Parallax Occlusion Mapping in Blender // Tutorial

"The first 500 people to use my link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare" skl.sh/default...
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[@EdKidgell]

So. I open blender up, delete the default cube......then what?

[@sicfxmusic]

Then delete default light and then default camera. Finally, delete Blender. Start again.

[@Harry-bp2dl]

Then you add a new cube.

[@jay.p3g]

Simple, he can’t make anymore videos because well….you deleted him :(

[@HeadFlyyy]

then you rewatch the whole tutorial again step by step

[@brunocastro4558]

@@sicfxmusic 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@Ghc902]

he's just using blender to teach you linear algebra

[@DefaultCube]

dont tell them

[@monarchblack3004]

@@DefaultCube You better knock that shit off..!

[@vextormull]

It's working!

[@IcoreZero]

DAMNIT ALGEBRA you fooled me once again

[@jaym2112]

Couldn’t understand it less than my linear algebra class taught by the nuttiest Ukrainian to ever enter the US. I still don’t know what an eigen value is. Oh, and 20 years of engineering later… I never needed to.

[@someloser7991]

Extra tip: use a white noise texture instead of the discrete depth checks - simplifies the number of nodes and gets rid of the stepping, at the cost of looking a bit noisier.

[@True-VFX]

Classic “dithering”. Just bear in mind for anyone that does this, its NOT a blur method. Dithering can mess up displacement and height map outputs.

[@004307ec]

😮 I remember this trick in making good looking refraction.

[@conradfalloff991]

9:05 and _this_ is why I want Repeat Zones in the Shader Editor

[@samfellner]

Im not smart enough to figure out to fix this repetition problem myself, how would you actually do it, without adding all those step nodes manually? This parallax effect is so mindblowing i really want to incorporate it in my work

[@Denomote]

​@@samfellner honestly you're better off just using actual displacement instead of doing all this lol this is only useful if you're really serious about cutting down render times

[@bifrostbeberast3246]

@@Denomote Only problem I get with render times are volumes and sadly occlusion mapping and parallax are no good there. Pity

[@jmalmsten]

To replicate this with displacement mapping I guess I'd need one triangle per pixel. That scales reaaaasaally fast. A 1K*1K texture would need a million triangles. Multiplying that if the texture repeats. Yeah, sure I probably wouldn't need 1 triangle per pixel in most cases. But even outside of games, realtime backgrounds on volume stages and stuff like that, I would love a more user friendly approach to occlusion mapping, collapsed to a single node. Would save on so much effort. :)

[@Venous_fx]

@@Denomote displacement can really eat up your vram/ram usage and destroy render times. This is really useful. Im thinking theres probably a way to implement using osl, that way you can just use a for loop.

[@Kornet7a7]

GOAT of blender still on the block

[@peaklander1]

"get it...? BLOCK?"

[@iam_abdullah2]

Thanks for motivation. I was planning to delete blender. Now I did it.

[@menteirradiante1307]

kkkkkkkk🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@SapiensVirtus]

🤣

[@darrennew8211]

I finally understand how parallax occlusion mapping works.

[@NekoSamaIru]

I wanna cry. I understood nothing!! But, I really wanna use parallax occlusion, because my PC isn't strong enough for displacement maps! This was still a very detailed tutorial, so I will probably get it after watching it a few times. It's easier to understand things when I have no choice but to understand them to complete a project.

[@PaulBrunt]

Doesn't that break when you rotate the plain? you need to transform the incoming vector into texture space. ie take the dot product on the incoming vector with normal, tangent and binormal. Although I'm sure you know that, I'm guessing there is a part 2 🙂Be warned the technique doesn't work on curved surfaces anymore, blender clamps the normal so you can't have be pointing into the plane surface, because is messes up eevee next. That caused me such a headache trying to figure out what was wrong!

[@DefaultCube]

yep, just multiply by that matrix - the one i linked in description has that

[@cyborgmetropolis7652]

A couple years ago i followed a similar tutorial showing how to make fake windows with rooms behind them. I ended up with a project to build the rooms (with wall decorations, lighting, etc.), which put out a node set, and a shader template to modify with the node set.

[@_framehold]

'the man, the myth, the legend, the mathematical wizard'

[@tiavstudio]

Your ability to teach is phenomenal. Thank you for being an inspiration.

[@danialsoozani]

BEST Parallax Occlusion Tutorial ever!

[@sobreaver]

WHOOAAA !!! But seriously, great tutorial ! Relatively deep subject but well explained, even though we might have to take a few steps back a few times to figure things out correctly, you gave us a precise and concise explanation. I just watch a video on the colour perception of jumping spiders and all to say, it is quite a wonder the things we can manage to do with the information we can manage to perceive :)

[@bifrostbeberast3246]

Damn I got the same jumping spider video recommended when I read your comment, lol. KZbin algorithm is so generic.

[@littleretrostudios]

First time I saw Parallax mapping was in F.E.A.R. The decals on damaged walls. It was one of the coolest things to see because it was so much detail for something that use to be a black dot.

