Would microdiplacement or displacement helps?

posted to: Pore Depth Testing
I wonder if baking the skin  pore details into a texture for using with micro-displacement in shading or displacement modifier would allows tuning the level of depth as needed?
  • Martin Bergwerf replied

    Hi jjudisak ,

    that is a good question...theoretically, micro displacement might work, but I'm not sure how large you'd have to make your (baked) Texture, in order to be able to get close enough...there might be other problems, that I'm not thinking of at the moment...I'm sure Kent will be able to provide a better and more complete answer later.

    You certainly can't use a Displacement Modifier, becausethe adaptive Sudbivision Surface Modifier has to be the last in stack and first diplacing and then subdividing won't give you the detail you'd want.

    • great points
  • Kent Trammell replied

    Whether displacement VS multres or microdisplacement vs micro bump, they all have the same goal: Producing the maximum amount of detail as possible.

    These comparisons are different levels of detail. I compare displacement and multires because they're more about capturing "broader" details: As small as pores but broader than micro skin patterns. Micro bump and micro displacement are trying for that borderline-microscopic level of detail.

    Personally I prefer multires over displacement because it's authentic sculpt data whereas displacement is a transposition of a source sculpt. In other words multres is the original and displacement is a copy of the original, and no copy is 100% the same as the original. Displacement is industry standard because zbrush is industry standard and zbrush sculpt data must be exported to other 3D apps for final animation and displacement/vector displacement is the way to do that. A big perk for Blender is that sculpting and animation is native.

    As for microdisplacement vs micro bump, in my experience it depends on two primary factors: 1) How noticeable will the detail be and 2) do I want to wait longer for renders to finish. In the case of human skin, I find that a micro bump is plenty effective and microdisplacement would be overkill. That said, micro displacement would be a more authentic approach because bump is a lighting hack/trick. Some artists are wholly dedicated to authenticity and refuse to use such hacks but that's not me.

    If you prefer microdisplacement to the microbump, there's nothing wrong with that at all. I don't think it will produce a noticeable difference unless you're super duper close. But go for it if you want! Please post renders if you do 🙂