Votes
0
Product:
Character Creator 4
Version:
4.52
Status:
Active
Issue 11672
A crack free displacement Hack to add to your Human Shader
Though trial and error, for a few days solid in a row, I've found a solution that will allow characters with displacement a way to have 0 cracks.

The issue is caused by the bleed texture border/margin. I found that if you apply a glow effect using black for the edges with precision on each material, they blend well.

Because people export their custom textures with different border bleed sizes, you may want to provide a slider.

Users could then take any body normal map and apply it as a quick displacement map with 1 level blur.
I'm sure that the black glow effect would likely have to be baked into the displacement map. Give it a try, see for yourself. Maybe this method can be further improved.

It would make character creation with displacement maps a lot easier to manage. I understand that when baking out maps for characters, that ideally 32 bit displacement exports are ideal with Vertex displacement, they don't require gray scale parameters, things usually just fit.
OS: Windows 11
Attachment:
  • Screenshot 2024-12-03 180439.png
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SuggestionMaterial EditorAppearance EditorCharacterVisualHeadshotSkinGen PremiumZBrush Face Tools
Submitted byAscensi Dec 3, 2024
1
COMMENTS (2)
Ascensi Dec 20, 2024 
If anyone has visible seams along the back of the head, body etc for regular textures that are not cloth related, for 4k maps use 16 as the border/margin for padding when exporting your textures from any paint program. 

@Reallusion artists should be doing this as well, I've noticed seams simply copying a neutral base character's default normal map to the displacement channel and can understand why you're hesitant to create more characters with displacement.
Ascensi Dec 17, 2024 
This helps solve a few issues.

1. I've manually had to duplicate islands, delete the surrounding color fill, and apply a black border style effect as seen in the picture. This prevents spikes or cracks for displacement maps (some just need the choke size increased rather than size)

2. It also is successful prepping physics skin weight maps (cloth physics) whereby the edges require black to pin the material on the model to prevent the material/skin/cloth from sliding off the body.   

3. It has also prevented rendering seams at various times - as long as the black pixel thickness along the edge is thin.

Maybe a non destructive 1pixel black edge could be implemented to preserve materials but could be optionally baked in.
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