Final image is here:

2 source image copyright Chris Botha from the 3DCADJewelry pro forum (download with subscriptor access only)

Vue is a 3D software that excels in creating beautifull landscapes used in many many films in the industry. (Avatar, Pirats of the Caraibic, ...)

From a 3D artist stand point it's also a very good renderer for (displaced) water surfaces and volumetric clouds using GI (Global Illumination).

For this Tutorial you need a seamless tileable 3D texture with diffuse map and displacement map. I used this tree bark texture on the right, it's available on my web site (from Eur 5.99). But you can also use any of my free textures 10 pack available for download on my web site too.

The texture itself was created with my new photogrammetry software Photosculpt Textures. It was based from 2 photos of the same subject and Photosculpt "merged the photos in 3D". It's fast and easy to make your own today. Don't hesitate to try the 30 day demo. (full license from Eur 99). It's a very good tool to create beautifull 3D textures or 3D models with plenty of features like diffuse, displacement, bump, normal, specular, ao, seamless tileable, square crop, 2^n size, ...

Material Setup

First create or load your scene or just create a basic sphere in an empty scene. Select your object you want to apply a 3D texture to then double click on the material panel (top right material sphere icon) and create a new material.

In Vue the displacement tab is only accessible in the "Advanced Material Editor". So let's directly start with this mode by clicking on the corresponding icon.

First click on the "Color and Alpha" tab and open the Photosculpt diffuse image. I've also changed a few settings as displayed in yellow.

Second, click on the "Bump" tab. This tab is different than the previous one and it doesn't let you open the image directly. This not a problem though as you can do it by accessing the node editor. For this you can right click on the sphere bump preview and select "Edit Function".

This opens the node editor below. First add a new Texture with the icon "Add texture map node" and connect it to both "Bump" and "Displacement".

You can then apply the individual settings below to your image.

Vue let you also use 2 different images for Bump and Displacement independently. This is of course possible with Photosculpt as it creates beatifull bumps maps. Here I used the Photosculpt displacement map as bump map with very good results and it saves memory too not to have multiple textures.

 Once this is done you can go back to the "Bump" tab and finalise the displacement parameters in the "Advanced material editor"

• Check "displacement mapping" to turn on the displacement effect.
• The most important parameter to me is "depth" as it drives the scale of the displacement effect.

Voila, your material is set up. You can click ok and lauch a render now.

Conclusion

This tutorial is showing how to use the "advanced material editor" for setting up a 3D texture with displacement map (I recommend Photosculpt Textures for photorealistic results) in Vue.

I'm new to this soft, so don't hesitate to comment or improve on this tutorial?

Best regards.

First open the folowing default scene in folder "Global Illumination" then "SunSet"

We want to convert this basic geometries into a photoreal textured object.

For this you can use any 3D texture available but I highly recommend textures created with the software PhotoSculpt Textures (click to see why Photosculpt Textures is different). You can choose any of the 10 free samples in my download page, or create your own today with the 30-day trial of Photosculpt Textures.

Most 3D Textures are composed of image files called maps. They have different names, like diffuse map, specular map, displacement map, normal map or bump maps are used in most 3D software package. Click here for more info about what they do.

For this Tutorial I've used the following (payware) textures sets (from Eur 5.99)

In Carrara, setting a "shader" is done like this:

Color :

Normal maps are not used in this version of Carrara. I've seen on the web that this feature has been added later on. But for now I obtained good results with the normal map in the emboss channel.

Shininess to the maximum value 1.0

Displacement setting: check "active subdivision" and "displace in 3D view" for comfort

Return to 3D view to control that displacement is working for you

You're all set now with this material. You can apply the same method for all 3 objects with different materials. When finished you can now click render to launch a render.

While this function does a very good job in itself, the most difficult part for digital sculptors is actually to create a good seamless tileable displacement map (or depth map) to make it work.

This can now be done very efficiently with my new software Photosculpt Textures. This new app creates superb displacement maps with a lot of depth detail based on the analysis of 2 photos of the same subject. It really acts like a 3D scanner, it's quick, fast, works with any camera and never require calibration. Also, your maps can be set instantly tileable in one click and there is a full featured 30-day trial. (Purchase from Eur 99.00, free for schools and non-profits)

I'm showing below how to use one of my free seamless tileable displacement map with Blender 2.5

Once the displacement map is done, the setting in Blender (or any other sculpting software) is easy.

