I love the level of detail height maps give my terrain. Is there any way I can use one in a character? For example, I'm recreating the Phantom of the Opera in real time, and for the pahtom's facial deformity, I need a pretty good level of detail to capture the effect of the mutation.
I don't want to use bump offset/normal mapping, since I want real height to this deformity, not the illusion of height. I don't like tesselation, it's GPU expensive since a model has to be subdivided.
I haven't looked into UE4's displacement mapping system a lot, but I do know that it might suffice.
>>495815
>, since I want real height to this deformity
I've got a KURAAAAZY suggestion.
What if you used POLYGONS to do this? Insane, I know.
>>495828
The lack of understanding about computer graphics in that statement is too damn high
>>495838
What? He wants a high detail model and normal maps aren't strong enough. He should just fucking model the detail into the mesh if he thinks he has the budget for it. Using the heightmaps will have the exact same performance hit, but require much more work to get looking good on a moving, deformable mesh.
Go eat a dick.
>>495841
Are you fucking retarded? That guy has a point, you must be new to CG. How will height maps have a performance hit? They function similarly to parralax maps.
Also, modeling something with as much detail as a skin deformity which needs wrinkles, blimishes, and boils, well...You can't just add MOAR POLYS like you could in an offline renderer with zbrush and maya.
Unreal Engine 4 is litteraly a laggy piece of shit, there is no way you could use polys for something that needs that level of detail.
Tesselation or height maps is the way to go,
>>495888
Displacement mapping would also work too u cheeky cunt
>>495888
my God, you're right. We could have just been using height maps for additional details with little to no performance hit all these years, how could we have been so blind when a displacement map obviously creates magical surface detail!
wtf is going on in this thread
>>495815
you're talking about displacement mapping
it goes in the world displacement channel in the material editor
>>495888
>They function similarly to parralax maps.
parallax maps don't modify geometry
if you actually think displacement maps (or other height maps) don't increase increase polysyou may be retarded
>>495815
So you don't want a lot of polygons and you don't want to just use normal maps... you're basically saying you want a Lamborghinifor the price of a 20 year old Volvo. But you wouldn't want the Volvo because you think it's not as good as the lambo.
>>495895
he could use a relief map
>>495896
Grow up.