Two questions PBR, and how to get best results. (screenies included.)

[Dayn]

Hello. I hope someone can help please. (images included below.)

I have two PBR questions. if anyone can help answer please.
Please forgive the long post.

I am “relatively new to Blender, and very new to PBR.”
I have been looking for a way to generate texture maps from a single image, and came upon a free program today called “Materialize.” Its the first I have tried, and It seems to work great.

I followed a tutorial on YT. It was pretty basic stuff, actually generating the maps.
I used an image of some bark. And got a beautiful looking texture. Which in Materialize looks that incredible, I cant believe that the geometry hasn’t changed. With bumps even on the edges of a sphere, or cube… But the program (Maximise) gives the impression that its just because of the maps, and that its still flat sides (Picture below.)

But try as I might, I cannot get anywhere near the same effect, (using all the nodes) in Blender. It looks good but nothing like the result in Materialize. (Picture below.)

Two quick questions please.
Question 1-- Is it possible to get the same results in Blender, and its just my inexperience with nodes.
And (I hope) it is the fact that Im doing everything wrong.

The image below is from Materialize using Albedo(diffuse.) Height, and Normal.
Maps saved as PNG files, resolution 4096x4096. Even though I know it doesn’t have to be that big.
And I know it doesn’t really look a lot like bark, it was just the “effect” I really would like to understand, if possible in Blender.

Below is the blender “outcome” using the same 3 maps. I didnt use AO. Because I really dont know how to use it in Blender. So I use the in-built AO in EEVEE. I know the result I got below is pretty rubbish.

Question 2-- Does anyone know if programs like “Materialize” alters the mesh / geometry to get these incredible results?
It just seems to good to be true to get that amount of “illusion” with all the highs and lows, if the geometry is still just a cube.

Thank you anyone who can help.
PS. The screenie for Blender. I wasn’t bothered about getting the textures lined up on the edges. It was all about how good an effect can Blender get PBR.

I have managed to get some “decent” PBR effects using texture maps form “Textures.com”
The below image is a basic rock Unicorn head, I am doing/rushing as a giant head/statue for a Unity project. The mesh detail is nowhere near finished.
But the PBR effect was not bad I thought, even for a noob like me. Even though nothing like as incredible as the bark effect image above. Again Im probably doing a lot wrong.

Any help with either or both of these questions. Especially the best way, and nodes to use for maximum “optical illusion of geometry change” would be really helpful.

Thank you.

[Dayn]

After some digging tonight. (remembering Im a noob to PBR, and Blender.)
It would seem that the elusive “magic” I have been looking for is, or looks like it is “parallax.”

I did also do a little digging on “tessellation.” but couldn’t find anything useful, or towards it working with PBR.

I found a free Parallax node on Gumroad, but as its early morning here, Ill be looking into that tomorrow.

But I really would welcome any input from any of you Blender/PBR aficionados out there.
Help, knowledge, links, addons… basically anything pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks again.

[Vefery]

Well
First, you need to change color space to Non-color in all texture nodes (except nodes with diffuse maps of course). It will affect shading drastically, especially if you are using EEVEE.
Second, it looks like Materialize uses tessellation, because if you look from side, you will see that object is not flat:

To get the same effect in blender you need to use Displace modifier and enough polygons, because Displace modifier works with actual geometry. Or you can use Microdisplacement, but it’s still in experimental feature set. Here’s great tutorial about it.
And you can watch this tutorial for better understanding of Principled BSDF shader.
To use AO map, multiple diffuse map by AO map.
And as far as I remember, Materialize outputs smoothness map instead of roughness. Just invert smoothness map to use it as roughness.
Hope it will help you!

[Dayn]

Hey Vefery.

And thank you so much for the reply. And this wealth of awesome feedback.

Some of it makes instant sense, and explained a lot.
And some is still beyond me.
But I now have,- (thanks to your reply.) -a load of new research, and learning, based on your knowledge.

I really appreciate your time, and help.