A butterfly on a leaf

[Comm512]

Hi peeps,

Im working on this scene and im having some troubles. I use Blender 2.46, Indigo 1.1.5 and Blendigo 1.1.5

Click for Imageshack image

I used displacement on the leaf to get the correct structure elevation..
I used the Gimp and its normalmap plugin to create a normal map and the converted it to greyscale. All looked good.

I tried to use a bump map but for some reason i cannot get the right setting.
But the displacement is giving me a headache. You can see the wavy part at the center top of the leaf. the mesh is subdivided in blender and i subdivied the mesh in indigo about 4 times.. i know it is much, but i do not understand all the blender/indigo parameters yet.
Should i switch to bump map and try to get it to bump right? or is displacement the way to go.

And then i wanted to use SSS. Which i thought would look good on the leaf. How do i do that? i tried to set the specular + sss material in blendigo And all i get is black leaf mesh or a transparent one.. Obviously i did something wrong. Is there a way to get a textures sss material? do i need to use blended mats? i can only select blender materials.

I just started 3d again after a very long time. I have some experience with 3d progams, but not much. I really like blender and indigo and i will not stop trying till i get the hang of things.

I know i asked a lot of questions, but any help would be appreciated.

[SimonLarsen]

Looks really good.
But using a grayscale normalmap as a displace/bump map isn't a good idea, since it works in different ways.

Also the black stuff on the wings looks a bit odd. I'd reconsider that.

About the SSS leaf, I think the Docteur made some sweet tests on that.
Try to search around the forum for it. Should be here somewhere.

[Comm512]

Thanks, i will look into the Docteur's tests. Ive seen his displacement tests earlier i believe.

But what do you mean with the black oddness? Is it too black? the wing contains geometric bumps along the fat black lines. But it does not show.
Could that be due to lack of reflection on the wings?

Maybe i shoudl consider sss on the wings as well. They have thickness

Creating a normal map seamed the only reasable way t get the lightning and shadow effects from the textureimage. I must google that too then

Better looik into the sss examples quickly then