Christoph Hormann wrote:
> I was mostly referring to speed, apart from that it's never good if a
> technique totally depends on aa (or focal_blur) to function.

  Well, for speed reasons, I can't recommend any of both techniques... :) 
But your right about the dependance of the technique on aa or focal_blur, 
altough the average technique also depends somewhat on samples, or number 
of averaged textures, wich needs to be high to get smooth results (wich is 
almost as slow as a high quality aa or focal_blur).
 
> Using focal blur for smoothing will not work in the focal plane, you will
> always get a grainy appearance there.

  Yes, your right. But as I don't plan to use these "micronormals" alone, 
but with other bigger normals and upper dirty layers, grain is not really a 
big deal.
 
> BTW, did you use the default normal accuracy or a different value?

  Variance 0, of course... :)
 
  I'was just playing a bit more yesterday, and tried a "mixed" technique, 
using both concepts, "micronormals" and averaged textures. Here is attached 
the result, a bit more grain-free and not so slow (needs fewer 
blur_samples). I used 95% quality on the jpeg to not add much more grain to 
the image.

 
-- 
Jaime Vives Piqueres

La Persistencia de la Ignorancia
http://www.ignorancia.org

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