Best renderer for displacement?

[somlor]

I'm hoping there will be some tutorials or at least pointers for using the displacement maps exported from ZBrush in the different apps / renderers. But FYI, Mental Ray is 100% capable of excellent displacement so if you own 3dsmax 6 you just need to figure out how to build the right shader and tweak your settings properly. A bit easier said than done I'm sure. The alternative for high quality displacement (read: micropoly) is using a Renderman renderer, but this is fairly convoluted from Max. Also, you can buy VRay which does have micropoly displacement. And supposedly Brazil will be adding this soon as well.

[EricChadwick]

Some examples of finalRender's displacement...
http://www.finalrender.com/products/feature.asp?UD=10-7888-35-788&PID=36&FID=381

[Zeddicus]

Those samples for fRender sure are nice. Does anyone know of examples from Vray? I'm beginning to think that the test of a renderer's ability to displace is in the details such as those seen in that link. Max 6 with MR is alright if your doing simple things like ocean waves or grass, but as soon as you try to do anything detailed it's really hit or miss (usually miss more often that not). Hopefully the next version of MR will have much better displacement along with a number of other needed tweaks. Kind of annoyed actually because I've spent the better part of the last month learning MR, and now it looks like I may have to start from scratch possibly learning a new renderer.

[thev]

There are examples of VRay's displacement in the Z-Brush gallery:

http://209.132.69.82/zbrush/zbrush2/GalleryPages/melenhorst2.html

http://209.132.69.82/zbrush/zbrush2/GalleryPages/thornqvist2.htm

Best regards,
Vlado

[EricChadwick]

Do a search on the Vray forums, there are some displacement renders there. I saw nothing on par with the fR ones though...

[Zeddicus]

Thanks! Those Vray renders look very promising, especially considering I have a keen interest in Zbrush to compliment Max. I've signed up on the Vray forums and will have a look around. The second example though, it says it's rendered in Max but doesn't say which renderer was actually used. Was it really Vray?

[thev]

Yes, it was VRay; see the following thread:

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=123173&highlight=cave+troll

Best regards,
Vlado

[Zeddicus]

Man, that's awesome! Thanks! :D

Edit: Oooh, Jonas has some WIP stuff on his page done with Vray and displacement as well. Very nice. Thanks again!

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