[@dazecm]

Great explanation for something I considered sorcery when I saw it used in 3D.

[@to.bonnet]

Men that's just so much you give us. Thanks a lot, have to rewatch it several times to fully get it i think

[@Mr-dk1dh]

This guy is the best blender youtuber

[@Gr13fM4ch1n3]

I like how my brain turned off for every single thing except the skillshare ad.

[@SportzSwag]

Hey, I saw that your Blender speed while making animations is very quick and has good quality. What laptop or PC do you use?

[@p.m3204]

yeah i'm not doing allat

[@bossowl33]

Then why watch the video? Lazy ass.

[@user-kt4kh8he7e]

I was waiting for this video

[@mrmunkee]

Forgot to set normal and roughness to non color instead of sRGB (I assume you know to do that but just forgot in the moment). Normal maps and roughness maps are not displayed correctly when set as sRGB so the rocks at the end look a bit weird. Cool video though, I wish blender just had POM support by default like most game engines where you just plug in a height map.

[@theneonbop]

have you seen anisotropic cone step mapping? I would be surprised if its possible to make in nodes but it is supposed to often be both faster and higher quality. It uses scaled cones centered on each pixel instead of vertical layers, and requires a preprocessing step. There's also nvidia's relaxed cone step mapping which looks similar except it makes the cones intersect the geometry and adds a binary search at the end.

[@SirWrender]

So let me see if I'm understanding this correctly, cuz the difference between parallax mapping and displacement mapping is confusing. Traditional displacement mapping actually displaces the geometry. I'm not sure about Cycles/Eevee, but in Octane Render it's displacing the surface at the render level rather than actually displacing the polygons themselves. That's how you can have high quality displacement with a low poly model. I've always seen this as a great way to get height detail without overloading a scene. It seems parallax mapping seems to imitate displacement mapping without actually displacing anything. Kind of like how bump/normal maps create the illusion of surface detail, but when you look at the edges of the model, it's still smooth and flat. It seems this parallax method would similarly break down when you're looking along the tangent of a surface. I'd imagine it's less computationally expensive though, so it'd render way faster. Interesting. Nice tutorial!

[@akolyadin]

First thing popping to mind: convert the height map into something akin to 3d SDF, which will optimise the amount of steps needed for each fragment as well as accuracy.

[@AyushBakshi]

This madlad got 'i can remap your life' kind of energy

[@piewars12345]

Further proof that Crytek is made up of a bunch of wizards

[@vectorhunter4659]

this method has some limitations but can work for some cases is enough, thanks for sharing

[@nicholaskuebelbeck7184]

So Enjoyable

[@InfinitySiam]

oh finally a great quality tutorial! I am joking you are the best.

[@6amsunset_]

i got whiplash at 9:04

[@ProjectHelisexuality]

I totally got everything covered here!

[@CloudColumncat]

It made my head hurt but it was well worth it, the longest thing for me here was the 7 hours I invested in Zbrush to create that texture lol

[@bUildYT]

damnn thats like octane ggs dude!

[@gifdapif]

Once again, blow my mind

[@bhuvaneshwaranm5798]

I really want fragment shader kinda setup in blender. So then I can for loop through all the iteration easily.

[@betwixedxen7648]

We really need the ability to loop like geometry nodes in n shader nodes, that and pass a texture parameter into a node group Bravo

[@DJ_Narcan]

Thanks for posting this! That forum is a wealth of knowledge

[@MateHomolya]

You could say this is like a ray marching algorithm but with Blender geometry nodes

[@TheVigore]

It looks kinda wonderful, but I have serious concerns about how much longer the render will become with a setup like that. If only it was a sort of - low level processor instruction node...

[@ariandesign3981]

Wow, amazing stuff! Thanks a lot for sharing it! A big ciao from Italy and Long life to Blender! :)

[@electronicinfection]

Can youy do some Unreal Engine content? UE is free to use and extremely powerful but it lacks proper tutorials and you Sir are a godsend for Blender. DO it for UE too. Give it a try and help us Blender boys understand Unreal Engine. Thanks!

[@dubblesnup4457]

it doesn't lack proper tutorials. ben cloward is a great channel for unreal engine materials if you want to dive deeper there.

[@electronicinfection]

@@dubblesnup4457 Thanks.

[@martinconstable5911]

You are a god who walks among us.

[@thecwd8919]

I wonder if you could do a binary search instead of buckets I dont know blender well so I cant say, but it would help mitigate the blockiness

[@janvandertoorn]

Must say this is quite genius! amazing thnx

[@onjofilms]

For those that want to listen to this normal speed, change to .75 playback.

[@digital0785]

big heart for jordy

[@anshbhilare9565]

Only if there was a way to get pixel depth offset too, it would be perfect

[@elchampion4658]

instead of doing the "drill check" wouldn't a binary search be better, so start at 0.5 then go half the way in the direction that it hints?

[@hanzi1801]

okay so, whats the actual use? saves performace?

