Boolean drill with an image map?

[portnicki]

It's probably not possible, but here goes.

Would it be possible to drill through the mesh with an image map?
What we can do is to make a UV from a front projection and then apply a material that has an image set to Opacity.
This way we can kind of look inside the mesh, but there are no walls for the created drill.
I kind of found a workaround - by creatind a flat plane and applying a displacement with the inverted version of the same image. But this is far from perfect. (Why I say this is that the sides of the displaced mesh act different when you apply some material effects to it - like bump, or low roughness.)

I mean I don't think modo renderer can do this either, but who knows, maybe there is a way?

[face_off]

Interesting idea. You could also have the Opacity image applied to the front and back of the surface, although then the "walls" between the front and back would not be present. I suspect your Displacement work-around is the best solution.

Paul

[portnicki]

that's what I thought.

The thing is I have a medal to render. The medal is basically a flat cylinder but its has some irregular holes going through it. I also have a vector image of the whole shape, so istead of modelling these strange holes I thought I could just use an image map for this, but I also need the thickness of the medal and the lack of the inside walls for the holes is stopping me from goind this way.
The extra displacement technique is OK, but not perfect so I guess I'll just have to model this.

Thanks anyway Paul,
Cheers.

PS. This is a funny forum. It's basically us, users, talking to you mate