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How to Add Displacement Texture in Maya

Published in Maya Texturing 4 mins read

Adding displacement texture in Maya involves connecting a texture file to the material's shading group, influencing the geometry's surface at render time.

Here's a breakdown of the process:

Understanding Displacement

Displacement mapping is a technique used in 3D rendering to modify the surface of an object based on a texture map. Unlike bump or normal maps which only simulate surface detail by faking light interaction, displacement mapping actually pushes and pulls the object's vertices, creating real geometric detail. This requires the object to have sufficient resolution (subdivision) at render time to display the detail effectively.

Steps to Add Displacement

Adding a displacement texture is primarily done within Maya's Hypershade window, connecting your texture file to the appropriate part of your material's network.

  1. Create and Assign a Material:

    • Open the Hypershade window (Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade).
    • Drag and drop your desired material type (e.g., Blinn, Lambert, Arnold Standard Surface) from the Create bar into the work area to create it.
    • Select the object in your viewport you want to apply displacement to.
    • In the Hypershade, middle-drag the material swatch onto the selected object in the viewport to assign it. (This aligns with Reference 1).

  2. Graph the Material Network and Select Shading Group:

    • In the Hypershade, select the material you just created.
    • Click the "Graph Network" button (often looks like interconnected nodes) or right-click the material and choose Graph Network. This displays the nodes associated with the material, including the crucial Shading Group node.
    • Select the Shading Group node in the graph. This node manages the material's output, including displacement. (This aligns with Reference 2). The Shading Group node typically has a suffix like SG.

  3. Create and Connect the File Texture Node:

    • With the Shading Group node selected or visible in the graph, you need to connect your displacement texture.
    • In the Hypershade's Create bar, under "Textures" > "2D Textures", click on File. A file node appears in the work area.
    • Select the newly created file node. In the Attribute Editor or Property Editor, find the Image Name attribute under the file tab.
    • Click the folder icon next to Image Name to browse and select your displacement image file (usually a grayscale or 16/32-bit color image like TIFF, EXR, or JPG). (This aligns with Reference 3).

  4. Connect File Node to Shading Group Displacement:

    • This is the critical step for applying displacement.
    • In the Hypershade graph, middle-drag the file node onto the Shading Group node.
    • A connection menu will appear. Choose displacementShader.
    • Alternatively, you can use the Connection Editor or Attribute Editor. Select the file node, open its Attribute Editor, and find its output attribute (e.g., Out Color or Out Alpha). Select the Shading Group node, open its Attribute Editor, and find the Displacement Shader input. Connect the output of the file node to this input. For grayscale displacement maps, connecting Out Color or Out Alpha works.

  5. Configure Object and Render Settings:

    • For displacement to render correctly, the object needs sufficient geometry. This is typically handled by enabling subdivision at render time. The method varies depending on your renderer (e.g., Arnold, V-Ray).
    • Select the object(s). Open the Attribute Editor.
    • For Arnold, in the shape tab, find the "Arnold" section and expand "Subdivision". Set Type to catclark or linear and increase Iterations. You might also need to adjust Displacement Attributes like Scale.
    • Ensure your rendering engine is set up to process displacement.

After completing these steps and setting up subdivision, rendering your scene should now show the geometric detail from your displacement texture.

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