro Polygon Displacement. Micro polygons are only available in render engines based on Reyes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropolygon).

However, there is something in the original Cycles that is comparable. Whether this will ever be implemented in Poser is another matter (I guess: rather not).

Thank you for that clarification! Whatever it is that Blender has, they need to put in. It's just such a glaring hole in Superfly functionality.

Not sure if I remember correctly but I believe that in Physically Based Rendering, micro displacement were a non-sense, or near to impossible to implement

Blender Guru would like to have a word with you:

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

Good point - lol

Blender has adaptive subdivision which can do micro polygon displacement. It does so with a geometry modifier, before it is sent to the render engine. Cycles does not have adaptive subdivision, Blender does.

I'd like to see some alternative to cranking up the subdivision to ridiculous levels (especially when the object in question is a very large set piece). I don't care how it's achieved.

We def need something for Poser.  I did watch the tutorial but that isn't for Cycles, it's for the other engine.  So what exactly does Cycles have that can emulate that effect that Andrew was talking about?  @Tim Choate needs to see this thread and give the community some hope!  

Blender has Adaptive Subdivision. But this is not part of Cycles. That's why I think Poser has to live without it.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/object_settings/adaptive_subdiv.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa6fEGqhqI4

Adaptive subdivision is just a trick that subdivides objects more if they are closer to the camera and less if they are farther away. Poser would have to do that itself. There's no reason in principle they couldn't do that (as a shortcut, it could even be a per-object setting just like the current subdivision is). They are already doing subdivision during renders. It's just a question of how to allocate development time. Personally, I would like to see it, but I would rate it lower on the priority list than fixing Superfly previews (e.g. by using Eevee for previews)

We looked into adaptive subdivision and it's not going to give you a replacement for micropolygon displacement. Things like displacement fuzz and grass just won't work because you'd need to subdivide the object till it had millions of polygons. And yeah I'd rather have a real time raytrace preview in the document window.

Hi Charles, can't you guys write up your own node to add to Cycles and/or for the Physical node?  I mean all this code is open source, there should be a way!  

Micropolygon displacement is one of the main reasons I'm currently sticking with Firefly.

(See my Don (veins) and Fokker (grass) renders in my Gallery)

BUT...

Just as the P5 Don mesh has currently BUILT IN musculature topology that makes (overkill) subdivision unnecessary, one could easily design a similar figure with BUILT IN vein detail. (Or even skeleton detail, for that matter)

He now has just 25.000 polys, btw. Double that, and you could have pretty much all the realistic detail you want without the need for additional displacement.

Grass OTOH could be substituted with hair:

(True Instancing or improved transparency handling also could substitute displacement grass)

*

My point is: Microdisplacement is cool to have. VERY cool to have.

But instancing, an improved hair-room, faster transparency handling and especially better figure (and prop) design could make up for its lack in Superfly.

JoePublic posted at 9:38 AM Sun, 9 April 2023 - #4461444

Micropolygon displacement is one of the main reasons I'm currently sticking with Firefly.

(See my Don (veins) and Fokker (grass) renders in my Gallery)

BUT...

Just as the P5 Don mesh has currently BUILT IN musculature topology that makes (overkill) subdivision unnecessary, one could easily design a similar figure with BUILT IN vein detail. (Or even skeleton detail, for that matter)

He now has just 25.000 polys, btw. Double that, and you could have pretty much all the realistic detail you want without the need for additional displacement.

Grass OTOH could be substituted with hair:

(True Instancing or improved transparency handling also could substitute displacement grass)

*

My point is: Microdisplacement is cool to have. VERY cool to have.

But instancing, an improved hair-room, faster transparency handling and especially better figure (and prop) design could make up for its lack in Superfly.

Definitely. I've just been making up for its lack in Superfly since I started using Superfly, and it's the one thing that keeps popping up as a really noticeable lack for me. I couldn't care less about ray-traced previews, myself, but different strokes for different folks. I'm more concerned about things that affect my final render's appearance and I can't help noticing when my textured edges are flat because they're not displaced. Can't go back to Firefly now, though, it just looks so flat to me after messing with Superfly for so long. So it's something outside of Cycles that Blender does for its displacement?