Wha6t is Vector Displacement?

[jimiclay]

"The only disadvantage in comparison to microvertex painting is

that per-pixel painting does not support vector displacement, only

normal displacement. Sometimes this makes it an essential point,

so we leaved both approaches in place." 3dCoat Manual, pg. 20

Maybe I know what this is, only by some other name, but honestly, I don't understand. Could someone please explain? thanks This is what I googled on the subject.

"In physics, translation (Translational motion) is movement that changes the position of an object, as opposed to rotation. For example, according to Whittaker: A translation is the operation changing the positions of all points (x, y, z) of an object according to the formula"

So, is vector displacememt simply the "movement" of a subpatched surface my means of a grayscale image?

[Grandmaster B]

Yes, you basically sculpt the object by painting on a texture map. From what i understand 3D-Coat also makes use of subdivision to let you edit finer details beyond the original mesh. This is somewhat similar as DirectX11 tessellation and may become popular if that becomes a standard.

[haikalle]

I'm very bad what comes to explaining things but how I understand, maybe you already know this, where normal displacement textures can move the surface point only

up or down (following point normal). Vector disp map gives more freedom because it can create new direction for point direction. And it takes that direction from

texture map. That's why vector displacment maps are very colorful It is using all RGB channels to create a vector. Where normal map differ from bump map (changes point shading). same thing is how vector displacement map differs from normal displacement maps (changes point position). Here is a very bad picture but hope it helps. So if your renderer supports vector displacment maps, it can

give a really nice result.

[jimiclay]

GrandmasterB: thanks, that helps

haikalle: for a guy that is very bad at explaining things in english, you rock.

you made it perfectly clear, and I was right in my understanding, just didn't know how to visualize it fully. But whereas once I was blind, now I see thanks for your help

[AbnRanger]

And you can output a Vector Displacment map by going to the "Texture" Menu > Export > Vector Displacement