Rendering ZBrush Displacement-Maps In External Renderers (May 9th: 2nd file added)

[PusGhetty]

Ofer,
And any Poser5 users.
I hope this isn't too late but I have been ultra busy... here are the settings for Poser5 w/5.0.4.321 update patch:
First the Alpha had to be brought back into ZBrush and split into the Positive and Negative maps using the Alpha adjustment curve as stated earlier in this thread. Before you export these as 16 bit .tifs make sure the EP(Export Processed Alpha) button in the Alpha palette is pressed, and also flip the maps vertically.
Import these displacement maps into Photoshop or similar image editor and save them out as 8-bit tifs.
Next bring them into Poser 5 and while in the Material room create a math node with "add" as the argument. Set value1 to 1.00 and make a new node for it... a 2d image map node. Import your positive 8-bit .tif as the image map. Now set Value2 to -1.00 and make a new 2d image map node for it. You guessed it, import your negative 8-bit .tif as the image map.
Set the displacement value in this case to 8.34
Goto the render options and use the firefly render with 8.34 in the minimum displacement bounds box. Play with the rest of the settings to get an optimum render.
This latest update makes some parts of my tutorial on Displacement maps and Poser5 obsolete. The tutorial I'm talking about is found in the Z2 Practical Guide. I wrote the tut while z2 was still in Beta.
Oh well, at least it works better now,
Michael
*Edited*
Upon further examination it seems that I am getting an orange peel effect when using this solution. I am trying to convert the 16bit tif to other file formats but haven't had any luck so far... Poser5 does not accept 16 bit tifs at all.
I hope we solve this soon!

Image render from Poser5 Firefly raytracer.
PsrDispProof.jpg

[kobi1kobi]

Here is a nice result of the sword, rendered in turtle with the following settings:
subd level = 3
displacement scale = 10
HDRI Image for light and reflection
original rendered at 2k*2k

render time unfortunately is very long, but quality is high.
Note - the model is the second sword model, with higher initial poly count.

[steventaylor]

sword 3 dif meshsmooth (none,1and2), all using max4, displacement approximation,high setting,fliped the map in Photoshop and ajusted the contrast.apply the displacement in the material slot and set to 12.
3swords.jpg

[JackMcRip]

Great ZBrush with using C4D-Rendering:
Import, load Dispmap to Displacechanal.
Material must Flip Y.
SubPolygonDisplacement activate. Sublevel 4-5.
Render: (40-60 Sec. on P4 3Ghz 1GB)

SPD-Rendertests.jpg

[Kabe]

...seems to be even a bit more subtle:

SPDtest1.jpg

Render time on my completely outdated Mac Cube 17 Minutes, which translates to ~1,5 Minute on a modern G5 or Pentium.

Pretty cool stuff ;-)

BTW: The texturemap needs to be flipped vertical to match. after looking through this thread this seems to be the fact for most software products anyway...

Kabe

[2DragonZ]

Rendered in XSI 4.0 with P4 2.8G 1G RAM : 30 Sec.

Great Forum and Z2 rocks !!!

2dragonz_Test.jpg

[sunit]

prman: maya - rat. using a basic clay surface, and a remapped image for the displacment. still working out the kinks...

-sunit

pixTest_0_1.jpg

[policarpo]

Just seeing how well a Unsharp Mask post tweak stands against a higher density SubD displacement mesh.

I need to try a few more angles...but ya know me...I like pushing it.

c4d9_tests.jpg

[AdamT]

First entry with Cinema's new sub-polygon displacement! Fifty seconds at subdivision level 5:

C4D_R9_TestHead_sm.jpg

[deszo]

I did these 2 images, the first is using the default scanline of 3dsmax 6, with a displace modifier applied above a Meshsmooth with 3 iterations and a UVW Unrap (I used MAX's scanline 'cause I installed WinXP w/SP2 and I can't install Vray 1.093 on it anymore...), and the 2nd was made with Vray render and Vray displacement modifier, 2D mapping, when it worked on my PC (by the way anyone knows how to make Vray work on XP SP2?? in pvt plz).

disp_test_scanline01_lr.jpg

disp_test_vray01_lr.jpg

Seeya,
LSD
http://lukie.org (http://lukie.org/)
http://lukie.org/blog

[kostas_mavromatis]

:D Hello,Kostas Mavrommatis student from greece,new to z-brush.Trouble rendering with softimage|xsi,just cant get the detail from z-brush when rendering displacement in xsi,any tips please?

[kostas_mavromatis]

:) Hello!My name is Kostas Mavromatis,student from greece,new to z-brush,terrific thread rray,would you have an xsi rendertree detailed example?i just seem to do something wrong!!!thanx in advance

[nomiakasu]

Hi Everyone. This was a quickish test done with the new Rio version of Brazil RS for Max 6. Having problems with the hair and high frequency detail in the flesh although I can't tell so far if people are using bumps for that. Sorry the pic isn't a bit bigger but those are the limitations of the demo.

If anyone is still reading this thread and wants to see an extreme close up then reply and I'll upload one with all the stats etc.

DispTestHead_Render.jpg

[DaJuice]

Yyyello
Houdini Apprentice 6

Import obj file. As one previous Houdini user pointed out, the file extension must be in lower case so rename it from OBJ to obj.

Scale the model down to about 1/100th of it's original size to avoid shadow bias problems.

Apply the shader and set the model to 'Render As Subdivison Surfaces' in the object render parameters. You can also set the displace boound and turn up the shading quality if desired.



zbrushhead.jpg

zbrush_sword1.jpg

zbrush_sword2.jpg

zbrush_disp.jpg

[ashaiad]

Photoshop
I opend the texture file in Photoshop - under image i used Auto contrast to bring the value to black and white
change the mode to RGB and save as to a new texture file
now you have the option to flip it or do it in maya , I just done it in maya

Maya
import the Obj
Rotate it 90 on the X
in the hyper shader apply a new texture and use the displacment mamp that you just created (the RGB one MR will give an error if you use the orginal one)

in the color balance of the texture file I used the following
Alpha gain 1.670
Alpha offset -0.865

As for the object
get the Att Editor and under displacment map
turn of feature displacment
and under tesselation make it 4

i took it a littel bet further and used SSS shader and htats what i got

head_test_SS.jpg

[Ruy]

I'm a new member and I've been watching the results that Zbrush produces with displacement maps , I've tried to download your head sample , but the second it finishes , it immediately opens dreamweaver with text nonsense, do you know what can I do ? so I can experiment with your object and lightwave on a mac.