Follow this screen below and follow the settings in yellow to setup your sculpting tool:

Conclusion:

Now you can use any texture you see in real world as a continuously patterned sculpting tool in Blender

Don't hesitate to comment / improve this tutorial ?

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Sample displacement map generated automatically from 2 photos with Photosculpt Textures

Alpha maps are interresting as they can be used directly as sculpting tool for most (all?) sculpting softwares (Zbrush, Sculptris, 3DCoat, Mudbox, Blender, ...) for adding texture.

To do a good alpha you need a good displacement map with beautiful depth data. I highly recommend you to generate that displacement map automatically from 2 photos of the same subject using my new software Photosculpt Textures (download the 30-day trial here or buy it now from Eur 99). This has already been explained in this short 1'43'' video tutorial so I'm not covering it here again. Here I'm assuming you already have a displacement map at hand. Of course alternatively you can download the one on the left or 10 more in my free sample section (I also have a pay sample section from Eur 5.99)

Once you have a good displacement map, then launch your favorite image editing software (photoshop, Gimp, ...) and do the following:

Step by step: Open your displacement map and add a new layer to it, fill this layer with black, set it in color burn layer mode. Then paint a white circle in the center of it with an airbrush as shown. Save your image. Open it again in your sculpting software as alpha brush and start sculpting. Voila!

Here are some free samples for download. (click on thumnail to download)

...and how I use them:

Sculpted plane using alphas as sculpting tool. Software used: freeware Sculptris, base plane mesh subdivided 4 times before sculpting for more detail.

Advanced hints:

• You may want to keep the alpha map size down if you encounter slow sculpting, unstable software or downsampling artefacts. I think a 300x300 pixels 8 bit alpha map are enough for most uses.
• For best effect, if your displacement map is too gray, you may want to adjust its contrast before using it as sculpting tool
• Instead of painting only a circle with the airbrush tool, you can paint more intricate details in your textures, hiding (with black) or showing (with white) areas of interest as you see fit
• You can create 16 bit alphas using the 16 bit tiff displacement maps from Photosculpt. This will allow 65535 steps from front to back, witch is nicer/smoother than the default 256 steps of usual 8 bit image formats like jpg.
• Here is a link to a good alpha community where you can download / upload your alphas: http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/alpha/

Conclusion:

In this tutorial I've shown a new way to create photorealistic alphas.

This method is I believe superior than any other method as I used 2 photos per subject and my new software Photosculpt Textures to "scan" real objects and extract real depth data from them. It's very similar to sculpting with a stamp casted from a real object if you prefer :-)

Hoping you'll like it! Dont't hesitate to comment or improve this tutorial!

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This Tutorial will present you how to setup 3DS Max to use 3D textures for rendering with Vray.

Software used: Autodesk 3DS Max, VRay (render), Subburb Solidrocks (render), Photosculpt Textures v1.0 (seamless tileable 3D textures of a gray stone wall)

Click here to download the *.mat file for 3DStudio Max VRay and the related stone textures created with Photosculpt Textures (2.3 Mo, *.rar)

Let’s create a simple sphere on a plane, with daylightsystem (configured for Vray) and a Vray physical camera.

Then put a UVmap on Sphere, in spherical mode, with tile = 4 in all directions. Then create a Vray Material with these settings and apply it on the sphere:

Specular map is used with a low setting (dark gray color) in the reflect slot

In Vray, reflections and specularity are linked together, so be sure to uncheck the option trace reflections to avoid that a reflection of some of the shiny areas of the stone (and loose processing time). You want the gloss but no reflections.

The bump canal of 3DS Max will receive the special map called "normal map"

Here the remaining maps:

Hint:  You might want to change the blur setting of each texture from 1.0 to 0.01 for a sharper end-result

Here an example for the reflect map below: (flou stands for blur in this frech version)

The final render

Render with all default settings but my software Solidrocks was used with medium exterior setting. (SolidRocks is an Autodesk™ 3dsmax™ plugin which automates the complex process of setting up rendering for V-Ray)

Copyright Jérôme Prévost from solidrocks 2010

Related: tutorial 7 Create your 3d material shader with PhotoSculpt Textures

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The texture has been created with the software Photosculpt Textures. This software is different. It extract perfect high resolution 3D Textures easily using 2 photos of the same subject, not just one like other software do.

