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Courtesy of Meindbender |
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Displacement Types - On the fly, Pretesselated and Vector
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1D displacement map (middle) applied to a simple plane. Height Maps contain displacement information only in the vertical direction
3D Vector displacement map (middle) applied to the same plane. Vector displacement can specify direction in all three axis |
Maxwell Render has three methods of displacement:
On the Fly
Here, Maxwell Render's unique displacement technology that allows you to create virtually unlimited detail while using very little extra memory. This is a 1D height map displacement, so the mesh is subdivided and the local Y coordinate of each point is vertically displaced according to the values in a greyscale map. The object mesh is subdivided and displaced at render time, so the consumption of RAM is lower kept at almost the same levels as if no displacement was applied - although it will take longer to render, especially with bigger displacements.
This method is recommended for very fine, smaller/medium displacements, and when you need to prioritize the RAM consumption of your system.
Pretesselated
This is also a 1D height map displacement so the mesh is subdivided and the local Y coordinate of each point is vertically displaced according to the values on a greyscale map. In this case, the object mesh is subdivided and displaced before the voxelization, as a pre-process, so the pre-process and voxelization may take a bit longer, but as soon as the whole geometry is loaded into memory, the render is then much faster than On the Fly displacement. The only limit on the detail is how much RAM your system has, as all the geometry needs to be in memory at render time.
This method is recommended for general purposes when the RAM in your system is not a limitation, as it renders much faster.
Vector
In this type the displacement map is an RGB color map holding displacement information for both the X, Y and Z local coordinates of each point. As points can be displaced in the three axis, this type provides a surface with richer detail than simple 1D displacement height maps.
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To avoid any possible artifacts or gaps in the displacement on objects which contain polygons connected at sharp angles, make sure you set an object Smoothing angle that exceeds the maximum polygon angle of the object (i.e. for a cube, it should be 90 or greater).
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