You're one of the best instructors of Maya. Finding quality tutorials on RUclips is a challenge, but your's are academic quality. Professional, great results, easy to follow, clear...I could go on but I have to get back to work :)
This is exactly what I was looking for. To the point, clear and concise. An excellent method done in an easy to follow manner. Thank You for doing this, it helped me immensely!
THANK YOU FOR THE KIND WORDS JAY! I AM GRATEFUL THAT YOU HAVE FOUND MY STUFF USEFUL AND THAT YOU ARE AN ENTHUSIASTIC LEARNER! ALL THE BEST TO YOU MY FRIEND!
YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU ARE SO EXTREMELY GOOOOD. YOU EXPLAINED EVERYTHING VERY WELL. I HAVE TO PUT THIS ON CAPS LOCK JUST TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I AM REALLY AMAZED BY YOUR TUTORIAL! CHEERS! AND TAKE CARE!
Congratulations!!! Now it's all a matter of tenacity...Don't forget, you should always look at this business as a freelancer...Don't wait for someone to hire you to do what you love to do. Good old fashioned legwork and focus is the key to doing it alone. I've been doing my own thing for my entire life and so far I'm still doing what I love to do. Props to you for getting educated...now you will spend the rest of your life doing the same as well!!!!
And thank you for taking a few moments out of your day to thank me....Stay tuned because in the very near future I'll be creating another tutorial about displacements and other options and use!
I understand your point, depending on how extreme the displacement is that can be a problem. Generally I would use this method to create the terrain as a displacement and then convert it polygons, texture away and then either bake the color etc. Sometimes, due to the poly count, re-topology could be necessary. If the displacement is small, you can usually get away with this method for lots of stuff. Thanks for the observation!
Usted es bienvenido a mi amigo! Not sure if Google translate works very well but it looks like it sort of works! My Spanish is limited but your English is probably better than my Spanish! I admire people who are bilingual! Thanks for the thanks! Keep on learning!
You are good Stuart! Your relaxed and have a great voice to guide the tutorial. I never felt rushed and your sense of humor just makes the whole learning experience a joy. I look forward to more of your tutorials.
Yes, you can make a black and white displacement map with any program. Just attach the image to the color channel and connect the Shading Group and the image to a displacement node like in this tutorial and you are good to go! As for the material_X, you would probably assign the geometry (polygon from dislacement) with the material_x you create and it should look super cool! Your on the right track!
Lens flare sounds cool and I will put it on the list! I'm taking a small break at the moment and have some "BIG" things planned for real soon so stay tuned! All the best to you!
For Maya 2017 when attaching materials: attach the crater to the color part of the Blinn and then with the displacement shader attach the "displacement" output to the "displacement shader" input section(after going to the graphs view like he said) on the Blinn1SG. and then attach the displacement shader's "displacement" input section to the Crater's "Out Alpha" output.
I have put this topic on the list of new stuff....so stay tuned for a while! I'm taking a small break to work on a new website and will be back in full swing in a couple of weeks or so! All the best! Keep on learning!
All is well indeed!!! I just upgraded to Maya 2013 Commercial version so now I can create additional content and cross promote it with a new website I have established to be launched soon. I'll be re-cutting some of the older tutorials and I'm venturing into some "in the field" advanced training...so stay tuned for good things! Hope all is well with you and as always, thanks for the thanks!!!!!
Hello Stuart, thanks for this it was a great help to watch this tutorial. It helped me to design a rough surface area very fast. Since I am playing also around with nparticles I found out, that the surface can be used (once it is transferred into polygons) as passive collider for the particles which can give interesting effects for liquids. Great Stuff, thanks a lot for all your efforts!
Sounds great! Cant wait to see what you have in store, looking forward to it! Everything is great with me, actually just finished my degree at university today, so I'm busy applying for VFX Jobs (runner, roto and junior comp) jobs everywhere I can think of =]
Sometimes you need to play with the alpha gain and alpha offset values in the Color Balance of the texture image. For example, set the alpha gain to +2 and the Alpha Offset to -2 and see what happens when you render. Make adjustments first before you convert to Geometry. Remember, you can use the scale to to manipulate the height of the plane etc. Do a test with cm and meters and see the results. Hope that helps
It's hard to say, however, your preference settings should be set to centimeters, go to Maya - Preferences - Settings and check to see that you have centimeters set as a working unit. Next, turn on interactive creation (Create - Polygon Primitives - (bottom of menu you will see Interactive Creation) select that option. Create a Plane. Check the attribute editor and see Polygon Plane History and set all width/height/subdivisionwidth/height to 24 and you should be good to go!
