Common practice for HQ wood, tiles, bricks?

[DanGrover]

I find displacements are a bit of a ball ache. It's very dependent on the geometry (for subdivisions) and on the scale. It's all over-comable, of course, but it's always a bit disheartening when you first slip on the displacement map, render, and it looks terrible!

[WAcky]

yes, but there is a new technique named vector displacement which uses an rbg map and is irrelevant in this situation. There is also a technique named relief mapping which is usable in vray and is kinda halfway between displacement mapping and normal mapping. You get the results of displacement with the rendertime of normal I believe.

 

Looks great but I've not had a chance to try it...

 

See here

and you will need this

 

edit: Well it appears the relief mapping plugin is outdated but that second link is a script Vlado has written that acts as a map and will generate a normal map on the fly from both proceedural and non-proceedural greyscale maps. VERY handy.

Edited March 23, 2010 by WAcky

[jackb602]

For close up views, I model individual stone tiles and wood planks and use a random map applicator script (C4D). Individual planks allows for control over joints and edge detailing. The same goes for stone tiling plus it allows for controlling the depth of the grout joint.

 

This sounds like a very useful script Leonard. Is it provided by a third party, or is it something you wrote yourself? If so, would you be willing to share it?

 

Thanks,

Jack

[deanomagino]

the third image of first post looks beautifully real (unless it is?). how would you guys suggest the material should be set in vray? i.e. low contrasting grey scale specular map set within a mid grey tone? used in both reflect and gloss ? ...or gloss set to 0.5 or there abouts? frensel swithed on? may be even a touch of anistropy?

 

i am currently working on getting my floors as accurate and real as possible and any suggestion would be great.

 

Dean

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Aye, vector displacement should be fun. Er, I mean helpful.

 

Played with relief mapping just a bit when demoing ... this viewport shader plugin thing a few months ago. Always kinda guessed it should be possible. Only goofing in the viewport so I can't say how keen it would be in production. The effect was genuine; the occlusion believable. It could be nice.

[Playdo]

A couple more questions:

 

- I've been using Crazybump to produce maps for individual wooden boards (normal, spec). I've been nearly maximising the small detail settings so that I get a lot of the grain visible in the passes, and reducing the large detail to prevent large deformations. My results have not been too great, and are looking better using only diffuse. Are there any tips/guidelines to set these up?

 

For some reason, the bump and spec maps also produce a streaking effect going perpendicular to the diffuse map, but I cannot see a problem when looking directly at the maps themselves.

 

Also is the Normals Space setting best left at tangent in 3ds Max?

 

PS @Deanomagino, yep, the images were taken from 3d sources.

[deanomagino]

is it a crop? if so could you post the full image?

[Playdo]

Here you go. I could be wrong but I don't have the source recorded to double check.

 

[deanomagino]

i dunno, i think its a photo.

[mattclinch]

if that's a render it deserves an award.

[deanomagino]

incredible attention to detail!

[braddewald]

I think its definitely a photo.

[deanomagino]

theres no doubt, look at the brick.

[BBB3]

This is a photo. It's the Tsai residence, as first shown on ArchDaily and featured in several websites.

 

The first image on the original post is by me. So I'll just take it as an invitation to add my two cents.

 

The floor on that image was done the old fashioned way, with a huge texture map (6000x6000 I believe), which itself was created in 3dsMax by rendering a large section of modelled floorboards from above with an orthographic camera and using that render as the texture.

 

Since then, I've been using almost exclusively CG-Source's FloorGenerator, an amazing script, as well as their MultiTexture map (with 3dsMax and Vray). The advantages are simple: 1) Huge sections of floor that do not tile visibly, 2) The ability to home in on one or two planks without losing any detail, 3) actual geometry so no need to agonise over bump or displacement. 4) You can use it for all sorts of stone pavings too!

 

I use displacement all the time, but for wood floor I think it is a dead end. Most of the time, the surface is not marked enough to justify displacement and getting the find grooves between planks would require enormous maps anyway.

 

I rarely use normal maps. The problem is you cannot make them unless you have the actual geometry (in the shape of a 3d model) from which to extract them. What CrazyBump and Pixplant do is only to extrapolate a normal map from a black and white map. So it does not contain more info than the bump or disp map. This is why normal maps are used mainly by game artist who "bake" the details in very high-poly models into normal maps to apply to low-poly real-time models.

 

Unfortunately I can't post links here but you can check my gallery on my blog for lots of examples of floors done with FloorGenerator.

[Playdo]

The advantages are simple: actual geometry so no need to agonise over bump or displacement.

 

I use displacement all the time, but for wood floor I think it is a dead end. Most of the time, the surface is not marked enough to justify displacement and getting the find grooves between planks would require enormous maps anyway.

 

Thanks for your input BBB3. So you don't use a bump map for the surface/grain of the wood? Do you not use a spec map here neither?

[BBB3]

Oh yes. When mapping my FloorGenerator object, I use bump mapping too. Having said that, my values are always very low as there are few types of parquets where the wood grain really is apparent, unless you're looking at antique wood or things like brushed oak.

Far more important, I think, are the specular maps and the glossiness maps. I always use both.

[Husam]

Here is a great tutorial for creating normal maps if you have a physical sample of the material.

 

(htetepe):area.autodesk.com/tutorials/normal_map_photography

[STRAT]

woods and wood floors and tiles - Arroway without a shadow of a doubt

brick - again, nothing matches an online masonary generator.