You can download the texture for free here.

Click here to download the Modo sample files (2.2 Mb)

 Tutorial copyright Nicolas Thevand © 2010

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This tutorial will present you how I setup a 3D Texture with Blender 2.5 Beta. I'm going to texture the base cube of Blender with stones.

I'm using this pay-texture above from my web site as an example. It contains 5 textures images. You can also download any of my free texture for this. Or even create your own with my 30 day trial of my software Photosculpt Textures.

First launch Blender or do CTRL + N for a new session. It creates a base cube with a base gray material.

Before I start with the texture note that for convenience I first switch on the glsl shading (key [N] to open properties in 3D view, submenu Display, Shading switch from Multitexture to GLSL, key [N] to close properties, Viewport Shading Textures)

You'll also want to create a UV map to the cube before applying texture (I propose the following: key [TAB] to open edit mode, key U for UV unwrap, select cube projections, key [TAB] to go back to object mode). Note: You can also create seams and unfold your cube (as I did here) for better results but it's outer scope of this tutorial.

Let's start now with the 3D material setup. Here is the material panel setings I used.

Material Panel:

You'll see I haven't made any changes to the Blender default. In some cases you'll want to change the diffuse and specular intensity. The most important changes I made are in the texture panel that follow.

Texture Panel:

I'm now going to load a texture for 5 channel (diffuse, normal, displacement, ao and specular)

Each time I do the following

• click on an empty chanel slot and rename it
• change type to "Image or movie"
• set maping coordinates to "UV"
• "Open" the image
• Apply the tweaks below

Here are the settings for the Diffuse chanel and the Ambient Occlusion chanel

Here are the settings I used for the normal chanel and the specular chanel

The displacement chanel can be done simply but I do mine in a bit more sophisticated fashion. I'm missing settings with the material displace chanel of blender and the results are sometimes unpredictable at the corners of objects. Furthermore I want to set each object displacement individually not globally as a material. So I switch the displacement texture off entirely in the texture pannel and recreate the displacement effect with a modifier on the object itself. Here is how:

Here is the setting I used onto my base cube.

• I subdivided it seven times in total in simple mode. That's of course a lot of polys at the end and it's a bit overkill but I wanted a high polygon object.
• Then I applied a displace modifier onto the cube (not on the material) with the following settings.

 Let's go over the detail of the displace modifier:

• You need to set the displacement map in the "texture" field. Choose normal and UV so it's aligned on the diffuse texture.
• Set the "strength" parameter you need for the depth of the displacement effect
• Set the "midlevel" parameter in order to have either a nice crisp cube corner (high value) or a round corner (low value). That's important as depending on your preference you can choose crisp for photoreal, round for cartoon-like texture.

Conclusion:

Using this method I can adapt the displacement to every object of the scene. Objects that are further away don't need much subdividing and displacement can be set accordingly.

Additional trick: I sometimes add a slight ray mirror onto my texture so it can reverb a bit of the color of surrounding objects. I also use the specularity map as a mirror mask for perfect rendering.

Don't hesitate to comment or improve this tutorial.

Click here to download the sample blend file (3.3Mb)

(Please consider purchasing the 1024x1024 3D stone texture if you want to use it for your projects. Value Eur5.99)

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Software used: Photosculpt Textures demo, Blender, Photoshop

I had this idea for fun on holiday and I thought there should be a way to do that (for free). So I imagined this step-by-step procedure whitch is not easy and require patience, dexterity and a good knowledge of your 3d software (here I used the free software Blender)

As it's inventor I'm proud to say that the easiest part is actually to create the 3D model of the face itself (using my software Photosculpt Textures 30 days trial demo)!

I really enjoyed the whole process. Have fun!

An original idea of Eric Testroete (thanks for sharing!) who had that from Bert Simons.

Hippolyte from www.photosculpt.net

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