ChromeStar posted at 6:38 PM Sun, 23 July 2023 - #4470955

Thalek posted at 7:21 AM Sat, 22 July 2023 - #4470816

I liked the displacement mapping better, as it gave a rougher appearance, but I couldn't figure out how to keep the surfaces from floating above the seams of the object.

The surface might float because there is some positive displacement pushing the surface out. Since you only want negative displacement for the holes, you could use a Math node to subtract some value from your displacement map. I'm not sure how the values map to the gray scale but you should be able to come up with a decent answer with a little trial and error.

May also need some subdivision if you use superfly, but that looks like firefly to me.

Well, almost all of the suggestions the two of you made helped, but also opened another can of worms. Haven't tried the math node yet, as it was my understanding that the displacement range was 0-255, with 0 (black) being the original surface and 255 being a displacement above the original surface. I will try it eventually, though.

Added a gamma correction node, added an HSV desaturation node, and used subdivision . It was the subdivision that opened the can of worms, as the cuboctahedron looked more like a sphere even with just one level of subdivision . So I added a small chamfer to round all of the edges a little. This not only made subdivision behave better, it looked more like the original.

It also wiped out my original unfolded UV mapping, so I now have to do that over with the somewhat more complicated geometry. (Took the original 14 poly object to something like 300 polys. ) But the subdivision made the displacement map look pretty good.

Thank the deities for incremental saves, so the new modified geometry is saved,  and I only have to fuss with the remapping aspects.