![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)
First hurdle. The preview scenes are difficult to use IMO for setting up displacement materials. I'm never quite certain what scale they are at, the number of subdivisions on the preview mesh seems kind of low, and its small complex geometry is geared towards testing other characteristics of the material.
Having a test scene in your modeling package gives you control over mesh subdivision surfaces. You can also control other things like lighting and scale easily. I think it's a good idea to create your own test scene with much simpler geometry. I've attached a simple test scene in .pigs and .blend format that can be used to create a displacement material in the indigo gui or blender.
![Image](http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o569/dmnite/d473e49f-771a-4651-a2f7-c9b72fd9a6ce_zps4c13d371.png)
![Image](http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o569/dmnite/2b2a1ea1-0e21-4730-ba56-ccc6f84d624f_zps1ed3bcca.png)
![Image](http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o569/dmnite/79420a13-1767-45d1-9c2c-cb07ca89c46e_zps9524459d.png)
Second hurdle. subdivision of a mesh is essential in order for displacement to work. A non-subdivided mesh with a displacement material will simply look like you extruded the face. Subdivision breaks the mesh faces down into much smaller faces. Indigo has its own mesh subdivision. You may not need your modelling package's subdivision capability.
In blender, in the properties panel > object data > indigo object settings: here you can set the number of subdivisions and some other preferences.
In sketchup, right click on your object/mesh > Skindigo > edit active mesh: brings up the mesh settings panel.
In indigo gui : currently not possible to modify subd? must go into text editor and manually insert subdivision code?
Tip: The stone texture has smoothing turned on the displacement map texture dialog, the brick and grass have smoothing turned off.
I wonder: 1) is it possible to use isl to disturb a displaced mesh. e.g. the grass, with a noise shader push the grass around to make it lean, or even make crop circles. 2)Is it possible to use isl to place mesh instances on a surface? 3) is it possible to get light transmission in the higher elevated polys of the displacement map, to differentiate between stones and mud or grass and ground? perhaps using a blend map? My guess on this is no, use separate grass and stone objects at that point, but I ask anyway. 4) can displacement without texture or subd be used to auto-bevel objects?
I have to go shovel the side walk now...16" of snow, yay.