Thank you.

[JackMcRip]

Is this THread a dead-born child?
Where are reactions from the threadstarter about this nice thread?
Or is there a Plugin out with the 3D-App export ??

[Ruy]

Hi, administrator: Do you know how can I download your head files? I downloaded a zip file but the result is that dreamweaver opens it immediately and displays only the code text.... I'm using a mac and explorer, and pretend to test your models along with the displacement maps in lightwave 7.O, so Do you know how can I convert this files , or is there another link to download them.
Thank You

[aurick]

Hello Ruy,

The problem is that when you installed Dreamweaver, you allowed it to change the setting for zip files so that Dreamweaver opens them instead of WinZip or Stuffit. The particular steps that you need to do at this point are different depending upon whether you're a PC or Mac user.

If you're a PC user, right-click on the link and choose "Save Target As". Then specify a location for the file to be saved to. After it has downloaded, go to that location and right-click on it. Choose the "Open With" option and "Choose Program." In the list that pops up, you'll be able to find WinZip (if you have WinZip installed). Select that, and also check the box to always use this program. From then on, this problem will be solved.

If you're a Mac user, you should click and hold on the link, then choose "Download Link to Disk" from the dialogue. Then you can open it using Stuffit Expander.

[godsbane]

Hi guys, I just learnt about the wonders of Displacement and Normal mapping from the Unreal Engine 3 demos. So I'm thrilled to learn ZBrush might be able to give me these effects shoould I ever start an Unreal 3 Mod. I also have Poser 5 and I want to eventually sell poser stuff online, so I thought I'd strat there.

Here's my Poser 5 render...

ZB_DispMapTest01.jpg

Here are the settings I used in Poser...

ZBDisp_Settings.jpg

Now I tweaked the map in Photoshop - inverted its colour, flipped it vertically and upped the contrast to about 75%. Hope this gives a good starting point for other Poser artists trying to make this work.

I don't like the guy's ears in my render... And there's just a smidge of banding creeping in on his shoulder. Can't wait to see how this looks with a texture as well as displacement.

[Ruy]

Thank you ,I was able to download the model and the 16 bit map.

Now the question , I flipped verticaly the image in photoshop and saved it as a 16 bit grayscale tif , but lightwave can't open the new file from photoshop , any suggestions? I also convert it to rgb and had no results, I used it as a bmp but the displacement only makes the image bigger or smaller.....

Ruy

[emihich]

Sorry ,know very little of Lightwave, but those posts explained a lot to me.
I rendered both with Max native displace and V ray .With V Ray , had to
convert to Edit Poly and used extremely low Amount and Shift values(less than 0,3. Well, Max dispacement is maybe less acurate ,didn´t try with 4x Meshsmooth, however.Surprise to me is Default Scanline renderer and display
combination rocks.The fastest.
But had to struglle to get Vray better results.
:rolleyes:
Regards

V-Ray_African.jpg

African.jpg

[Ruy]

This image is the frustrating result. Had to smooth it in lightwave modeler and apply the shadows as a texture. Lightwave's manual on displacement textures only covers half a page from a total of a thousand pages all over the book , and even in that case it doesn't has a tutorial on how to use it accurately . I've revied the lightwave posts and tried them all.

Sorry , maybe I need an upgrade or something .
headHDRI.jpg

[strongarm]

you need 7.5 I think. You also need to down load a plugin that is free from a third party forget the
name but it works were the built in one seems to fail. go to flay.com and do a search
for a displacement plugin or go to the newtek forum and do a search. I know personally it works as I
have done four different model displacements with zbrush into lightwave 7.5c-d and 8 mac. You need
to convert the 16 bit gray scale to 8 bit gray scale to use it on the mac. You loose some detail but
usually its not bad.

hope this helps
strongarm

[wierdPal]

Why do you need to convert it to 8 bit on the Mac? Is that a LW specific thing?

[strongarm]

actually lightwave doesn't handle 16bit grey scale tiffs but someone has written a plugin so it imports
them for the pc. the code is available but no one has made a mac version. so there is a way, it
just hasn't had anyone to make it available on the mac. but natively the answer is no, it doesn't support
them on the pc or the mac. I am not sure it uses the extra data anyway. Lightwave is a little behind
in this regard. It does work well though, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't have bought zbrush without
testing it in lightwave first.

strongarm

[aurick]

Hello strongarm,

Please check out this thread: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=173134#post173134 It contains a complete tutorial for getting great results in LightWave using the Lynx plugin.

FYI: This thread is also linked to from the FAQ>Other Apps>LightWave section here at ZBC. There is more info there for you, as well.

[strongarm]

Thanks for the info but again its a pc only lightwave plugin. If your on a mac and lightwave
you have to convert to 8bit grey scale to get displacement maps to work. I wish it wasn't that way but until some
one compiles the 16bit tiff loader for the mac its only for the pc. they come in as garballed garabage
and don't work unless you convert them before hand. Until the mac version of zbrush 2 is released
witch is suppose to be now, you really didn't need this plugin but its becoming very important. I can
get by with 8bit for now. It works well enough but this is important info for mac people upgrading.
thanks again for posting the links as I had forgotten were I had picked them up.

strongarm

[wierdPal]

Is the source code available?, and do you need a LW dev kit to compile it?

[edit]
I checked it out. It looks like more work than it's worth. There is no source code for the "loader" if that's what it is. But there is the libtiff library which I have used a few times.

[Przemek]

Hi all can anyone tell me the settings for max6 final render plugin?
I noticed there was 2 people rendering it with this plugin,
where do I put the displace map ?
do I use the regular displace modifier
or I have to do something in the render window options Thans all for the help:lol:

[richardsan]

i hope i didn't miss another renderers try at this...
3 subdivisions to get to the mesh on the left, then the application of the reduced bit displacement map on the right...

i guess mentioning the application i used for the render is in order.
strata 3d CX



strata1.jpg

[jotajota]

:p http://lynx.aspect-design.de/plugins/normal_displace_info.htm

[ashaiad]

head-apr-para.jpg head-apr-sp.jpg another go at it with Maya and MR
I did the same stpes as before in my post
Auto contrast in photoshop , flip it save it as RGB
in maya i did 2 tests with Maya aproximation

[Jason Belec]

ashaiad, this is why I don't use MR. If you were to install Liquid to export from Maya to REYES (Renderman complaint) like Pixie or 3Delight or Renderman it will render in less than 40 seconds, especially under 3Delight even with a 450MHz system and 768MB RAM. This is for the maximum detail you will ever ask for. :D

[gardellalozano]

Very nice, would you like a step by step XSI/Zbrush2 in Radical Magazine?

