A favorite Texture Synthesizer effect of mine is to build texture based displacement mapping effects, like the one shown below. This post will show how to modify the simple Texture Synthesizer effect we were working with yesterday and configure it to be a texture driven displacement mapping effect.
The control panels below show off some of the different texture synthesizer control panel settings used for the effect above. The first 2, showing the Spatial and Generator control panels, are essentially the same as yesterday’s post. The Directionality parameter is set a little higher than yesterday in the Spatial control panel to make a slightly more directional texture field.
Note that we’re using the same Canvas setting for the Depth Mod Src parameter as yesterday, with a Depth Mod setting of 200%. So the canvas luminance channel is locally modulating the depth of the generated procedural texture field.
The Effect and Composite control panels shown in the 3rd and 4th gallery images above were slightly modified from yesterday’s post to create the texture modulated displacement effect shown at the top of today’s post. Note that I changed the Effect Type parameter in the Effect control panel from Replace to Displace.
Since the Color Source parameter is set to the Canvas, I started off by erasing the canvas to the source image before running the texture synthesizer. If you ran this effect on an existing painted canvas, you could use it to displacement map the painting, which can also be an interesting visual treatment to a basic paint effect to give it more organic complexity.
Note that I changed the Composite parameter in the Output control panel from Replace to Edge2. That particular Composite algorithm can work well with displacement mapping effects.
Exploring the Different Effect Types
You should try out the different Effect Type settings in the Effect control panel with a given set of texture field settings to get a feel for what the different Effect Types can do. Changing the Color Space will also modify many of the visual effects generated by different Effect Type options. And different Effect Type options may bring up additional controls associated with the specific effect you selected.
Also, you can try changing the Angle and/or Directionality parameter settings in the Spatial control panel to get a better sense of how the generated texture field influences the overall Effect Type. Once you are comfortable with the different Effect Type options, you can move on to exploring the different parameters in the Generator control panel to dramatically change the appearance of the generated texture field.
Remember, since the texture field is modulated by what is already in the canvas, you want to reset the canvas to the source image prior to trying out a new Effect Type.
