3dsmax - giving texture thickness?

[cdavidson]

hey guys just wondering if its possible to give a texture some thickness.. as you can see with the op map on this plane it kinda looks paper thin.

is there a way to make it look thicker in the texture process ? or should i just model it as a simpler box version of the grate.

example below.

cheers chaps.

http://sandvoid.com/artdump/example.jpg

[perna]

Bake or paint in slanted edges around the rim.

[cdavidson]

surely its still going to look flat at an angle tho?

am guessing its just a case of havin to make it more than just 1 plane instead of using an op map.

[Ace-Angel]

Unless the Camera is going up close and personal on the grates (as in you'll zoom through them), Perna's suggestion is the best one.

If you're exporting it later on to a game engine like UDK, you can use a Fresnel function to give a sharp fall-off around the slanted edges, faking even more depth.

[cdavidson]

ah ok. ta for the info :)

[perna]

surely its still going to look flat at an angle tho?


Well, it is flat, what do you expect? Had there been some secret way to fake polies where there are none, that's how we would be making all our art. If people are going to get close to it and write a thesis on your grate, etc, then just add more geometry.

[Mark Dygert]

What is with the recent rash of people thinking you can fake some cavernous inner details with a flat plane and a normal map? This is like the 4th one this week...

[cdavidson]

easy now lads. it was a simple question. i thought maybe there was a way to give it a small bit of thickness without adding geo. i got my answer and it was the one i was expecting.

[Justin Meisse]

you can sometimes fake thickness by double stacking the alpha planes: stack a plane on top of another, offset by enough that the player sees a bit of parallaxing - I don't know how convincing it is with normal mapped assets.

[Ace-Angel]

What is with the recent rash of people thinking you can fake some cavernous inner details with a flat plane and a normal map? This is like the 4th one this week...
I would say Shark Week has something to do with it.

Now that this reminds me, in UDK and ShaderFX one could simply create a self-occluded parallax mapping shader for the asset, but the cost to render/processes it will be huge, so I don't thing it will be beneficial at all.

[r_fletch_r]

you can sometimes fake thickness by double stacking the alpha planes: stack a plane on top of another, offset by enough that the player sees a bit of parallaxing - I don't know how convincing it is with normal mapped assets.

probably cheaper to just model it in this case no?

[JacqueChoi]

I think a parallax map might be able to fake it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_mapping


Particularly Parallax Occlusion Mapping.



It's used more in PC development, than console development.