[sunit]

Maya ->Mental Ray 43 seconds:

pixHead_MR_43_sc.jpg

Not the best quality - but workable. No approximation editors - simply one extra level of poly smoothing to give the displacement some better normals to work with.

i've been using this method on some recent work, and although you can see some of the poly edges - it's a workable method for the time being for me.

i tried experimenting with all sorts of approximation settings, but like everyone else, felt they were too slow on the render. ahh, the days of prman...
-sunit

[sunit]

with 2 levels of smoothing. renders at 1:27 sec

pixHead_MR_1_27_sec.jpg

-sunit

[aurick]

Hi Sunit,

Given how nice your Mental Ray results are, do you think you could share the settings? It would be a big help to the many other people who are struggling to get really good results with Mental Ray renders.

[snoche]

yes, I second that.

[sunit]

Hi aurick - sorry i've been a bit delayed, but a tutorial now exists here:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=22176

cheers,
-sunit

[aurick]

Thanks, sunit! I'm sure people will find it useful.

[sunit]

Here's another test - this one took 30.67 sec:

PixSword_0_1.jpg

2 levels of smoothing.

cheers,
sunit

[Ai02]

Here's a Carrara 4 Pro TestRender using Anything Grooves from Digital Carvers Guild:

zsword_c4p.jpg

I Converted the Displacement Map to 8 Bit and fiddled around with the Levels. BTW: Is the Format of the ZB generated Displacement Map open or somehow documented?
Eric

[divide]

When importing the .obj head in max6/max7 and applying the displace map as a diffuse component to see how it map, I got a totally weird result:
weirduv.jpg

Have you done something in particular to get the good UVs ? Seems it's totally wrong here..

edit: ok I found what was wrong..

[craigls]

SkyCastle, can you elaborate on your technique get from zbrush to prman..

many thanks
craig

[alexCarbonero]

Just in case anybody is interested I created a Tangent normal map shader form Maya render. It's really easy to use just plug the normal map in and connect it to the normal camera attribute of your shader.

Just make sure to set the flip vertical flag under export settings in Zbrush.

you can download it from my site www.alexcarboneros.com (http://www.alexcarboneros.com) just go to my Mel and Mll section and download my menu.

here is a conversation going on @ cgTalk

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.ph...178#post1793178

[emihich]

I hope someone do the same for Max 6.0/7.0 I do not ever have good
results with Normal exported maps or even native 7.0 Normal maps.
Using Vray displacement , Default scanline, displace modifier, not that simple
actually.I may be missing someting, for a long time, already.

Luiz Eduardo:evil:

[Deux]

Not many offerings here from 'Wavers, so here's another...

LightWave 8.01, rendered using FPrime 1.02.

-: Deux :-

DispTestHead.jpg

[MDB101]

Yeah I would like to move onto normal mapping other then your black and white displacment maps, this feature can be achived in 3d max 7, if there is any other packages out there post it with the normal map results. how about projection mapping in max 7? heres a vid on how to do it http://mtlstream02.discreet.com/streaming/qt/normals_300k.mov


would like to seee these results :)

[BooMMooB]

enough renders shown already, but i just wanted to show the render speed of max7

3times meshsmooth on a imported .obj converted to editablepoly. Mesh scaled to 25%
standard displacement modifier with disp. map saved in rgb mode. lumiance center .05 and strength set to 10cm

2 sec. on 2.8ghz P4 with 1 gig ram!

wicked! :cool:

scanline render. default lighting. 640*480

headdisplacetest_01.jpg

[Ctrl-Z]

Yeah I would like to move onto normal mapping other then your black and white displacment maps, this feature can be achived in 3d max 7, if there is any other packages out there post it with the normal map results. how about projection mapping in max 7? heres a vid on how to do it http://mtlstream02.discreet.com/streaming/qt/normals_300k.movProjection mapping in Max 7 is a technique for people who can't export normal maps directly out of ZBrush.

That's an oversimplification, I'll grant you. It's very handy for transfering your UV coordinates from a working model onto a broken one, and it's got some other very practical uses as well. But as a tool for normal map generation, you're asking us to import either the full-geometry version of this model and try to work with that in Max, or to achieve the same through displacement mapping. Then, we import a low-poly version of the same, and bake normals from one to the other. It's a lot of extra work, and you're going to lose some fidelity in the process. Meanwhile, it's like two mouse clicks to export your normal map from inside of ZBrush.


would like to seee these results :)Then by all means, try it. And post your results if you'd like to share. Otherwise, drop it -- this isn't a request thread.

[roguenroll]

[QUOTE=Deux]Not many offerings here from 'Wavers, so here's another...

LightWave 8.01, rendered using FPrime 1.02.

-: Deux :-


hey looks good, mind telling me how you applied it, I might have a suggestion or
two from a few of my LW/ZB tests. I think I can get you sum'more detail.

Rogue

[mod2kn]

Hi,

I thought I'd add my experiments....it's my first post so forgive any mistakes. I'm not sure if the sword archive I downloaded some time ago is from this particular thread or not, but well, here's some mapping results. I think the map was produced via the GUV maping.

Lightwave 7.5b, P4 3.0ghz

Picture 1:
UV bump 250%
smoothing 180 degrees
texture amplitude 20
no normal displacement
bump1.jpg

Picture 2:
UV bump 100%
smoothing 89.5
texture amplitude 4
displacement 100mm
luminance 0%
Normal displacement via Lynx plugin
bump2.jpg

Picture 3:
as Picture 2 but displacement at 400mm
bump3.jpg

[emihich]

The result using Displace modifier with 400mm is amazing , but which Lynx
plugin is that you have used with Normal maps ?Sorry to ask, I guess , if :qu: a lot
of people have used and comented it already on this forum

[Ctrl-Z]

That last render has some sharp details, but the rounded gem in the hilt is deforming way out of proportion. Perhaps a higher luminance % will balance this better?

