Tips for Making/Using Displacement Maps?

Inkubo

I have really been enjoying the PA sale because of all the Genesis items on at great sale prices. Now that I'm using V3Digitimes's Iray converter and the ColorWerks hair shaders, I've found that Genesis looks every bit as good in Iray as later generations. And one nifty thing about Genesis is how it comes with both male and female UVs so you can use skins in ways the creators didn't expect. I'm using the Frankie von Stein skin to create a toon zombie boy.

Anyway, the Frankie von Stein displacement map for skin staples is the only thing that hasn't worked well for me. When used, the shapes of the staples turn out kind of weird. The raised areas don't correspond to where the staples are in the skin. They're close, but the staples look kind of mangled and some of the displacement is oriented wrong or offset from where the staple actually is.

I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Does displacement work by actually moving vertices, in which case you need to crank up subdivision ridiculously high in order to create new vertices to be displaced?

Also, if I decide something is wrong with the original map and want to make my own, what color should I fill the map with to mean "no displacement" when the Min and Max are set to the same magnitude (e.g. from -1.0 to +1.0). Is RGB 127,127,127 the right value?

Singular3D

Unfortunately Iray can only use displacement maps by moving vertices. That is a certain limitation other engines do not have.

Inkubo

Thank you!