Displacement map textures are not for every modeling job, but they are very well suited for some tasks. In this tutorial we will use one such texture to model the piece that reinforces the connection of the cable to the plug.
About Displacement textures
Displacement textures are something like “real bump maps” in the sense that bump maps simulate relief and displacement maps actually create geometry, so displacement maps are both modeling and texturing.
These displacement textures often produce very high polygon counts so they are not always the best solution, but at times they can be very handy.
The Plug
The plug is a straightforward piece: a series of cylinders and lathes, with the piece that joins the plug and the cable also a lathe.
The base plug
This is the base scene file.
The Displacement Texture
We need to model the piece that reinforces the cable where it joins the plug, and that is not something we can easily model.
The piece that we are going to modify is a lathe of a Bézier curve and that is good, since Bézier objects are best suited for receiving displacement textures.
The Displacement map works in the same way as a bump map does, with white being raised and black being recessed.
This is the map we’ll use.
This map goes into the Displacement texture:
Sampling controls how detailed we want our mesh to be (and the resulting polygon count). Max Height controls the maximum height as a percentage of the object size.
Displace Inward causes the displacement map to go inward rather than the default outward orientation.
This texture is applied cylindrically to the object.
A render will now show the properly striated piece.
That was a good, simple job for the Displacement Texture.
Please share what you make with it.
Addendum: Displace Inward checked/unchecked
This image is due to a suggestion from mergatroyd, concerning how would the piece look with displace inward unchecked. In the render below, the plug on the back has the Displace Inward checkbox unchecked.
Thanks for the suggestion!