[D-Ray]

Someone was succesful with Brazil r/s v 1.x? Seems weird nobody post a result yet... I've tryed so much things... Completly not working:mad:... Someone, help me please!

[D-Ray]

Nomiakasu... I just discovered your post... I'd like to know, if possible, how you achieved this, and maybe also the version of brazil rio you used. Maybe I d'ont make something right... Thanks! And happy hollydays everyone!:D:D:D

[mod2kn]

Hi emihich,

I used the Normal Displacement plugin found at http://lynx.aspect-design.de/plugins/normal_displace_info.htm. Apply it in Layout under object properties - deform (from memory, I think that's right). Add the displacement map as a texture (I just copied it straight from the bump channel).

Hi Ctrl-Z,

Yeah, I did notice that. I might give it a try tonight if I have time. I did do a render at luminance center at 50%. The results were ridiculous, so I didn't post it.

[nonsequitur]

ok i can see im a little late to the party here. i cannot seem to get xsi to correctly display the displacement map. i have tried all the methods shown in the forums and the one from the practical guide.

Could someone that has successfull gotten it to work post the xsi scene file so i can figure out what the heck i am doing wrong?

thanks

NS

[Deux]

hey looks good, mind telling me how you applied it, I might have a suggestion or
two from a few of my LW/ZB tests. I think I can get you sum'more detail.

Rogue
Rogue

Sorry for the late reply, I've only just had notification from the forum that a reply was even made to my post..

Anyway, the render was made just by using the supplied displacement map as a bump map only. Lynx's displacement plugin couldn't be used because FPrime doesn't seem to support polygon displacement from plugins. I did set it up with displacement mapping and rendered using LW's renderer, but I'm finding lots of shadow and lighting errors when using LW's own renderer so for the time being I'm sticking with FPrime and bump maps only.

Cheers,

-: Deux :-

[roguenroll]

yeah, I was gonna mention the dsip on the bump, really picks up some detail, alos a normal map gets even more.

But Fprime workd great, thats mostly what Ive been using, I guess don't set order to last, the one just before, motion, I believe.

sometimes, I have to refreash FP a bit, also move the model, to get it to respond, but by all means get that sucker working, its the best.:tu:

24-654173.jpg

[meshbuilder_new]

I havn´t seen that many Mac users here using LightWave so here´s my try.

On PC I used Lynx´s 16bit grayscale TIFF-loader. I set the image as a backdrop in LightWave and rendered it out as a HDR-image.

On Mac I loaded the HDR-image and added 3-4 pixels Floating Point Blur to the image.

Then I use Lynx´s Normal Displacement Plugin with the HDRI-image.
I only loose some of the finer details but it works ALOT better than a 8bit RGB image and you get no "banding" because of the the HDR-image and the FP-blur.

I think it´s better to render out the finer details with bump map anyway so this is a ok workflow for me until we get a working 16bit grayscale TIFF loader for Mac / LightWave..

This image took 45 seconds to render on a PowerBook G4 - 1,25 GHz.

/ Meshbuilder
- Sweden 3D Artist -

[meshbuilder_new]

Back again..

Now I have found a better way to do it on Mac with no loss in quality and I didn't need a PC to do it.. :)

Open the 16 Bit greyscale Tiff in Photoshop, convert it to RGB but make sure you keep the information in 16bit.
Now save the image in cineon format.

LighWave can read this image format but it will make it darker.
Don't worry, you can easily fix this by changing the gamma and contrast level with no loss in LW because the image is 96 bits.

My settings:
Contrast: -0,75
Gamma: 1.75

And I got evan better deformation now than with the HDRI and floating point blur trick and I didn't need any PC.

I hope this will help Mac - LightWave users that want to use Zbrush..

/ Meshbuilder
- Sweden 3D Artist -

[richardsan]

when i follow your lead, i am not presented with saving in cineon format, is that a user added export plug-in?

cheers

[meshbuilder_new]

I use Photoshop CS.. Are you using an older version?

In CS after you turn the image in to RGB from B/W and "save as" you can save the image in cineon format.. (.cin)

[richardsan]

yeah, the one just prior to CS...crumbs...; ^]
i haven't found need to upgrade just yet, maybe this is will push the camel...

[geoff3d]

Hi there,

Trying to get this thing looking right - it still appears bloated to me. Using XSI 4.2 Foundation, and as you can see with the screenshot, I've tried using a change range node, or two scalar maths (two different methods from different posters) but I still feel it's puffing out (0 = no displacement, 1 = full displacement) It's particularly apparent around the nose / lips... Cheers for any help! (or tell me it's fine) ;)
zbrush_xsi_disp.jpg

[holyforest]

Back again..

Now I have found a better way to do it on Mac with no loss in quality and I didn't need a PC to do it.. :)

Open the 16 Bit greyscale Tiff in Photoshop, convert it to RGB but make sure you keep the information in 16bit.
Now save the image in cineon format.

LighWave can read this image format but it will make it darker.
Don't worry, you can easily fix this by changing the gamma and contrast level with no loss in LW because the image is 96 bits.

My settings:
Contrast: -0,75
Gamma: 1.75

And I got evan better deformation now than with the HDRI and floating point blur trick and I didn't need any PC.

I hope this will help Mac - LightWave users that want to use Zbrush..

/ Meshbuilder
- Sweden 3D Artist -


Surely very helpfull, but I can't find what is the "cineon" format
Thanks

[meshbuilder_new]

You need Photoshop CS..

Maybe you can ask a friend to convert it for you if you have an older version.. :)

[mangriff]

Displacement.jpg Yay!! I finally figured out how to get really good displacement maps in MAX!!! With default scanline settings. It works great, animates great, looks great and is faster than SH$$$$ yay!! Oh excuse me i have been struggling with this for the past few days sans sleep, food, blah blah blah. Cool, well here is the pic! PLEASE if anyone has questions ask me and id love to share the steps and settings! ooooOOooooweee :o EE!!

[MrJamela]

Mangriff-

That looks great. How did you do it?