Yes, it is the very same process. Generally I just Title the videos with the version of Maya I am using, but for the most part any tutorial I create can be achieved with any version from 2010 on.
thx, i was looking for a good recorder, i think i will buy camtasia, your tutorials are really great, and the quality are quite impressive :D, keep with good work!
Theoretically, anything is possible! This tutorial is simply a "core concept" to show the power of displacement maps.....They present their own challenges and limitations and as you probably know, there's about a thousand ways to do stuff in Maya an only half of them are wrong! Have fun experimenting!
As well, make sure the box is checked for Alpha is Luminance. You can then attach the actual color image to the color slot of you material (blinn, phong etc.) It's a little confusing at first but you will get the hang of it. OK? Hope that helps.
Hey, well open the hypershade and search for height field. Its in the utility section. If you click it, maya creates a plane front and center. Plug in a 2d texture (perhaps use the same thats on your geometry) to the displacement section of the node and voila you have a quick real time look at how your displacement will render !. The height field will not render so you can have it sit above your render-able geometry and use it to place objects etc. Phil
For this tutorial I used Camtasia for Mac. It gives great looking compressed HD video and small file sizes, but it takes much longer to compress to final output than my previous program called Screenflick. I like both, Screenflick takes less time compress and output and it's really hard to convert and edit if needed. But I think I'll stay with Camtasia for future stuff because it's way more flexible for post editing. Hope that helps!
Hey Phil, I have not used height fields, I'm not even familiar with the process, so anything you can share would be swell! I reworked this tutorial from an older version I did quite a while ago and hopefully did a better job at explaining the process. There's so many different ways to work with this stuff it makes my head spin!!!
It's probably something very simple. If you created a light for the scene make sure it is on by clicking the little yellow "use all lights" icon in the viewport and make sure the textures are on as well (checker pattern ball icon) in the viewport. It can be frustrating sometimes but that's probably what's happening. Play around some more and let me know we'll get it working for you OK?
I know what you mean....The divisions of the geometry is very important only when you go to convert the (displacement) geometry to polygons. Otherwise, if you are not converting to polygons it doesn't really matter that much.
Make sure your textures are turned on in the viewport and that the crater material is assigned to the color channel...Remember, it's usually something very simple that you skipped in the process of setting things up....Give it a few tries and take some notes on the process and with a little repetition you will conquer!
I think it has to do with the offset value. Go to Color Balance and change the Alpha Offset to something like -1 or -2.....this will allow the displacement to have deeper valleys and such. Hope that helps.
I've seen this technique being used a lot and I would suggest to only use this as a reference for other geometry, since you will have to redesign the topology of this if you are planning on texturing it. Otherwise you would end up with stretched textures.
I'm not quite sure what "custom made texture" means. I'm assuming you have a color image so convert the color image to a B/W image (for the displacement texture) and apply a small bit of gaussian blur (filter) and then save out and attach to the displacement node. From the hypershade, select the BW image and in the attribute editor (Color Balance) set alpha gain to 1 or 2 or 3 to gain more height. Let me know. Offset can also be set to -1, -2 or -3 etc.
great tutorial ! really well done ... i've been playing with displacement maps for a few days now, and i was under the impression that the polygons number didn't have an impact on the actual definition ... i've got to find what i did wrong ...
Im sorry dude, im not here to create tutorials on someone else's channel. I was merely explaining this to Stu. It's quite a simple thing and if you would like to know more Autodesk have online documentation on it. Or message me.
Hi, I am having problem as I am using 2015 Maya but when doing this and rendering after doing everything you said to do my plane is flat and the pattern I get doesn't show up, any advice would be helpful thank you.
Hey Stu, another great tutorial dude! Have you ever looked into height fields as a way of testing your displacement height? not a bad way of doing things.
thanks a lot Stuart, excellent tutorial as usual, quick question, can this method be used for other materials like material_x? also would this method work with a map brought from other software like Zbrush or Mudbox? anything else to have in consideration?
