how to combine displacement textures...

[designgestalt]

I guess quite a few of us are more than happy to add the additional touch of realism to our work with the displacement tool.
but often enough it is necessary to combine displacement textures, maybe simply because there are different areas with different textures and heights!

to do so, I export my part with the first displacement texture, re-import it and add the next texture, which is, depending on how often I have to do it  a timeconsuming workaround.
so as long as we are all waiting for the "bake displacement" button, I would like to know, how you guys are doing this? is there a more elegant way than what I am doing?

I once copied my modelset and don´t know what I didi to it, but the displacement texture was baked in the new modelset. don´t know what I did and so could not re-produce it, but there must be a better and easier way!

thanks upfront for your advise!

cheers
designgestalt

[INNEO_MWo]

Hello designgestalt

Do you mean a solution like this?

[designgestalt]

hello Marco,
thanks a lot for jumping in ...
this is indeed the solution to combine two displacement textures, using the alpha as a mask.
but what would you do, if you wanted to control the height of the two displacements individually ?
also, I have a special case where I would need to combine more than two displacment textures.
what would be your approach here?

cheers

dirk

[NM-92]

If you set your max height on the disp node , wouldn't it work to then control the difference with black/white values ?

[INNEO_MWo]

Nico is right.
You can use the color to number node to control the brightness. White means the highest value and black equals 0.

In this example you'll see how to use the color to number node as a multiplier. The white areas of the spot texture defines the max height for the displacement node (= 0,1 mm). The output to value of the color to number node multiplies the white areas to a specific grey tone. In this case output to = 0,25 (= 25% = a height of 0,025 mm).


As Finema showed in another good example you can do this method with the color adjust node, as well.


Cheers
Marco

[Finema]

Hi,
You can also use Color Adjustment Node to play on levels displacement.

[Eugen Fetsch]

+1 for Marcos solution to use a more mathematicaly controlable approach...
- use Color Composit to mix the maps
- use Color To Number to control the hight values

As we talk about grayscale values it is more easy to understand and combine them in numeric values. If you like to reduce the hight of a specific map, decrease the "Output To" value in the Color To Number node. If you like to push the lows higher, increase the Output From value in the same node.

Regarding the mixing of multiple maps with the Color Composite node...
I can highly recomend this Compositing Theory Basics Course from Simon Ubsdell on YouTube. It teaches to understand the composite modes like Screen, Multiply, etc.
Learning those basics gives a much better understanding of what is happening with all the values and leads to a quicker texture and/or final compositing workflow. 

[designgestalt]

awesome guys !!!
thanks a bunch!!!
this is, why I love this forum so much!!!

cheers
designgestalt

[Zeltronic]

like many of you I like this forum for this level of sharing and transmission of knowledge, congratulations to all of you and thank you.

[NM-92]

Yeaaaaah. Case closed ! Have to give a +1 on the community here. Never really seen a group/forum where people take so much time just to help someone out.