[simmsimaging]

That bottle is awesome Tom. Great job.
b

[simmsimaging]

Max -that chainmail looks great!
b

[Voidmonster]

A super quicky displacement render, just playing with stuff 'cause it's fun now.



Maximus: I'm working on getting a reliable method of getting from ZB3.1 into Maxwell. At the moment I just kind of wrestle with it until I like the results.

So far I'm getting the best results by using a slightly dense base model (>10k polys), a 32 bit displacement (single channel, auto range) and then applying it with a displacement value between 1 and 2.

However! The 32 bit displacements have been kinda strange. At first I was getting better results with 16 bit files, but then something magical happened and 32 bit worked great.

I'm still just goofing around though, and I've not really gotten serious about the process yet (partly because I'm still modeling the horrid turkey-skin monster thing -- it's topology blows at the moment).

I'm close to the point where I want to really figure out how to do it right, but so far I haven't found it particularly difficult getting good results. Just a tiny bit of playing around -- 2-3 test renders -- and I'm 90% there with the accuracy of the displacement.

Because of the kind of stuff I'm doing, I'm using adaptive pretty exclusively. That's something else I want to play around with. I really wouldn't mind getting a little bit of that render time back.

[Becco_UK]

ScrewU material.

[Maximus3D]

Tom: It works yep, but not in all cases. Some still would require a waterlevel function.

Brett: Thanks

Voidmonster: Interesting what you wrote, so as i understand it.. it's still a guesswork or random incident if Zbrush displacements will work or fail. I remember that Zbrush monkey which was included in the newsletter a while back, that one looked good and i wonder how they managed to get such good results from Zbrush to Maxwell. What's the trick..

Anyhow i'm looking forward to see your upcoming experiments.

Becco: Good one! that's looking real nice.

/ Max

[Becco_UK]

Maximus3D: Thanks. Out of all the nice example posted so far the one with the misplaced and displaced penis shaped thingy is my favourite so far.

[def4d]

hahaha we all turn into (good) crazy again

[tom]

It works yep, but not in all cases. Some still would require a waterlevel function.

Could you give an example, please?

[Maximus3D]

Yes, here's one typical example where a waterlevel feature would be useful. The black plane is what i wanna remove however inverting the map won't do it in this case. For this to possibly work i have to create a mask which then "cuts" out the black plane behind the coin.

Below is what it looks like rendered with Maxwell


And this is using the waterlevel feature on the "other engine"


This look above is what i want, but with Maxwell.

/ Max

[def4d]

def4d: hehe yeah, call it a lucky strike yay! i don't mind sharing how it's done but for anyone downloading this, please don't upload it to the MXM site.

Here's the file: http://maximus3d.net/files/MXM_Weave.rar
/ Max

oops, big thanks Max, i'll check it and learn from as soon as i can

For you coin problem, couldn't apply the clipmap to avoid it?

[Becco_UK]

Maximus3D: I think the coin would work better if it the general shape was modelled and displacement used for the surface details - then you can also include the other side of the coin? Just a thought.

[simmsimaging]

Water level function is a very hand thing - using the ghost method means adding a layer and another map - why not a simple setting like in Fry? It works well there.

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[jurX]

...nice coin maximus

[DrMerman]

Max : I agree that a watermark feature might be useful, but since we're adding displacement to the material as a whole, I'm not sure it would make much more sense. If you weren't adding displacement, and instead just had colour/bump, you'd have to use clip maps anyway to define the coin shape. Adding the displacement layer doesn't change this system, and a watermark feature would over-ride whatever transparencies you had in your other layers. Although, saying that, it's always good to have options

You can of course use the current system to remove the black surround, by adding clip maps/layer weights, but the result does depend alot on the quality of the maps.

Quick test :



Cheers,
Dr Merman

[KurtS]

For this to possibly work i have to create a mask which then "cuts" out the black plane behind the coin.
/ Max

you mean like a common clipmap or a weightmap with a transparent layer?