Amazing tutorial! I'm trying to use a custom-made texture that I did in Photoshop, but it seems to always get the same level of height, and since there are no alpha controls on the texture, how can I make it go up the way I want?
Really awesome tutorial! If you could help me with a problem that would be great. I'm creating the plane like you are, however I don't think my scene settings match yours. When I create a plane the size of my grid, my plane is 300x300 not 24x24, could you shed some light to why this might be happening?
hi stuart, i love your videos and i'm a big fan! i do have a question though... how do i export this as an object then put it into after effects? is this possible? because as i see it, the terrain is just interpreted from the alpha values but not an actual object. thanks!
Well, if the displacement was converted to polygons it would be an actual object, but AE will not work with models or objects because it's only a 2.5D program and not 3D like Maya. Likewise, AE will not interpret displacement info to create something that is 3D...The only way to get stuff out of Maya and into AE is to render out an image sequence and import it into AE....Hope that helps!
Excellent, thanks a lot, i made image i was trying to do, thanks a lot for you help and support, still weird that sometimes work sometimes doesn't or is just me
Magnificent tutorial. Really helped me out. Also, if you get time, will you make another one called, "How to Perform a Perfect Bill Lumbergh Impersonation"?
Hey Stuart, is there any difference between doing it this way, and doing it through the bump map node in the attribute editor for a material such as blinn?
For this you wouldn't use the bump node attribute because it's not really the same thing as a proper displacement, mainly due to the alpha offset values that will more correctly interpret actual height values. There are also other ways to create terrain with height maps which I will show in the future. Hope that helps!
I was wondering if this method could be applied to modeling clouds using fluids? Would it work the same to make the material linked with the displacement node be a Fluid Shader? What could be a workflow for something like that? Thanks for your thoughts.
Hey Stuart!!! Great tutorial ! Im trying to apply what you explain but with a custom displacement map, but it doesn't seem to work, Im attaching the file to the the displacement node and nothing happens, can you help me ?
Just wanted to ask a question: I've tried to convert displacement to polygons, but the height barely increased at all (still resembling plane). It's properly tessellated with hundred of faces though. Anything I've done wrong?
This is a common thing. Select the image file you are using for your texture and in the attribute editor you will see a section called Color Balance...by default the Alpha Gain is 1 and the Alpha Offset is 0. Try changing the Alpha Gain to something like 3 and the Alpha Offset to -3 (negative three). These values will affect your height and depth values on the displacement. Hope this helps.
Thank you for the tutorial. I'm working with a map that uses colors instead of the greyscale, how can I custom paint it in Gimp so the elevations are accurate?
Just make sure that the lowest areas of the map are darker than the highest areas. You could convert the image to a greyscale (black and white) but that won't necessarily do the trick. Low elevations need to be darker than the higher elevations so keep that in mind. Hope that helps!
hey Stuart you mentioned about painting your own texture in Photoshop ect, do you know how to export the black and white image you create using the crater node, as say a jpeg so it can be used as a guide when painting in Photoshop?? cheers
it sure was a great tutorial but here my concern is how do i turn that plane to lowpoly plane cause when i modify it, it becomes pretty heavy file.....
Yes, this is a problem many times with this method. You can also try a different method by using the Sculpt Geometry Tool. Check out my tutorials and find the one called Maya 2014 Quickly Create Terrain with the Sculpt Geometry Tool. This works on all versions of Maya and may yield less taxing geometry. Hope that helps!
Hey Stuart. I wanted to ask you something: Can I create grass by using displacement? I've heard it's possible on 3D Max, and I've tried to do it myself in Maya but so far I haven't been able to do so. Have you ever tried it? Thanks. Great job.
Hello deepfriendectoplasm - thanks for the tutorial. Would you happen to have tried to do the same effect on vray? For some reason when applying the default crater 3dtexture, even after scaling the 3d texture placement node to fit the plane, I am getting this very undefined/ undetailed wavy surface. I've played with the displacement settings to give it way more then enough subdivisions.
