Overview

Octopus-VDMs are high resolution vector displacement maps that are generated from detailed photogrammetry scans containing several million triangles. All VDMs undergo an optimization algorithm resulting in minimal stretch and clean topology with very low distortion, even for complex shapes with overhangs. The vector displacement maps have a resolution of 2048 x 2048 and come with a color texture of the same size.

What you get

To celebrate the start of the project I am happy to release these 8 vector displacement map assets for free under the creatve commons license. Try them out to see if they fit your workflow and quality requirements and If you like them, check out my other VDM packages.

Each VDM is provided in two verions:

• The original version that directly corresponds to the 3D-scanned geometry.
• A flattened version with zero displacement at the borders which is better suited for sculpting.

Additionally, all VDMs come with a texture derived from color calibrated photos that perfectly fit the geometry. Note, that in Blender there is currently no good way to apply VDMs with textures in sclupting mode so they are primarily useful for geometry node setups.

What is special about Octopus-VDMs

Unlike most VDMs available, Octopus-VDMs are directly computed from 3D-scanned geometry and thus provide high detail, color and subtle imperfections only found in nature.

Computing VDMs from large unstructured input meshes with arbitrary topology, bridges and potential holes is no easy task and required custom software specifically developed for this project. The core algorithm converts an input mesh with tens of millions of triangles to a deformed regular grid of size 2048 x 2048 from which the final VDM can be computed. During the computation the grid is optimized to have low distortion and even sampling.

In Blender, this improves the sculpting experience, especially with mulitresolution meshes since no remeshing or 'dyntopo' is required to maintain a good topology. Also, the quality of applied textures and painted vertex colors will be maintained during the scuplting process.