Adventures across the 3rd dimension

I wish Blender would automatically save the texture maps that I can occasionally be bothered to paint.

Save File.
Now Quit.
"Quit?"
Yes. Quit.
Wait a minute. What was that message that flashed up at the bottom? Something about images?
Relaunch Blender.
Reload file.
Texture map gone!

Dynamic topology and subsurface modifiers don't mix very well.
I learned so you don't have to.

Thankfully all was saved beforehand.

Oh, my head.

Well, that was a fun evening of trying to work out why my geometry displacement maps did and didn't work. Reading and rereading tutorials. Watching and rewatching videos. Switching between Blender 2.8 and 3.0. Loading textures that worked. Creating textures that didn't. And failing to understand the difference between them.

But finally. I get it. I think.
First you have to select Displacement Only in the surface settings that ONLY appear when you're in Cycles. Then you have to choose Adaptive subdivision and that option ONLY appears if you set the renderer to use Experimental Features.

But then... eventually... It works!
Now, what did I want to use it for again?

And while I'm still here in this thread I may as well point out that my numerous attempts to make a less floofy wolf were all based on these free clips of a longer less-free tutorial...







Understanding how hair naturally flows around the body and trying to maintain control while combing it is annoyingly challenging.

Once again I didn't achieve much today but I did have fun playing around with the Adaptive Subdivision displacement thing... now that I know how to use it.
I was also messing about with trying to create your own displacement maps and after a bit of googling around I found a fantastic bit of free software called  Materialize  which lets you make all kinds of separate maps from just any old photo. And you can tweak the tiling too!

I should get back to actually trying to do something, shouldn't I?
Maybe tomorrow.

Yes, but I didn't know what is was for and how useful it was until now.

This is always a bit of an issue with 3D Stuff and probably why more people don't get into it as easily as they do with digital painting. All the individual skills and tools and techniques all seem a little abstract when viewed on their own in isolation and it's only when you get involved in trying to solve a particular problem that it all comes together and starts to make a bit more sense.