There’s a couple of examples that come to mind when it comes to experimenting with VDMs such as detailed characters with complex surfaces (aliens, creatures, dinosaurs, etc.), complex character attire, highly detailed scenery ornaments, sci-fi panels, wall/ground damage decals, actual scenery pieces with details usually not possible with regular displacement or Parallax Mapping, or even tiled VDM textures for a cave wall, interior, or ocean waves. It might not be currently feasible to add it to a typical game however, there are many other uses for the technique in more contained scenarios not bound by regular game constraints. We believe that it’s safe to assume that the next generation of GPUs will greatly improve tessellation performance as well as geometry imaging through the use of Mesh Shaders.
Can element 3d v2 use displacement maps free#
Since we’re using Tessellation, we can pretty much have free LOD control based on camera distance.Īlthough you get free LOD control with Distance-based Tessellation, the Tessellation itself is currently performance-intensive. This type of VDM is great for individual objects but it could also be used in patches of detailed objects we could even use a cutout shader to hide the unused base of the quad. Users can still use low-poly meshes that closely resemble their high-poly counterparts.
![can element 3d v2 use displacement maps can element 3d v2 use displacement maps](https://docs.chaos.com/download/attachments/64607706/Rhino_VRay5_Update2_Displacement_UI_menu.png)
It’s also important to note that we’re purposely going for extreme examples (quad to high-poly). We began by trying it out with the common “Mushroom” we usually see in these types of examples. VDMs are actually quite easy to set up in the shader editor and, being fully node-based, it’s a joy to experiment with.
![can element 3d v2 use displacement maps can element 3d v2 use displacement maps](https://www.videocopilot.net/assets/public/images/soon/soon.jpg)
Once we got a good handle on how VDMs could be created with Mudbox, we began to experiment with Amplify Shader Editor for Unity. It turns out that the most troublesome part is actually getting data you can use in engines such as Unity 3D. We’ve been looking at a possible simplified workflow that would allow users to take advantage of VDM in real-time without getting caught up in technical requirements. Experiments with VDMs and Amplify Shader Editor