Displacement mapping: problems with Edges and settings

[Mattheng]

I am using Displacement Mapping to create some ribbed planters.

I have set the texture to Very High quality and self shadowing.

I set up Custom Renderworks to also have Very High quality on Displacement Mapping.

First question, why do you have a quality setting in the texture itself AND the render settings?

Once you have set the quality in the texture itself surely you just need to turn Displacement mapping on in Custom Renderworks as the Quality has already been set in the texture...?

When I create a viewport the Edges phase just seems to run continuously. i.e. the render took about 5 mins but the Edges phase was still going after a further 30 mins and was showing no progress at all....?

If I drop the Displacement Mapping setting to Low in Custom Renderworks the Edges pass takes seconds and, to my surprise, the results look pretty similar.

Second question : why does Displacement Mapping on Very High in Custom Renderworks send the Edges phase into what looks like a continuous loop?

Third Question : why does the end result look pretty similar when the texture is set to Very High on Displacement mapping and the Custom Renderworks setting for Displacement Mapping is either Low or Very High?

It looks to me like all increasing the Custom Renderworks setting does is make the render MUCH slower and send the Edges phase into a tailspin for no appreciable difference....?

If I had to prioritise these questions I am more worried about the Edges phase blowing up but I am baffled by the two sets of settings for Displacement Mapping.

Anyone...?

Cheers,

Matt

[PVA - Admin]

Do not use Very High.

I will answer this more intelligently when I can. I almost never need to go over Med in both the texture as well as the render style quality setting for displacement. It will eventually finish, but you may be an old, old man by the time it does.

[PVA - Admin]

I work a lot with Displacement mapping and can have a real chat about it when things calm down, heres some samples I prepared for a Rendering training I gave at the Summit yesterday:

[PVA - Admin]

Alrighty, I have had time to breath and eat a sandwich.

I have done a number of tests with Displacement Mapping and almost universally, Very High for the texture or the Render Quality settings are pointless, the results are effectively identical to High unless the displacement map image is of an extremely high resolution (something like 1200 DPI, which is way way high) and that detail is needed.

If the images used for displacement is normal (between 72dpi and 300dpi) the only difference between Very High and High is the much longer rendering time for the higher setting. Visually the results are nearly identical and I had to take a magnifying glass to it to see any real difference.

I'm going to be recommending that either the setting be removed or more intelligent dialogue text be added that warns users of the time invenstment required by the higher settings. Honestly I think the values from the Low, Medium and High settings should be split into 4 parts and the current values for Very High be removed.

I will be doing more checking on how the two settings interact, however currently it seems that the settings just override each other depending on which is set higher.