Preserved Topic: Displace and some Leveling

There have been a few time when I've built a dmap and something seems a bit wrong about it. Not that it's not pushing everything around the wrong way, but it's pushing things around the right way too much in some areas. Sure, try using a lower percentage, but that doesn't seem to cut it. Sometimes as low as 3% (and lower) and parts are still out of whack. What's a Guru to do?

Enter Levels. Bring the black up and the white down by equal amounts. I usually Level at 63/191 and try again. Sure enough, that usually fixes the whackiness. But playing with Levels on dmaps is only the beginning. Sometimes Curves. Heh. I've got a few more Displace tricks/tweaks up my sleeve. We'll see over the next few weeks about getting some of them out to you guys.

In the mean time, shameless plug: The Displace Filter by Steve.

Now go play.

Yeah I will second that link as being one of the most outstanding tutorials I have ever read.

Thanks, warjournal! Awesome tutorial. Jes... Very nice. I still haven't mastered the Displace filter, which is sad because it can do so much. Thank you for the tips, too. A big reason why I haven't done anything with the filter is the "WTF?!" I get when I try to apply it.

I promise to play with it when I get home tonight. *cackles at the thought of making glass balls everywhere and such*

Warjournal -- you should contribute some of these things to the gurus network!

Actually, DL-44, I have been thinking about tossing togther some tips in an informal manner. My mental Rolodex on this is getting pretty full, but there is always room for more. Before I seriously think about submitting something along these lines to GN, I want to get at least my first two tuts done (another excuse to buy time to think about my Extraction tut). Could be a damn fine compliment to Steve's work.

Once the holiday buzz is over, then I can sit down and put some serious time into my first two tuts instead of 1/2 hour here, 1/2 hour there. Spare time like that just doesn't cut it. With that kind of time, all I can really do is experiment for a bit. Earlier today I took a 1/2 hour time-out and came up with a variation on the broken glass theme -- not really broken glass, but sort of related (Apologies to Steve for that one -- Oh man! What was I thinking?).

Time will tell with this stuff.

Happy New Year!