Displacements

I

Irksome

L1: Registered
Jan 16, 2008
14
0
They have been my Achilles heel since I began mapping back in 2002; I normally avoid them like the plague, opting instead for indoor, or urban/industrial outdoor themes. I tried to break this habit, with cp_cavein, having about 35-45% of map being made up of displacements, while I was somewhat happy with the results, like the caves, the major outdoor arena felt too boxy, and not organic enough.

I've tried various schools of displacement construction from projection, to rough outlines with BSP brushs but I either get fugly results, displacements that wont sew together, or non-organic looking environments.

To the point: What I want to know about displacements...
- Best method of construction.
- Ways to make cliffs feel less boxy.
- Essentially anything that can help me improve the look of my displacements.
- How do you do your displacements?
 
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YM

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
7,158
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One thing that tut doesn't say is that its almost always a good idea to start with a lower power than the one you intend for the final thing, I'm workingo n a map right now and all the displacements are power 2. whilst this is enough to give a reasonable displacement and low enough to be editable really easily, its not high enough for the final thing, so once I'm happy with the layout of all my displacements I will make them power 3 to make them smoother.
 
Z

ZargonX

L3: Member
Nov 30, 2007
109
4
That's a very helpful tutorial! I've been having a heck of a time trying to get my cliff areas to look, well, good.
 
Ganon11

Ganon11

L1: Registered
Dec 22, 2007
27
1
So this tutorial says it is for intermediate to advanced mappers - any good tutorials for a first time mapper? Like, I know what a displacement will do and that's it. This tutorial seems to be more about refining your displacement technique, how about one for getting a technique?

Thanks in advance.
 
YM

YM

LVL100 YM
aa
Dec 5, 2007
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I'd personally say that that tutorial is for beginer to intermediate level.
For a first timer - You should know that a displacement is anything that isnt a bog standard shape, So thats cliffs, outside ground, piles of gravel, the dish in hydro(it is, I checked and was amazed)
You should create your displacement brush roughly the size of the area you want to displace, make it about 16 units deep, although as you only use one face it doesn't matter really.
say you have a room, 4 walls and one of those is a cliff (odd room I know, but its good for a beginner)
Select the brush you want for your displacement and make it all nodraw, put the texture you want on the front and select the front only then make it a displacement. Now start painting geometry, start with a largeish scale and moving 2-8 units at a time. Use one axis to begin with (X or Y depending which way it is facing and Z for up/down)
Left click for forwards/up rightclick for backwards/down
create the shape of your cliff in rough and make the size of the tool smaller and make it a little more detailed (I avoid the smooth tool, it seems to totaly destroy my displacements)
If you want to join two displacements you have to make sure they have a shared edge that has to be the same length, you can work on both together by selecting both then the material tool thing.
If you accidentaly make it so they don't line up, select both and then hit "sew" in the displacement tab.

The thing you need most is patience, I've just finished working on a displacement and its taken me about 7 hours total (not solid of course, I started it yesterday afternoon)
But those 7 hours make it look good :D
 
Tobias Greenich

Tobias Greenich

L1: Registered
Jan 2, 2008
15
0
The dish in Hydro? Wow.

Great find with that tutorial! I'll keep that thing handy... my map might be changing settings as I refine it to flow better.
 
J

Jive Turkey

L3: Member
Jan 22, 2008
120
32
It's a real shame you can't do plugins for Hammer. It would be a simple matter to create shapes like the dish with a script. My Wacom tablet would love to get at some displacements.
 
DJive

DJive

Cake or Death?
aa
Dec 20, 2007
1,465
741
GTKradient was WONDERFUL at displacement.. i mean it was everything you could want. It had heightmap plug-in which was great as well. I could map in photoshop and import hehe

I agree though.. i hate displacements in Hammer... mostly because im bad at "realism" my rocks always are wicked round or sharp and pointy
 
Ganon11

Ganon11

L1: Registered
Dec 22, 2007
27
1
Youme said:
I'd personally say that that tutorial is for beginer to intermediate level.
For a first timer - You should know that a displacement is anything that isnt a bog standard shape, So thats cliffs, outside ground, piles of gravel, the dish in hydro(it is, I checked and was amazed)
You should create your displacement brush roughly the size of the area you want to displace, make it about 16 units deep, although as you only use one face it doesn't matter really.
say you have a room, 4 walls and one of those is a cliff (odd room I know, but its good for a beginner)
Select the brush you want for your displacement and make it all nodraw, put the texture you want on the front and select the front only then make it a displacement. Now start painting geometry, start with a largeish scale and moving 2-8 units at a time. Use one axis to begin with (X or Y depending which way it is facing and Z for up/down)
Left click for forwards/up rightclick for backwards/down
create the shape of your cliff in rough and make the size of the tool smaller and make it a little more detailed (I avoid the smooth tool, it seems to totaly destroy my displacements)
If you want to join two displacements you have to make sure they have a shared edge that has to be the same length, you can work on both together by selecting both then the material tool thing.
If you accidentaly make it so they don't line up, select both and then hit "sew" in the displacement tab.

The thing you need most is patience, I've just finished working on a displacement and its taken me about 7 hours total (not solid of course, I started it yesterday afternoon)
But those 7 hours make it look good :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation; I'll try it out on my own map (which is about 40% cliff, tunnel, rocks, bare ground, etc.) and let you know how it goes.

In hindsight, planning my map to have so much outdoor space probably wasn't the best idea for a beginner.
 
phatal

phatal

L6: Sharp Member
Jan 8, 2008
259
21
Glad so many were able to make use of this tutorial. I looked long and hard for something exactly like that. Like Youme said, you don't have to really be intermediate to advanced. It's a good walkthrough that just about anyone can follow.

So much interest in the cliffs tutorial thought I'd add in a good building block for working with displacements.

If either of these were helpful spread some Karma. ;)
 
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Dox

Dox

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Oct 26, 2007
588
62
K

Keir

ahhh its all so clear now. I was a bit iffy to add so much noise, but it just looks so much better.
 
B

Bonafide

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 18, 2008
313
25
useful cliff guide. I was really struggling to make half decent looking cliffs for the edges on my map.
 
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