Did a little Vector Displacement Map test using the beta of Mudbox 2011, it is so cool to be able to just paint geometry onto another surface like this.

I started by making this geometric shape in mudbox

And baked that into a mudbox brush

I then started with a fresh sphere, and stamped this vdm all over it. I then used the “Fill” brush to place the more noisy detail on the surface of the sphere without affecting the bubbles. That was using a custom stamp using the reaction diffusion KPT filter in photoshop.

Then exported the result to 3dsmax (The full highres mesh, since neither brazil nor mentalray in max have a good way to use VDM displacing yet). Added the microscope shader, which includes a small bump map, and rendered in Brazil, slight tweaking and compositing in photoshop.

- Neil

this looks very nice neil. perhaps make this peaceful cell being attacked by a virus :]
all this Vector Displacement teasing makes me nervous getting my hands on this.

regards
sascha
home.saschahenrichs.com — blog.CG Environments

Oh you can use VDM to bake out to brushes and apply it to other models, NICE !
I wonder what that image is of that SoulBurn made something swimming inside your body, ewww but interesting :)

soulburn 10 March 2010 10:52 AM

Then exported the result to 3dsmax (The full highres mesh, since neither brazil nor mentalray in max have a good way to use VDM displacing yet). Added the microscope shader, which includes a small bump map, and rendered in Brazil, slight tweaking and compositing in photoshop.

wait a minute, so you mean by that is, that if you are using VDMap as stencil or stamps, the exported map has to be VDMap ? it can’t be a DMAP? can’t you just export the closest Lowest Mesh from the HIRES sculpt Object into 3dsmax/maya?

whats the point if the exported map is a VDMap and then the 3d software render can’t render VDMap format? If my point is full of ignorance, please enlighten me :)

http://rwijaya.blogspot.com/

rwijaya, I think you may have misunderstood. My example shows off using VDMs as stamps. Once I have my final mesh, I could potentially choose 3 things.

1) Export the full mesh with no displacement map, which is what I did for this image.
2) Export the mesh as a displacement map and lower res mesh and use displacement inside 3dsmax. I didn’t do this simply because with a complex shape like this with all those overlaps, it was far easier to just export the mesh.
or 3) Export the mesh as a Vector Displacement map and lower res mesh. I didn’t do this because neither brazil nor mentalray currently have a way to render VDMs. I am hopeful this will change in the future.

Does that make it clearer?

- Neil

mental ray has the ability to render it, even if it’s not exposed by default. not to mention renderman or mantra…

Sorry, let me rephrase that. Mentalray for max can’t render it. Mentalray itself can. But then again, if the controls are not exposed for the user, then you are radically limiting the number of people that can use the feature. Hopefully the max team exposes the controls for a future release.

- Neil