rodlord Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Just thought I would flag this up in case anybody else encounters the same situation while using the displacement tool. I am using 7.3.4 so this may have changed in later versions. I have used this tool many times in earlier versions and it has proved extremely useful to me particularly when the contour tool starts delivering terrain models with multiple lines of straight sharp ridges where there shouldn't be any. So I was rather thrown a few days ago when I needed to create a couple of ditches and a pond in a large flat area of grass. Simple I thought - a couple of fine black lines stroked along spline paths in AfterEffects and a feathered shape for the pond. The puzzle started when I found that this produced absolutely nothing on a flat rectangle. Must be something to do with the numbers I thought ... and proceeded to spend hours and hours trying as many different combinations of Max segment lengths, numbers of sub-divisions, smoothing level, min and max heights, threshold, etc. Nothing. So I tried playing around with the image map - thickness of the lines, feather edge on the pond shape, blurring of the line edges, etc, etc ... Nothing. At this juncture I sent a simple object in a FormZ model file with an example of the image map to FormZ support asking for help in cracking why I was getting nothing at all. I got no answer, but by sheer chance I decided to convert the .psd I had been using to greyscale .jpg. Eureka ! - I thought this was the answer and sent a quick note to support to update although I could have sworn photoshop RGB files had worked for me before. But of course the result I got at this first time I got something was never going to be absolutely right so I went back and regenerated the image with adjustments. Nothing. So another day went by as I banged my head against a brick wall. To cut a VERY long story shorter by sheer chance and under extreme frustration I selected CYLINDRICAL mapping ... and then FLAT mapping again ... and hey presto this voodoo worked like magic ! So from here on I regularly had to repeat this bit of voodoo whenever the system decided to deliver nothing at all. Unfortunately in the end it was anyway incapable of producing the refinements I needed as it seemed to need increasing values of smoothing the thinner the ditch lines became ... and then ignored a whole quadrant of the map with an identical line thickness to the rest of it ... until the smoothing was again increased - making things very blunt and far too chunky. Even tried using the same numbers on a rectangle 4 times larger and reducing it down but that didn't work either. But the main message I have to offer is the voodoo mentioned above in case anyone encounters a similar situation themselves - maybe they can avoid the HUGE amount of wasted time. All the best, Rod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Displacements have been quirky since the days of 6.7. I tried again recently with the newest version and immediately got frustrated. Very unpredictable. My go to solution is to use 3ds Max which does it very easily but I know that is not a realistic solution for most of us ($$$$$). Some day I hope that there will be a displacement option in the materials palette along with a full on displacement tool in the tool palette that works effortlessly. Some day. In the mean time does anyone know of a cheap third party program that can create displacements easily and accurately that can be re-imported back into Form.z? I recently did a search and could not find one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etroxel Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Displacement seems to be working well in 8.5.7. I'm simply applying a RGB jpeg to a plane with adaptive meshing turned on, triangulate turned on, and lowering the max segment length to get the resolution I need to see. I didn't have to switch the mapping type, and this is a single rectangle smooth object. It helps to turn on the 'displaced' option to see the results without committing the command... but you most likely already knew that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Hi Rod and Andrew, Like Evan, we are not having any issues with the Displacement tool, either. In fact, we have a Tutorial that covers Displacement mapping. Perhaps if you follow the tutorial you'll be able to see a discrepancy between your workflow and ours in the tutorial. Scroll down to the middle of this page to "Modeling a Pillow" http://www.formz.com/support/downloads/tutorials.html Please post your image map to the forum for further assistance from us or other users. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodlord Posted June 14, 2017 Author Share Posted June 14, 2017 OK - thanks all for your responses - I am assuming that my problems must all therefore be down to the version I am using. When I'm finally clear of the current project I will try to return to this subject and post some examples on here but it sounds as if that is probably a waste of time as most users will be on later versions I guess. I only really posted this in case anyone else might stumble across the same behaviour and the voodoo could possibly save them some time. Cheers Rod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Des Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 Hi Rod, Like Evan and Tech, I'm not having any issues with the displacement tool so DON'T PANIC Des Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 Rod, Try downloading the formZ 8.5 Pro trial and see if that works better for you. http://www.formz.com/products/formzpro.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodlord Posted June 15, 2017 Author Share Posted June 15, 2017 Thanks Des ! Really not panicing ... 'cos I know the answer is 42. And thanks Tech - I have actually download the trial before and tried it briefly because I was having an export to FACT problem. The interesting thing I discovered with that was that when I continued with my current version the FACT scrambles I was getting before seemed to have gone away and I now get useable FACTs ! That's very wierd and I don't understand it at all but I'm happy to accept luck when it happens. I'm afraid I can't really contemplate upgrading again as I no longer have the continuous revenue earning workflow that might justify it. But thank you all for help and suggestions and comments. Cheers Rod Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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