Displacement, Mike Inspired

[ODdOnLifeItself]

From looking at Mike's examples from ZBrush ($700), I wanted to try a thing or two with Blender's (Free) ability to use an image as a Displacement...

This one looks like, with slight modifications, Frances could make it into the inner part of some exotic flower... or it could be made much softer and maybe become a ball of yarn, or a cat toy!, etc.



By the way, this was made actually from an image of a cobblestone but with exaggerated displacement.

Here is the same Displacement image, but with higher displacement value and inverted. (ie. the high points from the previous are low points in this one...) [This is easily accomplished by merely making the Displacement value negative]



Small levels of Displacement with a hi-res image can make for very textured surfaces that are actually changes in the surface geometry (ie. shadows follow this new surface) as opposed to bump mapping which only simulates geometry change and doesn't cast accurate shadows. In other words, if you add a Displacement to a sphere it casts shadows following the surface that the Displacement created. Adding bump mapping to a sphere casts the same shadow as the original sphere.

So, what's the trade-off? The Displacement one, because it actually modifies the geometry, needs a well sub-divided object to do its work, so you will have a high-poly object. The Bump mapped one can stay low-poly. The user decides the level of detail that is necessary, and can work accordingly...

James