Jaime

[mangriff]

First things first. DISABLE displacement in the render dialog! Everytime i forget about that the system crashes and poop pours out of every drive like a toilet rebelion. But seriously i got the best results both in control and results using the modifiers only. So import the mesh. Add turbo smooth with the iterations in the render so that the view port isn't bogged down with the smoothing. You can put on like 1 or 2 iters in the viewport just to see and judge how it's all going, and then put like 4 or if you can 5 in the render dialog for the final deal. Open the material editor and apply an open material to the mesh. In the material's displacement map import the tif file. You can import the file in any map slot because we are not using the displacement of the actual material, but we need to adjust the tiling so you can't just load in the image as an image. If you want you can just change the material slot to be a 2d map only and reference that, but since i figure you would want to a "3d" material on the guy anyway eventually it works to just bring it in the in displacement slot (that is the use after all). ANYWAY, change the V tiling to -1 instead of 1. because the map is flipped around the V axis. Now the map is ready to be applied to the mesh. Next you add the displace modifier in the stack and adjust the strength spinner. Make sure you turn on the luminance center and leave it at .5 (this makes it so that the mesh doesn't inflate completely and basically sets 50% grey to be the default condition, so white will protrude and black will recess which is what we want). under image, choose "MAP" and when the map chooser pops up find the image in the MTL Editor "browse from" choice. This uses the map that we inverted along the V for the displacement. The mesh should deform, if not then you may need to up the strength a bit. That's it. I made a morph target to show that the low poly version can be used to deform the high poly form for animation or posing. Lighting is just a couple omni lights that i rigged in the traditional 3 pt lighting theory. That's about it i think, let me know if something doesn't make sense and/or if this works for you! Later

[stew]

Don't know if anyone has posted this combination yet:
Poser 5/OS X, GUV export.
zbrushsword.jpg
Note that you can load the 16 bit TIFF directly in P5's material room, what's needed is a math node to substract 0.5 form the displacement.
Message2140218.jpg

[metamesh]

mangriff i agree with you that is a good way to do the displace, the good thing is that u can use that way with brazil or whatever render you are using...the bad thing is that when u are using that way to do the displace it will work with "small" objects, by small I mean with not a lot of poligons, but once you try with a full model, and u put the iterations at 4 or 5 probably it will crash max at the render time...at least is the problem that i have and i cannot figure out how to solve...this happens because the application runs out of memory, even with 1 gb...if u find the solution please let me know :D

[Fingerman]

Software : 3DS Max 7 + Mental Ray
Shader : SSS Fast Skin Material
Rendering Time : 0:03:05

zsword.jpg

Software : 3DS Max 7 + Mental Ray
Shader : SSS Fast Skin Material
Rendering Time : 0:02:21

ape.jpg

[flioink]

I can't make it work under Maya 6 ,i'm s0 sad:( is there a comprehensive tutorial about displacement with zmaps except the one in the manual because it didn't work:(

[PES]

rendered uding Lightwave 8. render time was 10.5 seconds.

disp_render.jpg

[mangriff]

*metamesh* You may very well be right. I've been able to get really high res mesh during render and keep the viewport mesh down using the turbosmooth trick. It's important to push the low res model as low as possible without losing the displacement capability. You are right about the method being limited though. This method is not true "sub-pixel" or 16 bit displacement as far as i know. So you can't really jump up to like 5 or more levels of Sub-D. That is one of the aspects i am fighting currently. I think that if you combined this method of displacement with a high quality normal map though, the lack of edge detail would be sooo minimal and the surface details would be brought out by the normal map. (in thoery) unfortunately, im having all kinds of issues generating normal maps in zbrush for max. Such as... seem issues, flipped colors in areas, and so on and so forth. WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME A CORRECT POST OR METHOD TO MAKE NORMAL MAPS FOR MAX. Im not yelling, just catching attention excuse me. I can show you more displacement trials if you wish, perfecting displacements has been my recent project. Good luck to everyone attempting this test. Laters.

[allankiipli]

ZBLWDisplTest.jpg With help of 16-bit and NormDispl plugins in Lightwave 8.2 SubD level is around 30 when rendering, not taking time to high.

[GhosTDoG]

based on the tutorial by mangriff.(thx;))

the settings are similar, with the exception of keeping the default map uv-tiling values.;)

head.jpg

settings.gif

[Jhotun]

Fingerman, could you post your settings for the material and for mental ray displacement? I'm dying for getting those results...

[vivien]

here is my test....

i am quite satisfied since it took me ages to figure out how to do it....but thanks to my teacher gattomanzo, my boy drummer and a fellow italian zbrush user smilegrafix (grazie a tutti!), the dirty work was finally done.

i converted the texture in photoshop to rgb 16 bit, and although some say that 16 bit doesn't work, to me it seems fine.
here is a picture of the rendering and my render tree. i increased my alpha to 4,834 (from a starting value of 0,834).
for the rest on my change range i put 1, 0, -1, 1.
if anyone who uses xsi needs more explainations i'd be glad to help :)

test.jpg

render tree.jpg

[macaco]

mangriff (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=35774) vbmenu_register("postmenu_193992", true); thanks for your settings! the trick was to turn off displacement!! If not max also crashes to me! :D

Since I haven't seen many brazil renders here is mine with a skin shader and any map used in the material.


munitu.jpg (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=35774)


It would be nice if people had a resume of the best way to render displacements in each software :) Just an idea ;)

Bye!!

[macaco]

UOPS! I forgot! Redered in 27 seconds P IV, 1GB RAM, ati radeon 9600 pro
bye!

[obskure]

No images to post. Thanks for this thread Pixolator, it has really helped me understand displacement maps.

For those of you using 3ds Max I found that with a standard Displace modifier and a Turbo Smooth at 4 render iterations the Scanline renderer rendered the fastest with 11 secs, Mental Ray with 22 secs and Vray with 27 secs (vray took longer than 27 secs with a Turbo Smooth at 2 and a Vray Displacement Mod achieving a slightly lower quality render, Vray mod uses adaptive Subs achieving more detail but not completely smoothing the basic mesh). All renderers were default settings at 640x480 on an athlon 2500 with 1gb ram.

