I have a photon lamp (I’m rendering with yafray), its energy is set to 10 (the maximum).
My caustic effect is still not so much luminescent. What to do? Adding another photon lamp will sum its energy to the previously added one?
It seems that if I disable NOR in the texture settings while using a displacement map, the result is better. But the official blender manual says that DISP should be used with NOR. Why?
What is and what are the consequences of increasing/decreasing raydepth?
Is it better more passes with less samples or more samples with less passes?
Which is the maximum setting that gives better render times/quality compromise?
If I pack texture in the blend file and then I export the scene for use with yafray… Will the XML generated file need that texture file anyway?
using nor [you probably want to tweak the value] in addition to displacement will make the effect stronger without requiring as highly subdivided of a mesh
so, enable nor and reduce your subdivisions a bit for a faster render time
I’m pretty sure raydepth is the number of bounces a reflection can have before the ray stopps continuing
a higher number could result in a slower render, and unnecesarily detailed re-reflections.
passes and samples?
OSA and Mblur?
when you use mblur the camera is already jittered, you don’t need osa as well unless you want excessively long render times for a simple scene.
I will not comment on yafray… but perhaps you should have mentioned if that is what your question was about
texture data is not accessable to python, I don’t think the yafray export would be able to export a packed texture properly
I could be wrong, I haven’t looked for an api call to unpack textures
using nor [you probably want to tweak the value] in addition to displacement will make the effect stronger without requiring as highly subdivided of a mesh
so, enable nor and reduce your subdivisions a bit for a faster render time
I’m pretty sure raydepth is the number of bounces a reflection can have before the ray stopps continuing
a higher number could result in a slower render, and unnecesarily detailed re-reflections.
passes and samples?
OSA and Mblur?
when you use mblur the camera is already jittered, you don’t need osa as well unless you want excessively long render times for a simple scene.
I will not comment on yafray… but perhaps you should have mentioned if that is what your question was about
texture data is not accessable to python, I don’t think the yafray export would be able to export a packed texture properly
I could be wrong, I haven’t looked for an api call to unpack textures[/quote]
Many thanks for you explanations, z3r0 d
Got another question. Let’s suppose I use NOR and DISP together… Is it different using one texture channel only with NOR and DISP activated instead of using TWO texture channels, one with NOR and one with DISP? Thank you…
Sorry, when I said “passes” and “samples” I was referring to yafray oversample. In the yafray render tab I can choose how many passes and how many samples per pass to use… When I start rendering a scene, I notice that the final OSA level is calculated by multiplying the number of passes by the number of samples… So I’m wondering why having only 1 pass with 16 samples should be different by having 4 passes with 4 samples each…
Simply put, divide the surface into small renderfaces with the above methods, then use Displace like you would any texture.
However. . .
There are currently two modes in which displacement works in:
Displace renderverts by intensity (verts move along vertex normals)
Displace renderverts by texture normal (Verts move acording to texture’s nor input)
The intensity displacement is controled with the new Disp slider.
The Normal displacement is controlled by the Nor slider.
Intensity displacement, gives a smoother, more continuous surfce, since the vertexes are displaced only outward. Normal displace, gives a more agregated surface, since the verts are displaced in multiple directions.
I don’t know how to use displacement by texture normal; it never looks good. So if you can’t work with it either: if you have a displacement map in a texture channel, turn the Nor slider of that texture channel all the way down. If you still want to use bumpmapping in a material, put it in a different texture channel than the displacement channel. Otherwise the Nor slider messes the displacement up.
Yes, it is different, as explained above. The Nor slider in a texture channel which has displacement in it too, will loose it’s effect of bumpmapping, and will become a slider that has a certain effect on the displacement. I don’t know how to control that effect.
Say you’d like to have a tiled floor. Ofcourse it’s not 100% flat, you can distinguish 2 kinds of bumpiness:
The place where the mortar (or whatever it’s called in English) goes is a bit lower than the tiles.
Both the mortar and tiles are a bit bumpy; the mortar more than the tiles.
Now you put in a texture as a bumpmap which is 50% grey everywhere, except there are black lines running across it: to lower the mortar. Now this might look fine if you only look at the floor, but if you look at the edge where the floor and wall meet, the effect of bumpmapping is lost. This is, as you know, because bumpmapping is faking; the surface isn’t actually moved. Displacement mapping will actually move the surface. So you turn the Nor slider all the way down, and the Disp slider a bit up. Then you subdivide the mesh with the Simple Subdiv. function which can be found in the Edit buttons (next to Subsurf). A Subdivision level of about 4 would be enough. Now the edge where floor and wall meet will look fine; the mortar is actually lowered.
Now for the next level of bumpiness: the tiles and mortar themselves. A fine Cloud texture would probably do. But if you want to have this fine level of bumpiness using displacement mapping, you’d have to subdivide the mesh heavily, which will take longer to render. Because it is so fine, displacement mapping isn’t even necessary. Throw in a second texture channel with the Cloud texture and turn the Nor slider slightly up. This way displacement and bumpmapping will stay out of eachothers way, while they make the surface look “richer” in their own way.
