Super Subdivision

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This render is nothing but a single material on a single plane.

Crazy, right?

It uses one of the most powerful Cycles features:

Adaptive subdivision.

Adaptive Subdivision is a special render option you can enable. It subdivides your mesh to an insanely fine level, but only at render time. And only in Cycles.

Since this is a render effect, it can be controlled by the shader nodes.

Which gives you the power of render-time displacement—real mesh displacement, done through your material, only at render time.

Sound complicated? Don't worry. Here's how it works.

• You set up Adaptive Subdivision for an object. Cycles adds more or less subdivision, depending on how close it is to the camera (that's why it's called Adaptive.)

• You enable Displacement for your material.

• You add a Displacement node to your material, and use a texture to control its Height.

Now you have real material-controlled displacement. It only works at render time, so you won't see anything unless you're in Rendered view (or you do a render.)

This power allows you to make crazy detailed materials. Materials that actually affect the mesh itself (allows for greater depth than a bump or normal map.)

It's almost midnight now—time to learn how to make it:

> Add a Plane.

> Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier.

> Set your Render Engine to Cycles. Right below that menu, change the Feature Set to Experimental (Adaptive Subdivision is technically still an experimental feature—save your file a lot in case you have a crash.)

> Add a new material to your plane.

> In the Material tab of the Properties panel, scroll down to Settings, open it up, and set Displacement to Displacement And Bump. This allows the real displacement to happen.

> Check Adaptive Subdivision on the Subdivision Surface modifier you added earlier.

OK, now it's all set up. Last thing to do is try it!

> Add a Displacement node in your material.

> Plug it into the Displacement on the output node.

> Plug a Noise Texture into the Height.

> Switch to Rendered View. (Add a light if you need to see better.)

You got it! Cool adaptive subdivision.

If you have any questions, or if this didn't work, just hit reply and tell me.

You just learned:

• What Adaptive Subdivision is

• How it works

• How to set it up in your own projects

Last note: Don't drink and subdivide. Don't drop the Dicing Scale too low or you'll find a huge melted wad of plastic and circuitry where your beloved computer used to be. And that's no fun.

Have a great week. I'll see you again next Monday!

P.S. Like a good story? Check out Voyage. You get a new, original piece of short fiction every other Friday. (And it's totally free.)

Weekly Render Prompt

This week, try making:

> Something from the ocean. Anything from a seashell to a sea monster. 🐳

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