Displacement Mapping?

Weet · Post by **Weet** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:54 pm

Hey,

New here and I'm loving the rich feature set of Irrlicht (nice German name BTW!). Not sure if this is the right forum so please move it if necessary!

I'm curious if there are any plans to implement displacement mapping in a future version. I'm not sure if this is viable in a game type environment but I've seen the astounding effects on low poly models and would love to get that capability! I know Irrlicht has parallax mapping (which is nice) but that is, of course, only a simulation of displacement mapping.

What sort of computation cost would displacement mapping require?

disanti · Post by **disanti** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 3:20 am

There is a problem... Displacement mapping makes the model high-poly. Thus it cannot be rendered in realtime.

My 2 cents.
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Murphy · Post by **Murphy** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 7:49 am

I could be wrong of course, but isn't displacement mapping a key part of the Doom 3 engine? And it runs realtime...
.. provided you've got the hardware.

Weet · Post by **Weet** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:15 pm

Nope, doesn't add any more polys to the mesh which is the great part!

Yeah, I think Doom3 does incorporate displacement maps. Not entirely sure though. Certainly you could do displacement mapping with the same hardware you use for parallax mapping?

vermeer · Post by **vermeer** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 7:59 pm

frist came normal mapping...as far as I know, it's yet low poly in the silohuette, the effect doesn't work there...

then came paralllax mapping...a bit better achieved effect...

displacement mapping should be the saviour, mor real thing, but I think is all done in the 3d card, done by hard calculation there, as seems actually there the mesh is generated, after all, so....Dunno, I'm a total ignorant on the matter, this is what I got to know, wether if is so or not, dunno...

disanti · Post by **disanti** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 4:24 am

Doom 3 uses normal mapping, not displacement mapping.
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Murphy · Post by **Murphy** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 10:16 am

Oh right. You know, I was thinking of virtual displacement mapping anyway.

buhatkj · Post by **buhatkj** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 4:18 am

i thought parallax mapping WAS displacement mapping...am i wrong?? if so how are they different?
I have heard the terms used interchangably before...

*edit*
as far as i was aware, doom3 does use normal mapping, wherein they make a hi-poly version of the model, and a low poly version. they pre-calculate the normals on the high poly version, and then use those normals to light the low poly version in-game, and the improved lighting gives the appearance of more surface detail on the low poly model than there actually is. the existance of hardware T&L makes this feasible...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:48 pm

Normal mapping only affects the lighting as it hits surfaces at different angles. Parallax simulates a bumpy surface by making the "higher" parts of a texture scroll slightly faster as they would if they were really close to you. However both of these methods are in essence fake as the surface is still flat if you look at it side on.

Displacement mapping shows real high-poly models that are actually bumpy, only it's generated from a low-poly model with a displacement map and is highly optimised by the hardware, so it's not as intensive as having a regular high-poly model. Plus it can adjust the level-of-detail on the model easily.

Murphy · Post by **Murphy** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:14 am

buhatkj wrote:i thought parallax mapping WAS displacement mapping...am i wrong?? if so how are they different?
I have heard the terms used interchangably before...

"Virtual displacement mapping" is the same as parallax mapping.

AlexL · Post by **AlexL** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:01 am

Weet wrote:Nope, doesn't add any more polys to the mesh which is the great part!

Yeah, I think Doom3 does incorporate displacement maps. Not entirely sure though. Certainly you could do displacement mapping with the same hardware you use for parallax mapping?

Weet, it does indeed add polys to the mesh; and quite a few of them at that. If you take a look at this video || Download 4778k || Look in the upper left hand corner and see just how much the polys go up when switching the methods, staggering, but yet it doesn't drop the FPS much at all

vermeer · Post by **vermeer** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 5:56 pm

displacement mapping map slot has been in rendering settings or material editors of 3d packages since eons ago, much more ago than normal maps appeared in real time games(but hey, when you do render by software with a renderer, is othe rstuff

)...Is actually as guest explained. So, yep, it'd be the real solution, and the one I am waiting for(to become an standard) as much better than the other two solutions...

Weet · Post by **Weet** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 8:39 pm

Thanks for the correction AlexL!

That makes me curious as to how displacement mapping saves any trouble then... hmm something to research I suppose!

Irrlicht Engine

Displacement Mapping?

Displacement Mapping?

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