Exporting a heavily subdivided object with displacement map

[prometheus]

LoL, yeah, losing weight aint the worst thing

Erik, - the Last LightWaver

sounds about right....

It´s not going to be a problem when I´m dead, that´s sort of what I ment (nothing lasts)
Time is of essence so I may be facing less fat belly problem before the end of times though

 

[erikals]

(nothing lasts)

i will.
once my soul is uploaded to the sky i shall become immortal, but more importantly... > politically correct.

with politically correct humor of course.

 

[Sensei]

So if I understand correctly, I should create a very high polygon count sphere in modeller, and apply a displacement map to that directly, without subdivisions?

Load your sub-d sphere in the Modeler, set the same sub-patch level as in Layout, Freeze, save under a different file name.

 

[Sensei]

Is there a way to work out how many polygons will be in a tessellation sphere for a given level?

In Modeler or Layout?

Layout:
With Sub-Patch it is 2*(level^2)
With Catmull-Clark Sub-D it is 2*((2^level)^2)

Default Sub-Patch has level 3, so 2*3*3 = 18
Default CC has level 3, so 2*2^3^2= 128

(multiplied by two because of quad -> triangle conversion, it is only in Layout. In Modeler, Freeze leaves them as quads, thus double less memory usage)

(however, this will not work with Adaptive Subdivision feature)

 

[prometheus]

i will.
once my soul is uploaded to the sky i shall become immortal, but more importantly... > politically correct.

with politically correct humor of course.

Uploaded to the cloud ...I think, I will have another go at my cloud training, from a different perspective, probably looking down at the foolish little mankind, while I am forging my plans to steal the fire again, and this time to sell to someone more capable of dealing with it than the current species.

 

[erikals]

...and this time to sell to someone more capable of dealing with it that the current species.

i have a strong bad feeling that we are all doomed to be Silicon/Carbon based Cluster Storms.

 

[prometheus]

i have a strong bad feeling that we are all doomed to be Silicon/Carbon based Cluster Storms.

Many Blonde bomb shells sailing the ocean on a stormy day, silicon, and carbon based they are, can´t be that bad.

 

[erikals]

until then...

meanwhile at Erik's apartment....

 

[starbase1]

Load your sub-d sphere in the Modeler, set the same sub-patch level as in Layout, Freeze, save under a different file name.

Am I missing something here?
You get see displacement maps in Modeller?

Nick

 

[prometheus]

Am I missing something here?
You get see displacement maps in Modeller?

Nick

Nope..you apply displacement maps in Layout, after you have freezed your sphere in modeler.

 

[Sensei]

Am I missing something here?
You get see displacement maps in Modeller?

I was not suggesting baking displacement maps in Modeler..

But, I can.. Actually I could even bake them to vertex map using VMapProcessor in Morph mode.

..and then animate with Morph Mixer..

 

[prometheus]

In Lw 2019 and up, You can also use the shape item that has as much detail you can get depending on quality accuracy settings for it, and the image map set..
With that item shape, you can with the VDB tools convert that shape with the displacement to a true mesh...with various resolution.
Not entirely sure if it would be effective though, the option is there though.

 

[prometheus]

Here´s a video from Mark Warner showcasing the process.

Keep in mind that the item shape can´t be seen in openGL, you have to work with it with VPR active.

And to convert it to mesh, you must add a null as a container and in it´s geometry tab, add openVDB evaluator as object replacement, once added, click on it´s properties and you will enter it´s nodal interface, fromt the vdb tools you add a shape to volume, click on that, and select your item shape as source primitive, keep it set to level set, and set a proper voxel size ( which can be hard to determine at first) to large voxel size and you will get a big low resolution box, too low and the system may freeze or crash.

One annoying thing about this crude VDB tool, if you increase or decrease voxel size on that shape to volume node, nothing will happen in the viewport, it doesn´t refresh update, you have to disconnect the grid from to the grid input, and reconnect in order for it to update the new resolution (not sure if there is some shortcut that you could assign to something?)

Also..cloning an item shape, and trying to move to form a larger mass, and add csg node to combine voxel meshes, doesn´t seem to work, I have to add a new item shape and do that for the merging to work.

Feed the shape to volume node grid output to the main openVDB grid input.

It is now a remeshed as a voxel representation in openGL, only now can you go to file/save/save transformed object ..in order to convert it to a True polygon mesh

 

[prometheus]

here you can see that it just doesn´t work to merge a cloned item shape, the two previous works since they were added from scratch and not cloned.
Remember that displacements on item shapes is done purely by the surface editor, nodal, displacent output to input.

 

[prometheus]

And you can also sculpt on the shape to volume voxel presention, and also in the openVDB main output, set adaptive values to have more resolution near displaced cavities etc.
The sculpt applied would go away if you change values in the openVDB though.

 

[prometheus]

And a "funny" discovery I just found out now..

You can actually use Lightwave layout and OD copy to external on the voxel result, and paste to blender, you will get an error but it actually can paste it with od paste from external in blender.

So if you want to combine Lightwaves all Fractal textures at your disposal, and use as displacements on a item shape, convert to voxels, you could do it this way and get adaptive resolution in certain areas, and also filter with erode, mean etc before just od copy and paste to blender, so that would be a bit faster, with some more options than saving transformed and loading to blender.
Also to note, od copy and paste like this, makes new od copy meshes in blender, unlike od copy from LW modeler which would replace the newly pasted part in blender.

Then you can go in and sculpt refine in blender as you please, including refine cavity mesh density by dynatopo, adding new geometry with snake hook in dynatopo mode etc..
It´s by far better to do that than trying to sculpt refine with metamorphic in Lightwave.