Great video, watched it 3 times already, I just have one question.. remember when you said that it looks wonky when rendering the actual converted geometry? I have the same weird shapes on my rendered image although I am rendering the texture and not the converted geometry.. I am using Maya Software renderer.. although I have V-ray.. but it does not give good results at all (must be a setting that I need to adjust). Can you help?
apply the displacement map to bump node ( both geometry and shader) in mia material x.....If you need to apply it in other materials such as car paint use lambert and connect it with car paint.
Is there something im supposed to do differently to make this work for bigger planes? I did each step by step except for the size of my plane, i did it again with the size in the video and its perfectly fine. Whats happening for me is the displacement is there but the colors from the crater are not aligned with the displacement.
Hi Stuart ! you have an amazing channel sir. quality Maya tutorial for free is just wonderful. I have a request from you. Could you make a tut on how to make a Nuke explosion in Maya. There are some in the web but really not helpful. I would be grateful if you do so.
Hi Stuart, I wish to generate a height map from my terrain, already created in Maya, to take to Vue xStream to create a duplicate. Maya objects don't work as well in Vue as "Vue-generated" terrains. (yes I can keep it in Maya and use xStream, but I don't want to go that way). What I need is a detailed B&W jpeg or bitmap from above showing height info to feed into Vue. Could you suggest the best way to do this?? James. p.s Thank you for all your tutorials.
Using Maya 2011 which is rated for the graphics card 1500 FX could only get a grey plane. It only shows up when rendered. downloaded DX9 and it still does not work. Anybody know how to fix this.
I had the exact same problem as Runescapeddiction. So I tried what you said.I didn't have any lighting in the scene so I added an ambience light and clicked on the use all lighting and textures buttons but nothing really happened. I kept doing the tutorial up until the first render and nothing showed up just a flat grey plane. Any ideas?
Straight and simple, however, i'm getting bad results when converting displacement to geometry. the result mesh has the correct deformations but in wrong scale. Rendering worw fine though. I think that the conversion tool work in cm, not i meters, as you where saying to Natahn. Can you confirm this? Thanks for the tutorials.
at 8:01 after you turn both lights off/on, my scene won't turn the way yours did, example, your scene has lots of colors (red, blue, and what i believe is green). i followed all the steps, tried it a bunch of times, and my blinn/crater won't display upon my scene like yours did, it's still black (when unselected) or go back to showing the green lines (when selected) ...help?
Using Maya 2014 I followed these steps and could only get a gray plane. Its as if crater never attached. Got a warning:Rendering is not supported by the Graphics card. Switching to default rendering mode. I am using an Invidia FX 1500. Does anybody have any ideas?
You're one of the best instructors of Maya. Finding quality tutorials on RUclips is a challenge, but your's are academic quality. Professional, great results, easy to follow, clear...I could go on but I have to get back to work :)
This is exactly what I was looking for. To the point, clear and concise. An excellent method done in an easy to follow manner. Thank You for doing this, it helped me immensely!
Seriously, these are the best tutorials I have ever come across. Thank you so much!
THANK YOU FOR THE KIND WORDS JAY! I AM GRATEFUL THAT YOU HAVE FOUND MY STUFF USEFUL AND THAT YOU ARE AN ENTHUSIASTIC LEARNER! ALL THE BEST TO YOU MY FRIEND!
My god this is most pleasant voice in tutorials i ever heared.
And lesson are useful as hell.
Great thanks !!!
YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU ARE SO EXTREMELY GOOOOD. YOU EXPLAINED EVERYTHING VERY WELL. I HAVE TO PUT THIS ON CAPS LOCK JUST TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I AM REALLY AMAZED BY YOUR TUTORIAL! CHEERS! AND TAKE CARE!
And a hearty thanks to you as well for taking a moment to put a smile on my face. I wish you great success in your visual pursuits!
Congratulations!!! Now it's all a matter of tenacity...Don't forget, you should always look at this business as a freelancer...Don't wait for someone to hire you to do what you love to do. Good old fashioned legwork and focus is the key to doing it alone. I've been doing my own thing for my entire life and so far I'm still doing what I love to do. Props to you for getting educated...now you will spend the rest of your life doing the same as well!!!!
And thank you for taking a few moments out of your day to thank me....Stay tuned because in the very near future I'll be creating another tutorial about displacements and other options and use!