Zbrush has accelerated my 3d development at least 10x

[obskure]

1:11sec to render in Mental Ray with Skin shader and one light. Mesh with Turbo Smooth 4 render iterations and Displace mod.

head.gif

[tisho]

Rendered with VRay and PPT, 5000 subdivs, 2 raytraced lights, GI.

http://www.vrayrender.com/stuff/tisho/head.jpg (http://www.vrayrender.com/stuff/tisho/head.jpg)

The small grips on the shoulders can be fixed if subdivs are increased to 10000 and leave it to calculate some more minutes. Here is a test /head45/ where I left it while I was on lunch. :)

head45.jpg

[temito]

3dsmax7
my head disp.jpg

[TigerZ]

face_01.jpg I just tried it in Max with MR, and altough its slow and uber memory expensive, the results are very cool, I just wished the MR displacement had an offset parameter...

[Numse]

Needed to test how I shall configure exported displacement maps from Zbrush, this is the resault.

Vray for render

[Jason Belec]

Here is a test in Pixie (OpenSource - REYES renderer, based on the Renderman API).

'Arm' by Edwin Nortey, 'Head' by Pixolator of course.

Oh yeah... 450MHz G4 Cube - rendered in 20 seconds.

PixieTest.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27%27,%27PixieTest.jpg%27,1,0%29 )

[JackMcRip]

2.jpg

1.jpg

I've been heard somebody have problems with C4D R9 and this File.
You must only import the Obj-File and add the displacement Chanal to the Material.
In the displacementchanal load the .tif Displacement textur.
Sub = 4
Strange = 0.7
Rounding

In the objectmanager flip the texturtag vertical.

Then render ;)


Here is the File to check the settings:
http://www.total3d.de/pub/temp/C4D-Disptest.zip (4,1MB)

[sascha]

Rendered with Gelato 1.2 R2 on a 2 GHz Athlon XP / GeForce FX 5600 in 14 sec.
DispTestHead.jpg

[YC Chen]

max 7, MR SSS fast skin mat + displace

ugly.jpg
3:17 on Athlon (don't know which) 2.0 GHz

I used the settings posted by Zeddicus on page 6 (on max 6 + MR).

Important things I had to learn to make it work:

Turbosmooth iteration: 1, no additional render iteration (this+MR displacement overstrain max = many hours of headache for stupid me).

A light behind the ear and scale conversion (under advanced options) = 0.1 should show SSS, though it's still subtle. But it works. I have to play more with SSS parameters...

Blur offset did matter and was at 0.01. At 0, I had banding, which is really apparent if the base mesh is not smoothed.

[hotsalsaept]

The concept of displacement mapping is not new, but the significant interest in it certainly is. Since the use of displacement maps is not yet a standard feature in all renderers, a certain degree of experimentation is required in order to achieve optimal results.

This thread is intended to be a 'one-stop shop' containing posts by ZBC members who have successfully rendered ZBrush-generated displacements maps in one (or more) external renderers.


Achieving optimal results in external renderers requires you to...

1. Generate the displacement map correctly.
2. Experiment and find the best render-settings in the external renderer.

To simplify the process of finding the optimal workflow, I'm including a sample low-res head mesh with its calculated Z2 displacement map (step 1). This will allow you to concentrate your efforts on getting the best results out of the external renderer (step 2).

The following is the test mesh which was created, detailed and then rendered in ZBrush with, and without, the displacement-map...

user_image-1083212314xmc.jpg


Use the link below to download a zip archive which contains 2 files: the low-resolution mesh (OBJ format) and the displacement-map (TIF format).

:b3: :b3: :b3: Click here to download the ZIP archive (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/zb_memberdownload.php?getfile=DispTestHead_TIFNG.z ip) :b3: :b3: :b3:

Note 1: The displacement-map may need to be flipped vertically for correct UV mapping.
Note 2: The displacement-gain in ZBrush was set to 0.834; you may need to factor this value to achieve similar displacement amount in the external renderer.

Test these files in the renderer that you're using. If you have achieved successful results (similar to the above image, in any color) you're invited to post your findings in this thread, so others can benefit from them.




To keep this thread as informative as possible, please don't post unsuccessful results here. If you have encountered difficulties or have questions regarding this thread, please post them in the Q&T forum.

As time progresses, the usage of displacement and normal maps will become standardized and simpler. On the ZBrush side, we will continue to enhance these features, and will continue to share information with other companies to help streamline the process of rendering ZBrush-generated displacement and normal maps in their renderers.

Thanks :)
-Pixolator


Update May 9th 2004:

Here is one more displacement map test...

user_image-1084143678htl.jpg

This test will better enable you to evaluate the accuracy of your test-render.

This displacement test is much less forgiving than the one above due to several factors...

1. Higher details ratio: 2.26 million polygons mapped into 138 polygons. Each low-res polygon represents 16384 high-res polygons.

2. The displacement is composed of geometric shapes, making any mapping distortions easily detectable.

3. The sides of the sword are perpendicular, causing abrupt changes of the normal directions within small areas.

Note 1: Since antialiasing and sampling of the displacement values are handled differently across applications, ZBrush can export the UV coordinates with or without a 0.5-pixel offset. Both files are included within the zip file. You may want to try both, to determine which one works better (i.e., is more seamless) in the external renderer.

Note 2: This test uses AUVTiles mapping. Normally, discontinuous UV mapping produces visible seam artifacts. To eliminate these artifacts, ZBrush automatically executes a smart seam-overpaint when the displacement map is generated. (The smart seam routine is optimized for AUVTiles/GUVTiles and other rectangle-based UV mapping. For other mapping methods the standard seam-overpaint is used)

Note 3: If your external renderer cannot make use of the full 16-bit resolution of the included displacement map, you may be able to improve the displacement render quality by first maximizing the grayscale contrast of the 16-bit displacement map, then reducing its depth to 8 bits.

Note 4: This test is provided because it's a very demanding displacement map. Since it requires a more accurate rendering, some visible artifacts in your test render, especially at the sharp edges of the blade, will be acceptable. Typically, mesh/displacement map combinations are less demanding, and artifacts (if there are any) are less likely to be noticeable.

Note 5: If you need to modify the included displacement file to better fit the format expected by the external renderer (i.e., by splitting the map to positive and negative displacements, or by reducing the map depth to 8 bits), please specify these steps in your post. In the near future, I plan to write a ZBrush plugin which will enable you to specify a target application, and ZBrush will export the map(s) in a ready-to-use format.


