Photoshop might be doing some gamma nonsense for it. You could try modelling the geo in max as a repeating patch, then render a floating point tif of a zdepth channel that covers it to get a nice pure source.
I guess you just need a smoother/wider transition between black and white. as you can see from your screengrab, once applied to the plane, the gradient creates quite a narrow white line, which in turn, once displaced, form a peak instead of a curve.
edit:
that’s what I would do too, it’s much easier to model a small portion of the geometry you’d like to get displaced, instead of trying to figure out the correct curve with gradients..
If you know the gradient for it, why not use a gradient in 3ds max instead of a created image? That should sort things out for you too.
First thing I did was try the max gradient map. I think I figured that it was my blur was set to 0.001! If I crank it up to 0,5, the smooth curves start to appear.
I also considered modelling a small repeating pattern, but I couldn’t work out how to create a zdepth properly. I guess I’d have to create a camera looking down and choose a zdepth start and distance value that accurately matches the geometry. I wasn’t sure how the camera perspective would work though…
Render from a front, top or side viewport and it’ll behave. Or turn you camera to orthographic. I think dmitri did a little thing on it a while back for chain mail / linked fences?
Cheers mate!
Next problem. I am getting horrible triangular shading that conincides with the subdivide modifier I have applied to the perimeter line. The line is imported from Autocad, a subdivide modifier applied to that (set to 5000mm), UVW applied to that and then the VrayDisplaceMod on top. Any ideas?
This is one of the reasons we tend not to use displacement, but there must be a good way to solve it.
Maybe is the gamma, set it 1.0 for that map
If you can - 2D mapping in the disp modifier should clear that up.
subdivide won’t work well with displacement. the modifier was meant as a help for radiosity, where you needed triangulated objects for better solutions, but vray displacement needs clean, all quads geometry to work best. imported geometry, if not cleaned up having displacement in mind, might not work at all.
OK. So I have a perimeter line. What would be the best way to get that into a displacement-friendly format?
Also I’d imagine that Autocad doesn’t do the best job of making geometry. The vray displace is like pretty much any other subdivision so it’ll work best on a model that has evenly spaced, roughly square shaped quads. I could see autocad doing some pretty manky tesselation, similar to what’d happen if you convert a closed spline shape into a mesh or extrude it - it’ll do a really shitty job with long thin triangles flying all over the place. Maybe look at quadrangulate or even horror of all horrors, do a re-model depending on what it is you’re doing.
Plane objects are easy enough to setup and modify.
those should actually work as they are, just turning them into polies should do the trick.
Sorry to be blunt tricky but you could have modeled the whole thing in real geometry in the same time it took me to read this thread.
Displacement is a complete waste of time & effort in this situation.
Simply create the profile as a line & extrude , then slice/cut to shape if required.
You will actually end up with a LOT less geometry [& no artifacts I may add] that way & a LOT less headaches.
Cheers
I have no problem with you being blunt but you don’t know the full extent of the projects. We are looking at methods to procedurally model this sort of geometry so that variations can be created quickly. This isn’t just one facade of a building. I may well give up, but I need tO know how far I can go before giving up.
