What texture map helps to maintain visibility of details in distance?

ISUther

Hi,

Here you see samples of Orc sculpt i have.

When close view details is too intense and strong but from distance it looks ok.
If i set details less strong on close up then i wont see those in distance.
Ofcourse i have not started to render it in Mantra (houdini) atm trying simple zbrush render samples.

Deadly Nightshade

Detail map

Obscura

Interesting thought. You could just bake the high frequency detail into a normal / displacement map, and set its intensity based on distance from the camera. Cavity / small scale ao could also help.

ISUther

Thnx.
I will try to find some good tutorials regarding those.
As i understand they are baked with shaders.
They are not like averahe normal maps or ao maps?

ISUther

i never done any shader stuff. This is my first attempt to texture. Trying to figure out how things would work goal is cinematic quality render and planing to build VFX effect on top of the model in Houdini.
I started to wonder this because i did plan to make small camra rotation and movement in Houdini when VFX takes place.
And noticed that when i have applied displacement map on top of the mesh in zbrush (used this method).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLMXiBKy3W8
so for example i paint textures in Mari for specific scale
From those textures i am able to bake out displacement map (in my case UDIM-s)
I then load in UV-d orc in zbrush and i will appy the displacement maps that i got fom Mari.
Now it is baked in to the mesh and if needed i can bake out new normals with those details that i got from displ map
And if needed i can go to second texture cycle.

But noticed the issue that when close details are ok i move with camera away from model a bit the details will be lost due distance.
And then started to think what map or methid would help to maintain some of the details.

So if if i bake the high frequency detail into a normal / displacement map, and set its intensity based on distance from the camera i am not sure can i then tweak camera movement this way that when camrea moves it automatically chnages accordingly?
(i know in Houdini i can use VEX but im not VEX expert) and therfore do not know if this plan would work as when camra is mooving distance is constantly changing per frame (depending how i want to move camrea based on concept or idea i have)

throttlekitty

I don't know Houdini, but a quick search found this thread and this thread looks promising too, It's a common concept in 3d in general to do various effects based on distance.

Artistically speaking, I can see why you would want to show the detail you've sculpted. But objects appearing to lose detail is part of real and virtual life. Personally I think it would look unnatural for this displacement to get stronger from a distance, giving the orc a much harsher shading. In addition, the fine/small details would start to clear away simply because of the resolution, while the larger bumps look "larger than life" so to speak. Just my two cents on this.

musashidan

Also, a  important factor is your skin shader. The tertiary details are often exaggerated in the sculpt/disp painting as they will naturally blend out/soften with the SSS effect. It is a good idea to look dev the skin shading and iterate the skin details.