:b3: :b3: :b3:Click here to download the sword test files (Alpha gain=0.286) (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/zb_memberdownload.php?getfile=ZSwordDispTest2.zip) :b3: :b3: :b3:


Below is an alternate (easier to render) version of the Sword file.
This file is mapped with GUVTiles mapping...

user_image-1084185891ald.jpg

... and the displacement map generated from Subdiv level 2 (instead of 1)
which reduces the HighRes/LowRes ratio to 4096 (instead of 16384).

:b3: :b3: :b3: Click here to download the alternate sword test files (Alpha gain=0.14) (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/zb_memberdownload.php?getfile=ZSword_SDiv2_GUV.zip ) :b3: :b3: :b3:hey, since I'm kinda new in maya in all. I was wondering if you could help me on this. I'm kinda dumn on this, but if you could show me a visual step by step on how to do this. The part that I'm stuck on is the displacement channels. Where to put the map to be exact. Do you put it as just a bump map? Or is there another step that I'm missing. thanks. I'm using maya6.

[phx.official]

First of all, try this tutorial from "sunit":
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=22176

You can open the Approximation Editor as shown in the first image. After making your settungs there (discribed in the tutorial), you push the "output connections" button (marked with red dot) of the ShaderNode to go to the ShadingGroupNode. The InputNode gets your DisplacmentTexture (markedwith yellow dot). You will get a DisplacementNode, too. Don't delete this.

Settings.gif (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2715603%27,%27Settings.gif%27,1, 0%29)


With you FileNode open, you have to edit the AlphaGain and AlphaOffset. (marked with blue dot) First type in the Value, you got from ZBrush in the AlphaGain field. If you scaled your model in Maya, you have to rise this value too, even if you freezed transformation afterwards. The AlphaOffset is the negative half of AlphaGainValue. Type it in, or use the expression of the tutorial

LowHigh.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2715604%27,%27LowHigh.jpg%27,1,0 %29)

I've scaled my model to 3.1
In the first image i used the values i got from zBrush, and you see it very smooth but is missing details. The second one is made with values multiplied with 3.1 and now the details are good, but at the tip of the thorns, it's ugly.

MentalGood.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2715605%27,%27MentalGood.jpg%27, 1,0%29)
This is o.k., with Gain 0.350 / Offset -0.175

MeshNormal.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2715606%27,%27MeshNormal.jpg%27, 1,0%29)

This is the original mesh in ZBrush and a NormalMap rendering with Maya SoftwareRenderer. Very fast, and good quality but I'didn't get any good results mith NormalMaps and MentalRay yet. I tryed different tutorials and shaders, switched and mixed the colors but nothing. :cry:

:: Don't blame me for my grammars, my nativ language is german

[WoodyLWG]

Bet you thought this thread was dead and gone!
Lightwave 8.3 on XPPro.
Subpatch level of 15 (612k polygons)
Using Lynx's NormalDisplacement plugin and an 8bit grayscale
conversion of the ZBrush map.
Same map is used in the bump channel at 200%
Lightwave doesn't support subpixel displacement at this time,
so using the bump mapping helps to beef up the detail.
FPrime 1.5 Render with a generic three light setup. :tu:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=16628&stc=1

[jojolo]

Maya 7 & Mental Ray
24 seconds

[bkulyk]

WoodyLWG: Can I get a step by step of your process. I have been trying to render this sample for a week with no results. Also attachment you posted does not work. Thanks for your help.

[PixelDroid]

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=16628&stc=1
Woody, the link doesn't go to a page w/images on it.

MR

[Suzana]

Hi
My first little contribution.
6 lights
MR

[ilusiondigital]

Vray displacement, we can see a few black points in the face.

pixidhead.jpg

[metamesh]

Hi
IlusionDigital, i'm not sure but maybe u didn't use any antialiasing for the image? that could be the reason for the black spots, if u activate it it will probably fix that... :)

[ilusiondigital]

Yes, Metamesh. I forget activate the AA mode :confused: :rolleyes:

Thanks

[ksgant]

Here is a version in 3dsmax 7 and Maxwell renderer:

This took about 20 minutes. I don't have a precise time because I stopped the render around then.
http://xs44.xs.to/pics/05353/default.jpg

[metamesh]

KSGAN hi,
i see that u used maxwell for that image, how is the displacement in maxwell? is it an own mawell displacement or just a displace modifier over meshsmooth? thanks man! :)

[ksgant]

This is just the displacement modifier in 3dsmax then rendered in Maxwell.

[ilusiondigital]

Another vray displacement

pixihead2.jpg

[samysuns]

I want to bring the low res mesh into ZBRUSH and use this displace ment map

to make a highres , is it posible? how is the workflow? thanks

[Jason Belec]

Welcome samysuns, what you want is possible. Many posts on the forums explain this for the various apps people use outside Zbrush, and simple search will yield many great tips.

In essence, load your mesh into Zbrush, store a morph (unless you are going to radically alter the surface - then you can use cage near the end), model away, using whatever tools, subdivide as needed, model more, then when done, revert back to the original geometry and create displacement or morph or normal or all. This is really glossy of course. ;)

[Clubitz]

I know this thread is kinda dead...but oh so useful...

Just want to extend my thanks to all for this...and especially to Mangriff for finally opening my eyes to what I was doing wrong for the Max render...

I was changing the output settings for the map...which I didnt need to touch at all...just make sure that luminance was set to .5....worked like a charm.

[Artofacks1]

After playing with the file for an hour i just couldnt get good results, anyone outhere has a .c4d file that is 9.5 that I can download so I can compare settings?

http://www.creativescientist.com/displace.jpg

[Artofacks1]

that worked

http://www.creativescientist.com/displace2.jpg

[zaknafein99]

Hi. Everyone, I just downloaded the files yesterday, this is my first result, need some advice on lighting, this was rendered with Maya Mental Ray followin the tutorial by Mr Scott Spencer. I tried to add some lights for a better view of the bumps but no results came to better the default lights. So... advice or examples are most welcome

[Scott Spencer]

Hey zaknafein99, looking real good. You may want to adjust your camera focal length to be 70mm (at least 50 you could even go to 100) and set up a single light to rake across the surface.
it looks like you have the detail in there, a light at say 5 o clock would help you see better. Setting up raytracing on the light helps too but it also increases render times substantially. You can even turn on final gather in the Renger Globals for the real soft even lighting a lot of people's examples have. The rhino in my user gallery was rendered with final gather. The human anatomy study was lights with raytracing on.