[@sarodesh]

Bro you're a genius

[@bennyweimer2345]

I have tried to do this well so many times in blender

[@GUMMY_MKII]

Amazing man, I crave node shenanigans

[@astedroid]

This is the equivalent to "Yeah, Im a visual learner" in math class wthen learning about vectors

[@BonkBonkad]

Finally you upgraded the tutorial..

[@jmalmsten]

Looks great... Now... Is there a plugin that gives me that with a single node? 😅 I mean, if that node tree works for any plane. Then it should be collapsible for ease of use and minimizing any risks of user error? Also. Doing that operation 20 times makes me wonder, is there no way to do for-loops in blender?

[@autonk6217]

omg omg omg omg tysm tysm tysm tysm

[@GANXY]

Very cool technique!

[@Shellnanigans]

thank you!

[@fjfixkdnhc]

This is nice, thank you

[@givowo]

Man a loop would be nice in nodes

[@tusher23]

😅 One breathe at a time, Thanks a lot saviour!! 🎉

[@wsg1231]

funny for me it's heavier to use displacement texture as for using this method Is it just because displacement uses experimental subdev?

[@tobiashagstrom4168]

There is a lot of talk about Z-axis coordinates here, does that mean this only works this way on surfaces that are flat horizontal?

[@vagneralmada7804]

In 8:36 he did not connect the 0.8, he jumped from .6 to 1 in the comparations

[@004307ec]

❤nice tutorial!

[@drokolesko12]

Awesome as always, man!

[@bonecoseoutrascoisas-leiri1131]

great! Thank you!

[@MirceaKitsune]

I use Blender for ages and never checked if this is possible. Granted the setup is too complex for something I'd use normally: Would be great if this was builtin!

[@kelajuan_]

How to add more than one POM texture in a blend file, since multiple materials share the same height map group?

[@khaban]

One question: Do you speed up your videos?

[@JasonKey3D]

nice explanation, thanks 🙏

[@anthonyzornig]

Thx for sharing!

[@sebo102]

Blender devs ask bro how blender works

[@gamingx16071]

I literally discovered this one week ago

[@thomas7726]

😮 Why use bump or normal map insted this parallax?

[@helloruler-tests8045]

this is delicious

[@iKaGe01]

I understand why it works but no way could I figure out why you would so it the way you do it and with which nodes etc on my own haha

[@Danger_N00dle]

Doing stuff in steps like this seems weird. I think we need the node equivalent of Calculus.

[@_BeKind]

Is there a way of blurring the edges of an image texture into eachother to make a short fake seemless texture with nodes? Might be a cool experiment

[@worry74147]

Thank you very much :D

[@FerGalicia]

Bravo sir!

[@joshualegallais513]

That was amazing

[@lovergun4360]

uhh.. im sorry i cant understand the what is 'depth' group node?? how make that?

[@TheTurt1e9]

I’ve spent some time trying to use this technique to represent windows of a building similar to the ones in the Spider-Man games. Any ideas pointers you’d be able to share?

[@huseyinpehlivan6072]

Okey thats nice but how can we writing this data to depth buffer

[@quanke0801]

Doing loops in blender node editor is a nightmare. We have osl script node available but then lose the ability to run on GPU 😅

[@deloeste33]

I'm following the steps until 6:52 when suddenly appeared a group called Depth, and I'm not sure how that was created. Help!

[@Levi-samaa]

Does it affect render time instead of using hight map with lot of gemoetry?

[@chinonsopromise4962]

I only understood the skillshare ad😢😢

[@PCgmesforever]

Really cool. It got me wondering tho. Could we get rid of the "layered" effect somehow ? Like calculating what the normal should be in-between based on previous plans next layer ?

[@edwardevans1498]

that's what parallax occlusion mapping does, it's also a difference between POM and Steep parallax mapping, I'm not sure if he implemented this

[@conrad6071]

we really need loop nodes in blender shader editor

[@MrMoon-hy6pn]

Also a way to supply a texture for a node group without having to duplicate and faff around inside if it has a texture dependency. I think a sampling node would be super handy, basically it would act like the current texture node but allow a user to input any texture to a socket. Splitting the job of the texture node in two. It would enable a more user friendly interface, and allow for advanced coordinate manipulation. I doubt it’ll happen but I can dream. I also want a proper way to get per light information into a material for better npr shaders. Shader to rgb works but it’s limited and pretty clunky. That’s a whole nother can of worms though.

[@epicjonny155]

can you try to release a blend file of the node?

[@coder0xff]

Ray marching shader next?

[@MinkSquared]

So this is basically shell texturing

[@infectioussneeze9099]

so you've achieved POM, now how about PDO with shadows so it interacts with other objects and not look flat uppon intersection?

[@edwardevans1498]

self shadows should be possible but I don't think you can have correct shadows from other objects without depth offset

[@iceseic]

tried it years ago, but its not that usefull due to the layer line effect happening

[@fiveoneecho]

I’m not sure why I didn’t realize POM is just fancy shell meshing until now…

[@burd7455]

Wizard lvl