Hey Chunck,
thank you for your kind words.
I took this as a challenge to use the methods for the crystal.
I were able to get decent results using a Displacement Texture of type Voronoi set to Distance Metric "Distance Squared".
I find that this minimizes the dimples, giving it a more similar structure to the one we sculpted.
The decimated version needed a Smooth By Angle, which when applied, automatically marks sharp edges. (At least for me in 4.4.3).
This makes the unwrap easier, leaving us with minimal manual work.
However, the normal maps do have some weird artifacts, which are barely visible in a regular setting. I was not able to figure out what causes these. But since they do give a glass like appearance, I take it as a happy accident.
That's a great result, I'm loving the "chunked" look of the ore, it has a great read to it. And a pretty simple and procedural method to achieve the look as well, so that's an added bonus! 🔥
As for the normal map, to me it looks like it may be an issue with the bit-depth of the image? You may want to check in InstaMAT if that is where you baked it, that the output map is 16-bit. That may not be the final reason, but at first glance that looks like it could be the culprit. 🤔
I used Blender in this case. And
you where right, setting the texture to 32-Bit float eliminated the issue. Thanks Chef!
