I am wondering if there is a way that I can take a small object with a lot of detail and use it as a tiled surface on a larger object.. this would be sort of like using a displacement map but instead of the map its with the actual geometry of the object. I don't really know where to begin with this but its something that I think would work best for what I need, any advice is appreciated.

You can try the Creep SOP.

You can creep on to any attribute but only makes sense when the target object is a parametric surface (Mesh, NURBs, Bezier). Use a duplicate SOP to create an array of your target object then take that result and creep it on to your target surface.


Another approach is to scatter points on your target geometry and use a Copy SOP to copy many duplicates on the point cloud. Make sure to add normals to your target surface before scattering the ponts as the Normals are used to orient the pieces. See the attached file.

There is copy stamping:
http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?/topic/3156-procedural-city/page__p__20924__hl__greeble__fromsearch__1&#entry20924 [forums.odforce.net]

As an aside, there is a thread on OdForce about Greeble techniques that may be of interest (that is if you have a fascination with modeling death stars…):
http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?/topic/7821-challenge-2-greeble-operation/page__p__52244__hl__greeble__fromsearch__1&#entry52244 [forums.odforce.net]

Thanks, this is a great start.. will look into everything you posted.