This is by far the bestest tutorial i have ever seen
I understand your point, depending on how extreme the displacement is that can be a problem. Generally I would use this method to create the terrain as a displacement and then convert it polygons, texture away and then either bake the color etc. Sometimes, due to the poly count, re-topology could be necessary. If the displacement is small, you can usually get away with this method for lots of stuff. Thanks for the observation!
Superb - this is far better and customisable than the technique I had been using. I shall pass this knowledge on. Thanks buddy for the inspiration.
Thanks for the tutorial! Didn't have a chance to watch it earlier because of finals but it worked! Keep up the great tutorials!
Usted es bienvenido a mi amigo! Not sure if Google translate works very well but it looks like it sort of works! My Spanish is limited but your English is probably better than my Spanish! I admire people who are bilingual! Thanks for the thanks! Keep on learning!
Amazing! Something as complicated and intuitive as terrain can be easily done in a matter of minutes. Wow! Blew my mind!
Thanks Stu!
6:12 the tutorial actually starts
You are good Stuart! Your relaxed and have a great voice to guide the tutorial. I never felt rushed and your sense of humor just makes the whole learning experience a joy. I look forward to more of your tutorials.
Yes, you can make a black and white displacement map with any program. Just attach the image to the color channel and connect the Shading Group and the image to a displacement node like in this tutorial and you are good to go! As for the material_X, you would probably assign the geometry (polygon from dislacement) with the material_x you create and it should look super cool! Your on the right track!
Thanks for all your knowledge and inspiration...you are the VideoCopilot of Maya!
Lens flare sounds cool and I will put it on the list! I'm taking a small break at the moment and have some "BIG" things planned for real soon so stay tuned! All the best to you!
For Maya 2017 when attaching materials: attach the crater to the color part of the Blinn
and then with the displacement shader attach the "displacement" output to the "displacement shader" input section(after going to the graphs view like he said) on the Blinn1SG. and then attach the displacement shader's "displacement" input section to the Crater's "Out Alpha" output.
Cheers Stuart. These videos have been a real help.
I have put this topic on the list of new stuff....so stay tuned for a while! I'm taking a small break to work on a new website and will be back in full swing in a couple of weeks or so!
All the best! Keep on learning!
Thanks Stuart, you have helped me a lot to understand how to use maya.
All is well indeed!!! I just upgraded to Maya 2013 Commercial version so now I can create additional content and cross promote it with a new website I have established to be launched soon. I'll be re-cutting some of the older tutorials and I'm venturing into some "in the field" advanced training...so stay tuned for good things! Hope all is well with you and as always, thanks for the thanks!!!!!
Hello Stuart, thanks for this it was a great help to watch this tutorial. It helped me to design a rough surface area very fast. Since I am playing also around with nparticles I found out, that the surface can be used (once it is transferred into polygons) as passive collider for the particles which can give interesting effects for liquids. Great Stuff, thanks a lot for all your efforts!
You are most welcome!!! Keep on learning, it's a lifetime pursuit!
This was very helpful and easy to understand. Wish you were my lecturer.
Thanks a lot! I wasn't finding the place where you configure the alpha options for the image, but now I did :P Thanks again!
thanks :D I'm actually new to this, and eventually 'fixed' my problem with your help. Really appreciate it and keep up the good work :)
Espectacular tutorial..... mil gracias !!!!!
Wonderful tutorial Stuart... very clear !!!!!.... Thanks a lot !!!
Sounds great! Cant wait to see what you have in store, looking forward to it! Everything is great with me, actually just finished my degree at university today, so I'm busy applying for VFX Jobs (runner, roto and junior comp) jobs everywhere I can think of =]
Sometimes you need to play with the alpha gain and alpha offset values in the Color Balance of the texture image. For example, set the alpha gain to +2 and the Alpha Offset to -2 and see what happens when you render. Make adjustments first before you convert to Geometry. Remember, you can use the scale to to manipulate the height of the plane etc. Do a test with cm and meters and see the results. Hope that helps
Mind blown, trying this tutorial right now.
It's hard to say, however, your preference settings should be set to centimeters, go to Maya - Preferences - Settings and check to see that you have centimeters set as a working unit. Next, turn on interactive creation (Create - Polygon Primitives - (bottom of menu you will see Interactive Creation) select that option. Create a Plane. Check the attribute editor and see Polygon Plane History and set all width/height/subdivisionwidth/height to 24 and you should be good to go!
