Parallax Mapping Shader

by Amin Missaoui in Surfacing


Parallax Mapping Shader

What is PMS?

PMS is a node-group that will allow you to fake displacement on surfaces by manipulating the texture coordinates.

  • It can work with UV coordinates and object coordinate and triplanar mapping.
  • It comes with 3 node-group with different resolution 16, 32, 64 depending on your need
  • You also get the option to use an alpha mask that you can directly control with the node


Why use it?

Parallax mapping is a great alternative for displacement as it doesn't need any subdivision for it to work and can add displacement to very low poly objects, saving you memory.
PMS can also be used in close up shots, but the effect can break at very steep angles.


Downsides 

When it comes to downsides with PMS, the main one have to do with the effect of breaking at steep angles or very curved surfaces, and not proper depth sorting.

The node can also be quite inefficient with very large texture, or procedural texture, especially at 64 iteration.

The material setup must be appended multiple times


Requirements

Minimum:
  • 4 GB of ram
  • 512 MB of VRAM
Recommended:
  • 8 GB of ram
  • 3 GB of VRAM


Possible features coming in the future

  • Add-on integration
  • Ambient occlusion
  • Self-shadowing

Before using, make sure to read the documentation and if there are any question, you can contact me via blender market

All texture used are under the CC0 license
Sales 40+
Dev Fund Contributor
Published over 2 years ago
Blender Version 2.93
Render Engine Used cycles, eevee
License Royalty Free
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