Any tips on making displacement maps from bump maps?

CHWT

Sometimes even normal maps are not enough, like when there is a strong light force to the left or right of the face which simply erases all the skin details.

My problem is I don't know how to create displacement maps from bump maps that there would be no seams showing when applied, and I seriously have no clue on how to set the displacement strength properly.

Tips much appreciated.

Richard Haseltine

Bump and dispalcement work the same way, so there should not be aby trick. However, unless the effect is very subtle then the displacement map really needs to be 16 bit greyscale while bump will usually be 8 bit greyscale.

Pax Asteriae

It's been a while since I did anything with displacement maps, but if I remember correctly bump maps usually go from black to white as standard, while displacement maps in DS use a mid grey as a zero point. So if you don't want displaced seams, especially if you're using them on things like faces or other parts of the body, you need to add a mid-grey displacement map in every other channel so it equalises out without your seam sticking out as a jagged edge.

EDIT: had to check on the rendering computer for the files I used for some facial scars I worked on for an old character.

Huh. I see uploading is broken again.  Never mind, that's what external hosts are for...

(Image removed by mod)

The black and white images are a texture mask, and the grey and white images are the displacements. As you can see, there's one (well, several, I did a bit of testing) with the scar pattern, and then there's just a plain grey one. The plain grey one goes in the displacement channel of everything adjoining the surface you're displacing.  That'll stop the unpleasant jagged edge you get otherwise.

In short, you can use a bump map, but since DS doesn't use displacement textures the way it does bump textures, you'll need to either take it into your favourite image editing program to turn it into something DS does like, or you can try to use LIE to get the same effect. It might be easier now there are more options for textures in 4.21.

CHWT

Richard Haseltine said:

Bump and dispalcement work the same way, so there should not be aby trick. However, unless the effect is very subtle then the displacement map really needs to be 16 bit greyscale while bump will usually be 8 bit greyscale.

Thank you Richard! I think the 8 bit might be the cause of why seams still show even when I add a mid grey layer when making the displacement maps. Will have a try with 16 bit. Thanks!

Pax Asteriae said:

It's been a while since I did anything with displacement maps, but if I remember correctly bump maps usually go from black to white as standard, while displacement maps in DS use a mid grey as a zero point. So if you don't want displaced seams, especially if you're using them on things like faces or other parts of the body, you need to add a mid-grey displacement map in every other channel so it equalises out without your seam sticking out as a jagged edge.

EDIT: had to check on the rendering computer for the files I used for some facial scars I worked on for an old character.

Huh. I see uploading is broken again.  Never mind, that's what external hosts are for...

 

The black and white images are a texture mask, and the grey and white images are the displacements. As you can see, there's one (well, several, I did a bit of testing) with the scar pattern, and then there's just a plain grey one. The plain grey one goes in the displacement channel of everything adjoining the surface you're displacing.  That'll stop the unpleasant jagged edge you get otherwise.

In short, you can use a bump map, but since DS doesn't use displacement textures the way it does bump textures, you'll need to either take it into your favourite image editing program to turn it into something DS does like, or you can try to use LIE to get the same effect. It might be easier now there are more options for textures in 4.21.

Thank you Pax Asteriae for showing me the tricks. Especially with the pure grey map and LIE option, never thought about that! Will try!

felis

As far as I know displacement zero point is dependant on how you set minimum and maximum displacement, as the displacement is linear between these 2 points.

E.g. if you set minimum to 0, then black means no dicplacement.

CHWT

felis said:

As far as I know displacement zero point is dependant on how you set minimum and maximum displacement, as the displacement is linear between these 2 points.

E.g. if you set minimum to 0, then black means no dicplacement.

Interesting! Is there a 'usual' maximum value?

frank0314

Depends on how strongly you want it, but no. 

CHWT

frank0314 said:

Depends on how strongly you want it, but no. 

Got it, thanks Frank !

Richard Haseltine

felis said:

As far as I know displacement zero point is dependant on how you set minimum and maximum displacement, as the displacement is linear between these 2 points.

E.g. if you set minimum to 0, then black means no dicplacement.

Right, only black and white (Minimum and maximum) have defined meanings, everything else is interpolation.

AgitatedRiot

There is a program that will make displacement from the base color maps. PBR validated. It's supposed to create seamless textures. I have imported actor maps into it, and they worked fine with V3 and such.

 

Tiling 3D Materials, Quickly (pixplant.com) 

Edit: Images. Guess not.

Image of me updating Commander | Daz 3D

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsLRJ6DzP9KIgbIxuiEezpNtZLXMUg?e=OyKmba

CHWT

AgitatedRiot said:

There is a program that will make displacement from the base color maps. PBR validated. It's supposed to create seamless textures. I have imported actor maps into it, and they worked fine with V3 and such.

 

Tiling 3D Materials, Quickly (pixplant.com) 

Edit: Images. Guess not.

Thanks a lot!

Totte

CHWT said:

Sometimes even normal maps are not enough, like when there is a strong light force to the left or right of the face which simply erases all the skin details.

My problem is I don't know how to create displacement maps from bump maps that there would be no seams showing when applied, and I seriously have no clue on how to set the displacement strength properly.

 

Tips much appreciated.

Did you grab my XMas freebee (Sant's Normal Maker)?
There you can set the height of the Normal map so you can create normalmaps that has a huge height difference.  

CHWT

Totte said:

CHWT said:

Sometimes even normal maps are not enough, like when there is a strong light force to the left or right of the face which simply erases all the skin details.

My problem is I don't know how to create displacement maps from bump maps that there would be no seams showing when applied, and I seriously have no clue on how to set the displacement strength properly.

 

Tips much appreciated.

Did you grab my XMas freebee (Sant's Normal Maker)?
There you can set the height of the Normal map so you can create normalmaps that has a huge height difference.  

Of course I did :) ! Thanks for the tip!