[Maximus3D]

Btw, i ran a quick'n'dirty test with Zbrush displacements today, brought them into C4D and threw on a Maxwell material onto the basemesh and hit render. It seems to work quite well so far. But lots more experimentation needs to be done.

Thumbnail links below, click to view.. in the order they're posted below you see C4D basemesh first, then the Zbrush detail sculpting in the middle, and last but not least the Maxwell rendering of the basemesh with the 4096 pix displacementmap in use.


/ Max

[Mihai]

After you sculpted the base mesh in Zbrush, did you export again the level 0 obj? The level 0 (original) also changes when you sculp so if you don't export it and use that one for displacement you may get strange results. Just mentioning this in case.....

[Maximus3D]

Yep i had to export the basemesh again from Zbrush or else it looked even worse than this rendered i tried to do it the other way around by reapplying the displacement directly on the C4D basemesh but that bird couldn't fly very well so i had to ditch that plan.

I'm working on a new head now so i'll be back a while with a new and hopefully better example, if i succeed that is.

Btw, thanks Mihai for mentioning that anyways.

/ Max

[tom]

Well it seems like the texture and export level is fine but the problem could be insufficient precision. You could also consider subdividing base mesh for more speed and low precision.

[Maximus3D]

Tom: I'll be running new tests soon again with Zbrush and Maxwell, at the moment i'm creating some other stuff.. see below for results of todays actions.

This is what i been spending my Sunday creating, i wanted to see if i could create a realistic sparkling snowshader which also uses a displacementmap as this one does. So far this is as close as i could get, i might finetune it further tomorrow but i'm quite satisfied with this one.



/ Max

[simmsimaging]

That's looking pretty good Max. Maybe a bit smaller scaling of the flakes (especially in the foreground), and it would be good to see it with a more open/bright lighting scheme to see how it would work in daylight.

Great effort so far though.
b

[bunkiojo]

Max, that is nice! Might we see some iteration of this snow in the MXM gallery?

[silba]

Interesting results, Max. I see some uses for that shader in some of the work I do. Is the sparkel a result of the displacement?

[ivox3]

Taking it to the max, ..Max ? lol..

Nice snow and probably the best snow yet ---- I agree with Brett about the size though..

[iker]

Great snow Max
it also can be used as foam... http://www.strangeharvest.com/mt/archiv ... y-a9l2.jpg

[Becco_UK]

Maximus3D: You have made a nice snow material there - I remember the Maxwell RC's creating similar effects without any intervention from the user.

Some fine examples of what can be done with Maxwell's displacement but because of its snail pace rendering not really suitable for day to day useage.

[Maximus3D]

Thanks so much guys i'm glad you like this snow result so far. It needs more tweaking and testing before it's approved by me for public release. I still need to test this with the physical sky, skydome and a hdr to see that it renders nicely in all conditions and enviroments.

Brett: You're correct, smaller flakes. It'll be sorted out today. I got a bit blind after spending a full day and night staring at this, so i missed that. thanks

bunkiojo: Thank you, and yes eventually this should appear in the MXM gallery. It just needs a bit more work until i'm done with it. Btw, this one is for the displacement contest.

silba: Thanks! sounds good, and you get to try it soon for your work. The sparkel effect is a combination of several different things but mainly a roughness map does the job. The displacement only adds some structure and mass to the snow.

Chris: Thanks hehee

iker: Hehe thanks and o yeah foam, it looks almost more like that than snow

Becco: Thank you heh.. that's true, the RC's could do this by themselves. About it not being usable for day to day usage, it depends on what you're doing..

I'll be back with updates later today on this probably in a separate thread to not takeover this one. You're all to kind and helpful

[Edit] : A special thread been added to the MXM section of the forum where more examples can be seen. I will also post other updates there and when the snow material been uploaded to the MXM site.

/ Max

[contact7]

Yes, dispacement seems to be able to do wonderful things.
Just a quick question.
I am rendering the image below (the one to the left) using the displacement map shown to the right. Although it is a very smooth and a high resolution jpg image (1100x1600) I do get the jagged result shown to the left. I'm using a precision value of 150. What can I do to get a smoother result?
Thanks

[Maximus3D]

Are you using a 8bit displacement map or a 16bit ? such steps would happen if you use a standard 8bit map. 16bit has a wider range of scales and those steps shouldn't occur. You could try the Smooth option also and see if that helps..

/ Max

[Mihai]

Yup, use at least 16bit bitmaps if they contain smooth gradients, and not jpg as besides not having enough grey levels, you also get artifacts from the compression which might not be visible in the map if you look at in PS, but will show up in the displacement.

You could try first converting this 8bit map to 16bit and then running Gaussian Blur with small settings a few times to 'even' out the grey levels. This could work but it's best to create a map at 16bit from the beginning.