There's that, and the fact that in a realtime environment, relief
mapping is quite a bit more expensive. It's also *very* hard to
implement efficiently on soft-skinned surfaces. Those static objects
look great, but anything that deforms will have problems. You also get
some snatches with authoring it, since relief mapping assumes that all
depth information points down (not the usual 50% grey = no height
change), and as a result volumes lose a bit of...well, volume.
Parallax mapping in realtime is relatively cheap, but has a few
downsides, as well. The biggest one being the fact that it literally
falls flat when you look at the surface as a flat angle, and the dirty
little fact that it doesn't work well on round surfaces (since it
assumes that the viewing plane is infinite).
Just some additional information. Looks like you're going to render
out frames inside XSI, so the above isn't as applicable.
--
Matthias Worch
http://www.worch.com
HB> Same observations but parralax mapping needed less memory when I tested
HB> last time.
HB> loganittos a écrit :
>> Heyas Gene,
>>
>> Ive been playing with normal/parallax and displacements for the past 2
>> week at work for a near future job and i got the parallax shader
>> working. it works great, especially with zbump plugged on normal.
>> i couldnt get it to work with the normalmap node on (xsi's) It is
>> thou, a bit slow but there is no comparsion between it and normal
>> maps. parallax is much much better. In one shot i tested them i can
>> say that displacements are faster than the parallax thou but not in
>> all cases it will all depend on the light you have plugged in.
>>
>> Its the best reference model isnt it? having all the models in your
>> scene actually being images in ultra low geometry. replace the image
>> and you have a new model on:)
>>
>> allright mate see ya soon:)
>>
>> Saludos
>>
>> Mario
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Gene Crucean <mailto:genecrucean(at)gmail.com>
>> *To:* XSI(at)Softimage.COM <mailto:XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, December 25, 2005 5:44 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: relief/parallax mapping
>>
>> Yeah that's the parallax shader I was referring to. Relief mapping
>> is different btw...
>> http://www.infiscape.com/doc/parallax_mapping.pdf
>>
>> I finally got a little time last night to play with that shader
>> and I can't seem to get it to work. Anyone have any success? I
>> also played with the relief mapping plugin for max and I must say
>> that it's pretty damn nice. Fast too.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/25/05, *peter_b* <peter_b(at)skynet.be
>> <mailto:peter_b(at)skynet.be>> wrote:
>>
>> I imagine your knew this one allready:
>>
>> http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=12;action=display;threadid=19497
>>
>> <http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php?board=12;action=display;threadid=19497>
>>
>> your relief example below looks exactly like parallax mapping
>> to me.
>> there's some small thingies with it, but overall Im very
>> impressed with what this can do.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Gene Crucean <mailto:genecrucean(at)gmail.com>
>> *To:* XSI(at)Softimage.COM <mailto:XSI(at)Softimage.COM>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, December 25, 2005 1:07 AM
>> *Subject:* relief/parallax mapping
>>
>> I was talking with a friend about this today (yes I know
>> it's Christmas eve) and started wondering if there are any
>> technical differences between relief and parallax shaders.
>> Maybe I'm way off but I've been under the impression that
>> they are one in the same, just with different names. I'm
>> probably behind in my learning with this so feel free to
>> slap me with the old school stick. I need to do some
>> testing with the parallax shader anyway.
>>
>> FYI...
>>
>> http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13906
>>
>> <http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13906>
>>
>> Check out the difference between these two.
>>
>> Normal map:
>> http://www.visualboo.com/misc/render_scene_normal.jpg
>>
>> Relief:
>> http://www.visualboo.com/misc/render_scene_relief.jpg
>>
>>
>> Merry Christmas guys!
>>
>>
>> --
>> -gc
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -gc
>>
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