mesh + displace map export

sorry for my english first, because it is not my native language.

i think, it will be a great feature, if generated landscape can be exported as a pair: low poly mesh (like 256x256, but optional) + high resolution displacement map (like 4096x4096), thats apply over that lowpoly mesh.

it will be very useful, when used renderers like vray or mentalray, where displacement is fast and accurate, and we can interact with that lowpoly mesh, modify it, will be possible to apply that displace map via masks or something else…

what do you think, community? :slight_smile:

This has been suggested before.
I don’t do much 3d modelling but I can imagine it would be really cool to have this feature - in particular in connection with normal maps.

It would be an important addition to WM because it would make possible to render terrains also in programs with no specialized terrain primitive (e.g., there is no terrain primitive in Kerkythea).

Bye!!!

yes, i suggest this before here, ~1 year ago, but in another thread :slight_smile:

NO! if you have a displace map you don’t need normal map, because normal map is just approximation based on light/shadow (like bump), when displacement map can be REAL geometry w/o approximations!

I know, but I still like normal maps :smiley:

a couple of thoughts:

  1. texturing/uv mapping. when mesh generated, it will be cool, if wm additionaly generate uv map, and optionaly not just planar mapping, but unwrapped, for more precise and accurate texturing in zbrush/mudbox, and other features below :slight_smile:

  2. wm can generate only “object space normal maps” (in 3dmax terminology), but it will be cool, if wm can generate a tagent normal maps.

  3. tagent normal map generating process is very like displace map generating :slight_smile:

  4. displace maps also can be used for implement features like caves or something else, that cant be realised by only height maps.

p.s. can anyone show me result of using of wm terrain+normal maps in 3dsmax or another?

looks like impossible to add this feature, or Remnant thinks that don’t need to anyone? :?

No, this is not an impossible feature, nor do I not think its not important!

It’s actually near the top of my list of features to add. The reason why it must wait is that it needs an architectural changes to happen to enable this first. Meshes are currently second-class objects in WM; they have a data packet type but they are not transported through the network like heightfields and bitmaps.

What if this changed? Making meshes a primitive type allows for them to be manipulated and used as inputs. So for example, in the new system, to create tangent-space normal maps you would:

  1. Wire a heightfield into a Mesh Converter device, and configure density, etc.
  2. Plug the mesh and its source heightfield into the Normal Map Maker, instead of the heightfield alone. This would create normals for the mesh object as appropriate.
  • Making meshes a primitive also allows for mesh import, back-conversion to heightfields for processing, and much more. This is extremely useful, as it would let you do things like take a mesh that you’ve optimized the vertex locations for, modify it using WM filters after turning it into a heightfield, then re-exporting the mesh using the exact same triangulation the original had (ie not modify vertex (x,y) location or # of triangles).
  • However there are also some difficulties this introduces, in particular with tiling and needing to blend across meshes. This becomes a much more complex problem than the straightforward blending done on heightfields before mesh export in the current system. I almost introduced all of the above into WM 2.2, but the need to manage this pitfall held it out.

Just wanted to post to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about this feature!

I think for me UV space is important because then I can cut out having to open up 3dsmax to generate uv space for an exported mesh. I’m not sure how others manage the mudbox/worldmachine flow but for me its consists of exporting a mesh from worldmachine…importing into 3dsmax to generate the planar mapping then exporting again to mudbox…then exporting maps from mudbox…when I get one step wrong I have to start over…

This is my most requested feature as well.

Currently I have to:

  1. export high resolution tiles
  2. export low resolution tiles
  3. bake each pair of tiles separately to get a correct displacement or tangent space normal map

That’s a lot of work for something that could be automated within WM.