Capping displacement on the sides

[VanWijnenVR]

I'm using a VrayDisplacementMod on a brick facade in which I want alternating rows of 14mm and 40mm bricks. On the sides of the window the 40mm bricks aren't allowed to be displaced. So that's why I have to cut the faces and only have the front face be displaced. That gives me 'open holes' on the sides, as illustrated with the attached picture from the Vray docs. Is there a way to close these without being forced to have the same displacement continue around the corner?

The only thing I can think of is to have just a slither of black on the edge of the displacement map so it returns to the 14mm level. This is very tedious to do because I have a lot of different facades and the textures are tileable.

Hope someone has a clue how to fix it!

[^Lele^]

The only thing i can think of is to turn on "keep continuity" in the displacement modifier, and raise the value until the holes are capped.
It may not look pretty, though.
Your best bet is to make edge-compliant displacement maps, so to drive the blend as you please, and then tile the rest of the surfaces as normal.

[VanWijnenVR]

If I understand it correctly that won't work because it's a single surface so changing the keep continuity parameter does nothing. I'm affraid I do have to make a ton of custom maps then..

[fixeighted]

This might be a bit less of a headache than having to create custom maps....

In this example the left piece represents the problem area.
Its displacement is using a copy of the same tileable map but set to not tile.
It is also cropped on one side to allow it to cap itself, and is adjusted and matched to the right side by a uvw map.

[VanWijnenVR]

This might be a bit less of a headache than having to create custom maps....

In this example the left piece represents the problem area.
Its displacement is using a copy of the same tileable map but set to not tile.
It is also cropped on one side to allow it to cap itself, and is adjusted and matched to the right side by a uvw map.

Hi fixeighted, could you please show me the map(s) you used? I'm not sure I 100% understand how you're using the exact same map but also cropped it on one side to allow it to cap itself. Does it mean it's a different displacement map which is able to crop itself because the edge of it is black?

[fixeighted]

Here's the example file which should make it more obvious
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tpn7t6vfn1...EMENT.rar?dl=0

[^Lele^]

Keep continuity would work, it's meant to tie together the sides of, f.e. a cube, not dissimilar to the edges of a window sill.
Alas, you may find it easier to use an edge texture, invert it, and multiply it by the displacement in a vray comptex.
See attached results.

[fixeighted]

It's not a keep continuity thing Lele...Van doesn't need displacement on the return of the windows/doors, only the front faces
So a tileable tex gives holes, hence my clever hacky approach....I earned my cake today...until you magic up a much more elegant solution ofc

[Joelaff]

Try multiplying your texture with a VRaySoftbox texture with a black "frame" or similar higher res texture made in another app so that the edge of your map is black (or 50% grey is you are using that as your no-displace level).

[Joelaff]

Like this:


That VRayCompTex is set to Multiply. You could just as easily use the softbox map as a mask (inverted) with a Composite node and use it to put 50% grey on the edges with a VRayColor.

[VanWijnenVR]

Thanks for all the replies!

^Lele^ ; I just have 1 face so keep continuity isn't as option. I could of course stich the inside of the window sill to it but the displacement isn't allowed there. I tried with just a small chamfer but that also gets the displacement where it shouldn't be.

fixeighted ; Ah I understand now! The only tricky thing is that my texture doesn't have a black edge to begin with since it's sometimes used on huge buildings. This would still mean that I have to create a custom edge in the texture for this facade (see attached).

Joelaff ; This looks very interesting! As far as I understand this would fix the edges but not the windows.

Could we use a VrayDirt texture, decal or something to replicate Joelaff's idea to all the edges in red? If I could just render the face to texture and convert that into the right source B map by adding black lines in PS that might be an alternative.

[Joelaff]

I would just create a planar UVWMap for your building face and then bring that into an image editor in order to add the borders. It could be done with an erode/dilate type operation, or simply a path or selection that you stroke in Photoshop, etc.You might have to blur it slightly to keep the edges from getting kind of rough. Note in my sample that the edges are actually slightly angle.

You may also be able to get it to work with something like like a VRayDirt or a VRayDistanceTex. However, I think a simple image map would render faster.

[VanWijnenVR]

We got it to work! We tried a VrayDirt but it didn't even render and was stuck on compiling geometry. A colleague mentioned a ColorEdge map from iToo, which basically does the same but does render without any issues. Thanks a lot for all the input .

[fixeighted]

Good solution

[^Lele^]

Sorry, why not use the edgesTex as suggested?
Does it have issue for you?