Texture Map and Rendering Help

Inquisitive_Scholar

I am trying to brush up on my texture map skills and so I would appreciate any help. The brick wall texture I got off google and in Photoshop worked to make it seamless.

Diffuse Map


Bump Map


Displacement


Render in Maya via Mental Ray

Diffuse

Flat looking, but otherwise seamless looking brick wall

Diffuse and Bump

Bump Map adds a bit of depth to the otherwise flat texture

Diffuse and Bump and Displacement

Displacement Map extrudes out but tears seams

Diffuse and Bump and Displacement with Approximation Editor

Approximation Editors partial softens the edges of the faces extruding out from the Displacement Map.

daniellooartist

You should use a normal map for the surface detail. As far as the bricks themselves, you'd get a better displacement map if they were modeled out. Maybe add a chip in the edge here and there but for the most part it would be pretty basic.

RustySpannerz

Your bump also seems a little noisy. Reduce some of the noise so the bump focuses on larger shapes. 

Inquisitive_Scholar

I reduced the bump by half . Still too much noise?

xChris

Polycount has a very informative wiki on normal maps http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/NormalMap

Inquisitive_Scholar

Are you perhaps suggesting that I create a high poly model then bake a texture onto a low poly mesh? There is so much information that I am getting a bit overwhelmed and lost from trying to read through it, but I understand the most basic point which is that a normal map fakes high res detail on low poly meshes.

AtticusMars

I haven't used displacement maps much but just looking at your result my guess would be that the displacement is pushing out along the vertex normals of your mesh, so you're getting seams because you're using a hard edged cube. If you want a seamless result try beveling your edges and using soft edges (non-split vertex normals, or one smoothing group)

allengingrich

That noise is way wrong. I would seriously tone it down. I tended to overdo my normals too when I was beginning, so this is totally normal. That said, did you run this image through a program like B2M to get the other maps? For bricks and stuff, I would definitely model in Zbrush or Substance Designer that stuff. Organics are hard to make in those programs, but tiled patterns like bricks are pretty simple.

Inquisitive_Scholar

Tone down the noise even more? I only have Maya and I don't know what program B2M is.