Improved Smudge 3D Quality

Here is a simplified and improved way of using the Smudge component for volumetric extrusion. The example rendering is based on the Spherical Previewer.

Instead of extruding the actual bump / surface / ?? material maps, I transform the coordinate space. Since we only extrude in one direction (vertical), we can let the horizontal space remain procedural. This alone is a 50% improvement in rendering quality.

Moreover since we are transforming coordinate space, it makes sense to use the build-in anti-alias and lower the Density parameter a little (somewhere btwn 95-99, depending on rendering context). I.e. we don't risk blurring the sources or flattening (the wrapping effect) the bump map.

Finally since we transform the space, we can reuse the result for as many maps we want. Thus only one Smudge is required.

Feel free to adapt this method in your 2.5D "tracers"

Spherical Object.ffxml

Thanks very much for improving on this topic, I will try it and see how it works.

Nice example you have done, great textures and cool

Brilliant -- massive improvement in image quality!

I assume this is also faster since the (likely) most calculation-intensive step is only done once.

Awesome. Have to try this on a couple of filters -thanks.