Yes, it is the very same process. Generally I just Title the videos with the version of Maya I am using, but for the most part any tutorial I create can be achieved with any version from 2010 on.
Unreal!! Thanks Stu - again and again!
Dude, i very appriciate your tuto's, rep from France ! , and Keep it up !
thx, i was looking for a good recorder, i think i will buy camtasia, your tutorials are really great, and the quality are quite impressive :D, keep with good work!
Great tutorial Stu! Hope all is well!
Great stuff! Thanks for sharing :)
Great tutorial. This helped me quite a lot! I'm gonna check out your other tutorials (or maybe even read a book)
Theoretically, anything is possible! This tutorial is simply a "core concept" to show the power of displacement maps.....They present their own challenges and limitations and as you probably know, there's about a thousand ways to do stuff in Maya an only half of them are wrong! Have fun experimenting!
As well, make sure the box is checked for Alpha is Luminance. You can then attach the actual color image to the color slot of you material (blinn, phong etc.) It's a little confusing at first but you will get the hang of it. OK? Hope that helps.
Hey, well open the hypershade and search for height field. Its in the utility section. If you click it, maya creates a plane front and center. Plug in a 2d texture (perhaps use the same thats on your geometry) to the displacement section of the node and voila you have a quick real time look at how your displacement will render !. The height field will not render so you can have it sit above your render-able geometry and use it to place objects etc. Phil
For this tutorial I used Camtasia for Mac. It gives great looking compressed HD video and small file sizes, but it takes much longer to compress to final output than my previous program called Screenflick. I like both, Screenflick takes less time compress and output and it's really hard to convert and edit if needed. But I think I'll stay with Camtasia for future stuff because it's way more flexible for post editing. Hope that helps!
Hey Phil, I have not used height fields, I'm not even familiar with the process, so anything you can share would be swell! I reworked this tutorial from an older version I did quite a while ago and hopefully did a better job at explaining the process. There's so many different ways to work with this stuff it makes my head spin!!!
It's probably something very simple. If you created a light for the scene make sure it is on by clicking the little yellow "use all lights" icon in the viewport and make sure the textures are on as well (checker pattern ball icon) in the viewport. It can be frustrating sometimes but that's probably what's happening. Play around some more and let me know we'll get it working for you OK?
Bored?! You must be kidding! AWESOME. Tks again
I know what you mean....The divisions of the geometry is very important only when you go to convert the (displacement) geometry to polygons. Otherwise, if you are not converting to polygons it doesn't really matter that much.
Make sure your textures are turned on in the viewport and that the crater material is assigned to the color channel...Remember, it's usually something very simple that you skipped in the process of setting things up....Give it a few tries and take some notes on the process and with a little repetition you will conquer!
I think it has to do with the offset value. Go to Color Balance and change the Alpha Offset to something like -1 or -2.....this will allow the displacement to have deeper valleys and such. Hope that helps.
I've seen this technique being used a lot and I would suggest to only use this as a reference for other geometry, since you will have to redesign the topology of this if you are planning on texturing it. Otherwise you would end up with stretched textures.
What a pleasant voice , thanks for the video.
I'm not quite sure what "custom made texture" means. I'm assuming you have a color image so convert the color image to a B/W image (for the displacement texture) and apply a small bit of gaussian blur (filter) and then save out and attach to the displacement node. From the hypershade, select the BW image and in the attribute editor (Color Balance) set alpha gain to 1 or 2 or 3 to gain more height. Let me know. Offset can also be set to -1, -2 or -3 etc.
great tutorial ! really well done ... i've been playing with displacement maps for a few days now, and i was under the impression that the polygons number didn't have an impact on the actual definition ... i've got to find what i did wrong ...
Im sorry dude, im not here to create tutorials on someone else's channel. I was merely explaining this to Stu. It's quite a simple thing and if you would like to know more Autodesk have online documentation on it. Or message me.
Thanks mate! :D
Hi, I am having problem as I am using 2015 Maya but when doing this and rendering after doing everything you said to do my plane is flat and the pattern I get doesn't show up, any advice would be helpful thank you.
Hey Stu, another great tutorial dude! Have you ever looked into height fields as a way of testing your displacement height? not a bad way of doing things.
