<<>> Normal Displacement Via "height image" goes haywire on me. What am I doing wrong?

[Li6HT_D4RK]

So I am fairly new to Arnold and 3d in general ( few months now taking courses). I am wondering if anyone can explain what is going on?

What I'm aiming for -

Trying to use the normal displacement node with the attached height.jpg to get a possibly better look ( instead of thenormal map node with the attached normal .jpg which is currently attached / being used) . [*Top picture]

What is happening-

When I attach the displacement node to the Arnold Displacement port, my shader ball (top left) updates withdisplaced geometry getting the look I want [*Middle picture], But then when I run the IPR, My geometry goes allcrazy and I zoom out to see whats going on [*Bottom picture].

Also I have other images for this shader that I do not know where to attach to like "Rooftiles ambient_occlusion" and "Rooftiles_glossiness". Where does Ambient occlusion usually plug into? does it also need a node?

C4DtoA v.2.6.2

Any help would be greatly appreciated. cheers!

[dhanad]

I could be wrong, but for height map (I am assuming you exported out of Substance Painter) it needs to be 32-bit exr or tif format for it to work properly in Maya atleast. Color format set to RAW instead of sRGB in the texture node in your 3D render app. I am not sure if it works the same for C4D though.

[lee_griggs]

Reducing the displacement scale should reduce the effect. You may need to increase subdivision_iterations for the tile geometry to see more displacement detail.

Rooftiles ambient_occlusion isn't essential but could be used as a dirt map (layer it onto the base color). However, Arnold has its own ambient_occlusion and curvature shaders which would work equally well and give you more control.

Rooftiles_glossiness would go to specular_roughness. Insert a Range shader in-between to add more control of its effect.

[peter.horvath6V6K3]

Note, that the geometry also has a displacement height control and it's default is 100 cm. If you work in small scale in your scene (e.g. in cm unit) this may be too high. Add an Arnold tag to your object and lower the height t match the scale of the material preview. Alternatively you can change the scale in the shader as well, it's basically the same effect.

[Li6HT_D4RK]

You are a Wizard 🙂 After a few hours of reading the links / fiddling around with the parameters, I think I am almost 100% there.

So basically I added a Arnold Parameters tag onto the geometry of my rooftop shingles (right click, C4DtoA tags, Arnold Parameters.

Then I clicked and highlighted the added tag, went to the subdivision tab, and entered these settings.

to fine tune I had to change displacement parameters in arnold tag. It was at 100cm !

I want to try Dirt Map option first to learn, then try the arnold way you mentioned. layer it on to the base color like this?

Thanks for guidance

[Li6HT_D4RK]

Ok.. I will look into that. I think I figured it out. I am not sure if these are exported from substance, they are kitbash textures. I simply clicked "convert the selected material to Arnold material" but that did not give me optimal results , just the base color and specular and I think Roughness.

[Li6HT_D4RK]

Thank you I ended up playing around and doing exactly this.

cheers!

[lee_griggs]

Looks good! Glad it worked 🙂