displacement not working in material editor.
davidb45
Posts: 0
I'm getting back into Bryce after several years. I downloaded 7.1.0.109 and find that the displacement function doesn't work. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance.
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I'm sorry to report that the displacement feature is buggy to the point of almost entirely unusable. That being said, clever folks here on the forums have coaxed it into life, but... if you are getting back into Bryce, I would recommend not experimenting with displacement at this moment unless you are blessed with both patience and a very fast computer indeed. Instead, you could consider some of the Bryce 7 specific tutorials to be found here http://www.bryce-tutorials.info/bryce-tutorials.html that Horo and I have provided. My own latest batch here http://www.youtube.com/user/davidbrinnen/videos?flow=grid&view=0 (Also including contributions from Horo recently) and cater to a wide range of capabilities. And or otherwise, if video tutorials do not suit you there are still plenty of written examples for older versions of Bryce to be found in the list http://www.bryce-tutorials.info/bryce-tutorials.html
You started with just the thing that is tricky to make work. Forumites here have reported that you have to set the resolution of the wireframe low to be able to use displacement without crashing Bryce.
The other thing that might give you headache is instancing - though it can be made to work quite nicely. All the rest should give you mostly fun. Bryce is still a 32 bit application and as such has a 2 GB limit. Bryce does everything in memory and if that is used up, Bryce crashes. But if your computer sports at least 4 GB of memory, you can make Bryce large address aware with a free tool and then Bryce can use up to around 3.2 to 3.4 GB.
From my own experiences with displacement I can only confirm what my previous speakers said, but... the only bryce object I never get troubled with displacement is the cube. I suggest you start with it.
I am afraid, I have to correct myself. Displacement seems to work better, when you are using a cube, but Bryce can crash as well.
"Forumites here have reported that you have to set the resolution of the wireframe low to be able to use displacement without crashing Bryce."
Where do I reset the object wireframe resolution?
Thanks.
.
Rubbish advice removed. See David's post below for the correct info.
I do seem to be a bit out of touch with this modern Bryce you young people have created, LOL.
True... but... OK, I reckon it was the other mesh it refers to, the micropolygon mesh not the wireframe mesh that displacement relates to. This is adjusted here, but displacement has to be set in the material first before a value appears. Then you have to get to the attributes and set the mesh size down before Bryce notices and crashes. Then - just then - you might get it to work.
Thanks for the insight on this problem. I'm learning something.
I can't get the Displacement button in the Material editor to do anything. I hoped to texture a rock and use displacement so the objects edge looks more realistic. Micropolygon mesh isn't adjustable either for me.
Is the Displacement issue scheduled to be fixed?
Thanks.
Hopefully with the next development cycle.
After reading these posts I became curious and decided to see if displacement would work on my computer without any adverse affects. AKA, crashing Bryce.
The left sphere is a random texture with Displacement driven by Channel B. The Micropolygon came up as .01. The right sphere is the same texture, same Channel, but with Displacement set to 64.4 and Micropolygon set to .05. I'd never done this before so was unsure of the results. The left sphere has uses elsewhere. The right sphere is rather interesting.
GussNemo,
Interesting. What version of Bryce are you using? None of the functions you mentioned work in mine.
Thanks.
@davidb: I'm using Bryce 7.1 Pro, version 7.1.0.109. The texture on both of those spheres was an Bryce texture with Displacement already set. Even though a bead was holed for channel B the plunger could still be adjusted.
Can you explain in more detail what you mean by Displacement button? Are you referring to the blue bead to the right of the word Displacement? Or the object to the left of the word that looks like a press down button? Just to the left of the word is a small window displaying numbers. Are you able to left click on that window and highlight it? If you can highlight that window you can make changes that way.
GussNemo,
"Are you referring to the blue bead to the right of the word Displacement?" I can't move the blue bead to Texture A, for example.
"Or the object to the left of the word that looks like a press down button?" The slider on the left side will not move.
"Just to the left of the word is a small window displaying numbers. Are you able to left click on that window and highlight it?" Yes, and I can enter a numeric value but it resets to 0.
Very frustrating.
@davidb: Look at the word Displacement. Do the letters in that word have the same appearance as the letters in the rest of the words? I ask because it sounds like Displacement has been disabled some how. I case you didn't know, a disabled button looks flat, doesn't have bold lettering or color like those buttons that are active. It's why I asked about comparing the word Displacement with the other words in the Material Lab. If it has been disabled, then I've just reached the limit of what little information I have about this.