Great tutorial! Do you know any decent websites for being able to get textures from to get a similar terrain texture?
thanks a lot Stuart, excellent tutorial as usual, quick question, can this method be used for other materials like material_x? also would this method work with a map brought from other software like Zbrush or Mudbox? anything else to have in consideration?
Amazing tutorial! I'm trying to use a custom-made texture that I did in Photoshop, but it seems to always get the same level of height, and since there are no alpha controls on the texture, how can I make it go up the way I want?
Hi stuart! What computer specs do you suggest for modelling, post video editing process. One of the best tutorials btw. Thanks a million!
Really awesome tutorial! If you could help me with a problem that would be great. I'm creating the plane like you are, however I don't think my scene settings match yours. When I create a plane the size of my grid, my plane is 300x300 not 24x24, could you shed some light to why this might be happening?
hi stuart, i love your videos and i'm a big fan! i do have a question though... how do i export this as an object then put it into after effects? is this possible? because as i see it, the terrain is just interpreted from the alpha values but not an actual object. thanks!
Well, if the displacement was converted to polygons it would be an actual object, but AE will not work with models or objects because it's only a 2.5D program and not 3D like Maya. Likewise, AE will not interpret displacement info to create something that is 3D...The only way to get stuff out of Maya and into AE is to render out an image sequence and import it into AE....Hope that helps!
Excellent, thanks a lot, i made image i was trying to do, thanks a lot for you help and support, still weird that sometimes work sometimes doesn't or is just me
Wonderful tutorial! But how do you use your own Photoshop-created texture?
Magnificent tutorial. Really helped me out. Also, if you get time, will you make another one called, "How to Perform a Perfect Bill Lumbergh Impersonation"?
Yeahhhh.....we need to take away your stapler and relocate your desk to the basement......OK??? Thanks for the thanks!! Glad it helped!
Hey Stuart, is there any difference between doing it this way, and doing it through the bump map node in the attribute editor for a material such as blinn?
For this you wouldn't use the bump node attribute because it's not really the same thing as a proper displacement, mainly due to the alpha offset values that will more correctly interpret actual height values. There are also other ways to create terrain with height maps which I will show in the future. Hope that helps!
I was wondering if this method could be applied to modeling clouds using fluids? Would it work the same to make the material linked with the displacement node be a Fluid Shader? What could be a workflow for something like that? Thanks for your thoughts.
Hey Stuart!!! Great tutorial ! Im trying to apply what you explain but with a custom displacement map, but it doesn't seem to work, Im attaching the file to the the displacement node and nothing happens, can you help me ?
Just wanted to ask a question: I've tried to convert displacement to polygons, but the height barely increased at all (still resembling plane). It's properly tessellated with hundred of faces though. Anything I've done wrong?
This is a common thing. Select the image file you are using for your texture and in the attribute editor you will see a section called Color Balance...by default the Alpha Gain is 1 and the Alpha Offset is 0. Try changing the Alpha Gain to something like 3 and the Alpha Offset to -3 (negative three). These values will affect your height and depth values on the displacement. Hope this helps.
Thank you! It's a bit extreme though, I need 10 and -10, just to get a similar value with 0.75 and 0 with displacement map on.
Thank you for the tutorial. I'm working with a map that uses colors instead of the greyscale, how can I custom paint it in Gimp so the elevations are accurate?
Just make sure that the lowest areas of the map are darker than the highest areas. You could convert the image to a greyscale (black and white) but that won't necessarily do the trick. Low elevations need to be darker than the higher elevations so keep that in mind. Hope that helps!
Whew! It took me about 8 hours to do what I needed, but I couldn't have done it without this. Thanks!
hey Stuart you mentioned about painting your own texture in Photoshop ect, do you know how to export the black and white image you create using the crater node, as say a jpeg so it can be used as a guide when painting in Photoshop??
cheers
cool, how wouild you palce objects on the ridge?
Hey...please help me out, i have the issue, if i choose mental ray as render i always get sharp edges at the render images, what shoud i to? thx
My Work Area doesn't look like that. How do you open it and how do you set it up? Thanks. Great tutorial btw!
it sure was a great tutorial but here my concern is how do i turn that plane to lowpoly plane cause when i modify it, it becomes pretty heavy file.....
