Bump and displacement map

Please cast your votes in our two ongoing feedback polls here and here!

    Hi everybody,

    I use enscape since 3 months and i would like to use displacement map.


    I try to change bump map to normal map but nothing change.


    On my texture i've the shadow but i don't have relief.


    Je searched on the forum and i seen an other solution. Change the name of normal map like this "texture wood_n" to explain at enscape it's a normal map. But the same. I don't have relief.


    What is the process exactly ?

    Thanks in advance.

    Timoxy - I thought I had replied to your inquiry already. I must have been distracted whilst drafting the initial response. So apologies for that.


    It would be advised that Normal maps should contain RGB data to work when Normal Map is selected, and just renaming a height or bump map (black and white values are generally preferred here, although Enscape does take care of this for you), with _n, will not work as expected, as there is no RGB data. That doesn't mean to say you would not be able to load such a map into the Normal map slot, but the results would not be what you expect.


    So, this is not actually displacement of geometry, and when real-time rendering engines say they are using displacement, then this is more likely parallax mapping. But, that is different to Normal Maps


    If you want more background info on different types of mapping, the wikipedia page on Displacement Mapping is a good place to start.

    Timoxy , JUBe3D just as a brief heads-up, displacement maps should be supported with Enscape 2.9 which will come out in a couple of months, perhaps rather likely with a open preview beforehand too.

    Demian Gutberlet is there any information on how to use Displacement? Im currently just adding it to the bump slot assumign thats where it lives and it seems like it works pretty well, but im wondering how it will be implimented in the final iteration. It would be nice to be a seperate slot so that we can have displacement and fine grain bump/normal map as well. Either way, its nice to play with so far!

    Ted.Vitale you'll have a dedicated Displacement map option where you currently switch between Bump and Normal map. If you want to combine a normalmap with a displacement map you'll have to combine them into a single RGBA texture for now. Then Enscape will recognize it correctly and use the RGB channels for normal and the alpha channel for displacement.


    This limitation might be lifted in future versions down the road though, but will require some overhaul of the current Material Editor UI.


    Hope that helps! :)

    Quote from Clemens Musterle

    Ted.Vitale you'll have a dedicated Displacement map option where you currently switch between Bump and Normal map. If you want to combine a normalmap with a displacement map you'll have to combine them into a single RGBA texture for now. Then Enscape will recognize it correctly and use the RGB channels for normal and the alpha channel for displacement.


    This limitation might be lifted in future versions down the road though, but will require some overhaul of the current Material Editor UI.


    Hope that helps! :)

    That’s great news, I mean it would be easier to have it as a separated element in the UI but the fact that out of the box I have that functionality with a little extra legwork is nice. Thanks for the update.


    I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, the Enscape Team is developing at an amazing rate. It’s the one subscription software I actually feel like is worth the yearly subscription. I with some of the host software would take note and start developing at a more regular pace!

    Wait, so Normal maps aren't supported yet even through they are in the drop down menu? I don't understand. I just got a bunch of quality textures from Poliigon and have been sort of struggling with what files work well with Enscape. Bump/Normal ang Gloss/Refl being problematic.

    Normalmaps have been supported for years. Ted has been asking about having a material with both a normalmap and a displacement map at the same time. This will also work, when combining them into a single texture.


    When using normalmaps from some library you'll have to ensure they're using the same convention as Enscape. Check if the shading actually matches the light position/shadow direction. Enscape uses the OpenGL normalmap convention. Here's some explanation on that.


    (More detail on this in here as well: normal and displacement maps? )

    Quote from Clemens Musterle

    Ted.Vitale you'll have a dedicated Displacement map option where you currently switch between Bump and Normal map. If you want to combine a normalmap with a displacement map you'll have to combine them into a single RGBA texture for now. Then Enscape will recognize it correctly and use the RGB channels for normal and the alpha channel for displacement.


    This limitation might be lifted in future versions down the road though, but will require some overhaul of the current Material Editor UI.


    Hope that helps! :)

    Can you elaborate a bit on the RGBA maps for combining a normal and displacement?

    Lumion does this with reflection maps so is this the same process?

    Are we add the displacement to the alpha in a normal bitmap then saving as tiff?

    What file format is this - tiff?

    I'm not sure what Lumion does regarding reflection maps. After loading a normalmap (which should be an RGB image file) in Photoshop (or similar) you'll need to add an alpha channel. Then copy the greyscale displacement map into this channel. You can safe it in every image format that supports transparency (aka alpha channel) and can be used by Enscape, such as tga, tiff or png.

    Quote from Clemens Musterle

    I'm not sure what Lumion does regarding reflection maps. After loading a normalmap (which should be an RGB image file) in Photoshop (or similar) you'll need to add an alpha channel. Then copy the greyscale displacement map into this channel. You can safe it in every image format that supports transparency (aka alpha channel) and can be used by Enscape, such as tga, tiff or png.

    Nice! I'll give this a go!

    Quote from Clemens Musterle

    I'm not sure what Lumion does regarding reflection maps. After loading a normalmap (which should be an RGB image file) in Photoshop (or similar) you'll need to add an alpha channel. Then copy the greyscale displacement map into this channel. You can safe it in every image format that supports transparency (aka alpha channel) and can be used by Enscape, such as tga, tiff or png.

    So I have opened the normal map, added the displacement map to the alpha channel.


    Saved all channels together to a TIFF file. Which creates a pink/purple end result.

    I add this to Enscape displacement map.



    The problem is now that the end result looks strange.



    What am I doing wrong??(

    Quote from Clemens Musterle

    I'm not sure what Lumion does regarding reflection maps. After loading a normalmap (which should be an RGB image file) in Photoshop (or similar) you'll need to add an alpha channel. Then copy the greyscale displacement map into this channel. You can safe it in every image format that supports transparency (aka alpha channel) and can be used by Enscape, such as tga, tiff or png.

    yeah - I got the same result. I don't know. Maybe the Devs can explain a some more. Hopefully in the next update that can separate the "height category" into proper channels.