It would make a reasonably decent looking sea urchin if noting else. :)
It would make a reasonably decent looking sea urchin if noting else. :)
Looks quite nice!
Sounds like another one of those mystery errors that seems to hit one or two people but nobody else. I got one, not the same but essentially I can't import .obj's directly into Bryce although others can. I can import other formats but when I try .objs Bryce says "Unexpected error (failed creation)". I can import .objs though if I import it into Studio and then send it to Bryce over the bridge. Anyway when I ask, people have never heard of the error and tell me they can import .objs into Bryce directly with no problem.
Now as far as displacement I've never tried that. I have however seen quite a few people way more experienced with Bryce report that it's flaky and is prone to causing Bryce to crash. As a note I paused here, open a blank scene, created a single Bryce rock, went into materials, put a blob in channel A for displacement let it apply the default DTE setting that popped up which was waves2 I think? I was able to go to attributes and manually adjust that setting David showed but it seems to have a maximum of .1 because I could set .01 on up to .09 and it would hold but anything above .1 would revert back to .1 as soon as you close attributes. It would distort the rock in strange ways similar to what guss posted if I adjusted the slider next to displacement. I didn't do more then the one rock and playing with it's setting and rendering but I got no crashes.
@Mark: That's the first thing that went through my mind. Adjust the color towards black, play a bit to get the two bottom quills separated, and it'd make a nice looking sea urchin.
@Horo: I always find it interesting, and somewhat frustrating, that something nice looking can come from experimentation. Problem comes in repeating those experiments to obtain consistent results. I stored the texture, and saved the render, so using it again won't be a problem.
@davidb: Have you tried going to the Help tab and selected Contact Us? Maybe they have a fix or suggestion on a fix?
I think he will find there is more help to be found here in the forum, really, than he will get from Customer Service for Bryce specific problems.
Steps which worked on my system
Windows 7 Pro
64 bit OS
Intel i7 CPU
6 Gb memory
HD 5850 GPU
1 from launch. Create a Bryce primitive cube
2 set displacement value (see 1st image)
3 put a blob in Channel A (again 1st image)
4 exchange the texture component in A for basic grid (2nd image)
5 render (3rd image)
Note that in while the geometry is self occluding, self shadowing of the new geometry is not working correctly. Also the mapping modes are not adhered to according to.
The source files saved without crashing, it 78kb in size and if you want to have a copy of it for testing, send me an email and I will post it back to you.
Note that any successfully saved source files with displacement materials within them, in order to get the displacement working again it is necessary to enter and leave the material lab for each displacement material to restore the link with the texture channel output (in a similar way as is necessary for extracting (colour) normal information from the bump channel). Bug tracker fans https://bugs.daz3d.com/view.php?id=39540 if you can get in this deep.
I think he will find there is more help to be found here in the forum, really, than he will get from Customer Service for Bryce specific problems.
So far, no one has offered an explanation why davidb isn't able to adjust the Displacement settings. He said the blue marble can't be moved. The slider can't be moved. And if the value is changed it goes back to zero.
I've shown it does work on my computer, Mark said it works on his system, and David said how he gets it to work on his system. But no one has said why Displacement on davidb's system isn't responding. I would think if there's a glitch in the software, everyone would experience the glitch. That's how it usually works. And if for some reason Displacement has been disabled on davidb's system, then there has to be a way of re-enabling it.
Does anyone know of a setting that would disable anything in the Material Lab? Would choosing a certain mode disable anything? Or any other setting? That's why I suggested going to the Help desk, chohole.
Definitely running Pro and not PLE?
I was just going to ask the same Question David. Has davidb got any other controls greyed out, like the light icons on the top bar etc, which only come with pro.
Does the PLE version have the same version number as the Pro version? If not then it can't be the PLE version based on the first post.
So far as I know, the version numbers are the same. The PLE differs in the personal serial code that the user is provided with and also, the text on the splash screen on launch.
That is accurate. THe download that was the PLE from download.com was issued with a serial number which only ran some features. However changing the serial number to the pro version, once you have "purchased" the pro version does unlock the features which were disabled in the PLE version.
Furthermore if you actually "purchase" Bryce 7 Pro through the store http://www.daz3d.com/shop/software/bryce/bryce-7-pro and take it through the checkout you will have it in your itemised order history, with the serial number appearing in your available serial numbers on your account dashboard.
THere is no reason to actually redownload it, just take it through the checkout system to get the serial.
AFAIK the PLE edition was updated to the latest version number.