Yes, this is a problem many times with this method. You can also try a different method by using the Sculpt Geometry Tool. Check out my tutorials and find the one called Maya 2014 Quickly Create Terrain with the Sculpt Geometry Tool. This works on all versions of Maya and may yield less taxing geometry. Hope that helps!
deepfriedectoplasm ur awesome teacher sir i really inspiered by you
Hey Stuart. I wanted to ask you something: Can I create grass by using displacement? I've heard it's possible on 3D Max, and I've tried to do it myself in Maya but so far I haven't been able to do so.
Have you ever tried it?
Thanks. Great job.
Hello deepfriendectoplasm - thanks for the tutorial. Would you happen to have tried to do the same effect on vray? For some reason when applying the default crater 3dtexture, even after scaling the 3d texture placement node to fit the plane, I am getting this very undefined/ undetailed wavy surface. I've played with the displacement settings to give it way more then enough subdivisions.
Thank you! Very cool!
Great video, watched it 3 times already, I just have one question.. remember when you said that it looks wonky when rendering the actual converted geometry? I have the same weird shapes on my rendered image although I am rendering the texture and not the converted geometry.. I am using Maya Software renderer.. although I have V-ray.. but it does not give good results at all (must be a setting that I need to adjust).
Can you help?
apply the displacement map to bump node ( both geometry and shader) in mia material x.....If you need to apply it in other materials such as car paint use lambert and connect it with car paint.
Is there something im supposed to do differently to make this work for bigger planes? I did each step by step except for the size of my plane, i did it again with the size in the video and its perfectly fine. Whats happening for me is the displacement is there but the colors from the crater are not aligned with the displacement.
Hi Stuart ! you have an amazing channel sir. quality Maya tutorial for free is just wonderful. I have a request from you. Could you make a tut on how to make a Nuke explosion in Maya. There are some in the web but really not helpful.
I would be grateful if you do so.
Hi Stuart,
I wish to generate a height map from my terrain, already created in Maya, to take to Vue xStream to create a duplicate. Maya objects don't work as well in Vue as "Vue-generated" terrains. (yes I can keep it in Maya and use xStream, but I don't want to go that way).
What I need is a detailed B&W jpeg or bitmap from above showing height info to feed into Vue.
Could you suggest the best way to do this??
James.
p.s Thank you for all your tutorials.
How do you manage to make it look so rocky with just the displacement map? When I do it, it just looks hilly and not rocky whatsoever.
Using Maya 2011 which is rated for the graphics card 1500 FX could only get a grey plane. It only shows up when rendered. downloaded DX9 and it still does not work. Anybody know how to fix this.
I had the exact same problem as Runescapeddiction. So I tried what you said.I didn't have any lighting in the scene so I added an ambience light and clicked on the use all lighting and textures buttons but nothing really happened. I kept doing the tutorial up until the first render and nothing showed up just a flat grey plane. Any ideas?
Could I do this with a custom displacement map. I drew a map and I want to create terrain for it.
Straight and simple, however, i'm getting bad results when converting displacement to geometry. the result mesh has the correct deformations but in wrong scale. Rendering worw fine though. I think that the conversion tool work in cm, not i meters, as you where saying to Natahn. Can you confirm this? Thanks for the tutorials.
hello please make a tutorial showing how to texture the mountain thanks
of Brazil
at 8:01 after you turn both lights off/on, my scene won't turn the way yours did, example, your scene has lots of colors (red, blue, and what i believe is green). i followed all the steps, tried it a bunch of times, and my blinn/crater won't display upon my scene like yours did, it's still black (when unselected) or go back to showing the green lines (when selected) ...help?
GreaTurtorial thanx a lot Stuart...
This is pretty handy! I assume it's not so useful to use for game design due the high amount of polygons, right?
+El Rocky Raccoon you can import into zbrush and decimate it
how it doesnt even create a model... its only in the renderer
for some reason my maya software renders the displacement map but when i use metal ray, it renders put how it looks in the viewport?
I want to create actual geometry from height maps using DEM data. It looks like it's only creating height when rendered?
Using Maya 2014 I followed these steps and could only get a gray plane. Its as if crater never attached. Got a warning:Rendering is not supported by the Graphics card. Switching to default rendering mode. I am using an Invidia FX 1500. Does anybody have any ideas?