How to get a perfect displacement map

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You need to render a rock surface and you just have a diffuse map. ( Look here for Free Textures! )
How to convert it in a useful displacement map?

Most of times you open the texture in photoshop and work it in order to get your displacement map. But often we just get really rought surfaces. How to improve it?

In this cases a really useful tool in Photoshop is Cutout filter:

Cutout reduce the nuances present in the image, thus solving most of the problems!

The classic steps to create a displacement map is:

  • Transform it in black and white texture
  • Contrast the image
  • Save and apply it in the displacement channel

Ok guys, today I want to suggest one step more:

Apply the cutout filter (to reduce the color variations):

Look at the difference in the image below:

cutout-clic

If you want to refine the displacement map you can use Gaussian blur filter.
The displacement will be more soft.




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9 Responses

  1. Shadi Sabbagh says:

    It is a good idea thank you

  2. pep says:

    really useful!!

    thanks

  3. Thanks for this… Looks great!

  4. That is a nice trick! Thanks for sharing.

  5. Free 3d models says:

    Hey thanks, this is really a nice cool tip, got great map.

  6. Amusitronix.com says:

    What an amazing article. Thank you for the insight…

  7. C4ptain_Mike says:

    This is a great tip! Ive been working on a good way to do this and this hits the sweet spot :)

  8. Amazing tip, Ciro!

    Thanks for the useful info!

    Looks better and renders faster!

  9. Mark says:

    Amazing website! thanks so much!

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