Check out the new displacement exporter plugin that came out. It makes this whole process a million times easier!

Scott

[zaknafein99]

Thanks, that was very helpfull, i'll give it a try ando post my results.

[zaknafein99]

Added 2 directional lights, 1 to each side, the one on the left side of the face set to an intensity of 0.250, the other is standard. Changed the material to a blinn shader with little specularity, so the details show better. Rendered with Mental Ray, Final Gather on (I didn't see any difference with FG turned off, sure i did something wrong).

Pixolator Head3-mediano.jpg

[Yamyam]

Nice topic! A lot to learn, so here my results:

I try it on Max 6 scanline, Vray1.09 and Mentalray3.3, max default displacement mod and VrayDisplacMod:

1st Max6 - Vray displacement 2D: 61sec. - a bit blured
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/yam653/forum%203d/p13-displace2D61seg.jpg

2nd Max6 - Vray displacement 3D: 13min - best result on skin details
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/yam653/forum%203d/p14-displace3D13min.jpg
workflow:
import .OBJ into Max (unit=meter)
check normals and unify
aply meshsmooth set in >2 interations
aply VrayDisplacementMod= 3D mapping
amount 0.012
shift -0.006
map - texmap Uangle=180
map - blur=0.01
set lights and material
render!

3rd Max6 - max displacement and Vray render: 31sec. - blured
Msmoth in 4 interations
displac strenght=0.018 (even strong, skin details dont come clearly...)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/yam653/forum%203d/p15-displacedomax-vray31seg.jpg

worst with scanline render - 14sec
and MentalRay render - 43sec; both with that pattern around neck, and in same way, without clear skin details.

[DarthWayne]

pixolatorHead-OOps.jpg
Although this looks sort of cool-I'm poretty sure turtle should render better than this:lol:

Is anyone else having a nightmare rendering disp maps in turtle 2 (for Maya)? As you cna see above even if following the guide over at the illumainate labs site things a re going a bit pear shaped.

http://www.illuminatelabs.com/tutorials/displacement/displacement.html (http://www.illuminatelabs.com/tutorials/displacement/displacement.html)

Seems like no matter what I do I can never get diosp maps to work in maya, it seems like everyone else doesdn't have any problems....maybe I'm cursed:o


Wayne...
(http://www.illuminatelabs.com/tutorials/displacement/displacement.html)

[kyphur]

Have you tried Scott Spencer's manual? It seems like you're alpha gain is way off and that you're mesh's scale isn't matching up.

click here (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=030420)

Try that and see what happens. He also has an old vid tutorial on his site that you can download.

Scott's site (http://www.scottspencer.com)

Rock on,

[DarthWayne]

I've tried both thanks, so far today I've been at this for 5 hours straight. 5 hours for a damn displacement map in Turtle! I got it working fine in mental ray a good while back but will it hell do the same in Turtle 2.

Wayne...

[kyphur]

In your previous post you said you had trouble getting displacements to work in maya:

"Seems like no matter what I do I can never get diosp maps to work in maya,"

So I thought that you'd never gotten the process down at all. Kind of a learn to crawl before you walk type of deal was what I was thinking. If you hadn't gotten it to work in Maya at all then go back to the beginning and start with the basics. It's usually something small that you miss.

Rock on and good luck,

[odhinn]

Darth,
I can't seem to get Turtle to do displace maps either.
Every other part of Turtle rendering such as global illum and final gather is easy and produces brilliant results.
MentalRay does a much better job with displacement maps but takes quite a bit longer.
Let me know if you have any results. I followed their tuts and didn't get good results. I think the problem is in the Apha Gain settings. Using MentalRay a value of 1 always seems to work regardless of settings in Zbrush.
I'll experiment tonight and screen grab settings to show you results./Odhinn

[DarthWayne]

I feel I should clarify as I'm no longer steaming mad ot displacement maps lol. The only time displacemtn has worked for me in maya has been using the pixolator head and sword, anything I've made myself always comes out like this. well OK maybe not quite as bad as this better never right. The pixolator models worked fine in mental ray, I just don't see why they won't work in Turtle when it's supposed to be simple to render Zbrush maps directly.

I really can't belive how much trouble I've been having. My only thought is that the guide by illumanate labs is for the earlier version of Turtle (the one with ILRdisplace, version 2 doesn't have that) and so doesn't work by that method.

It seems to be a p[roblem with it using the disp map as an alpha channel, that would explain the holes in the mesh on the rendered image. I'll let you know if i have any luck and post my own settings as soon as i'm able to. (currently have my 6 month old son on my knee :) ).

Wayne...

[ryankingslien]

Darth-

This may be a silly question but is your displacement map orientated the right way? Try vertically flipping it again. What is most odd to me is that it is not uniformily inaccurate but wildly and oddly fractured which is not what should be happening.

Best,

r

[DarthWayne]

That did occur to me as well, so I tried a one flipped in the other direction just in case I'd messed up. So I know it's not that, in fact I've tried probably every combination over the 5 hour session today. However I have came accross something intersting that I'm not sure could cause this or not. Up till a few days ago I was using Photoshop CS1 with color managment turned off, now I'm using CS2 I thought I'd check that I had indeed turned it off, to my suprise there's no option to turn off color managment! If there is it's well hidden!

To test this I downloaded the pixolator head again and went for a mental ray render which normally works, although I do find it fiddly. But guess what? The same happened as before, so although I'm following everything to the letter from the guides and tut's available something is fundementally wrong. If it's CS2 I'll be livid! It seems crazy if I have to instrall an earlier version just to RGB the disp map....lol

Wayne...

[ryankingslien]

Darth -
To access the color management in CS 2, you have to go to Color Settings. Then in click the More Options button the right. This will get you the Off option. :)

r

[DarthWayne]

Thanks mate you are an absolute lifesaver...well if I have time tonight I'll try again, wish me luck or the whole sodding pc is getting thrown out the window:lol:

Wayne...

[Enigma]

Okay, after much waffling I finally went ahead and bought Renderman for Maya, and I love it! Here a couple of test renders using the old Pixolator head. I ended up having to multiple the alpha depth facter by 10. So, the AG value was 8.34; and -4.17 for the Alpha Offset value.

[Scott Spencer]

AWESOME results!

I want to get that plugin myself but, well $$ is tight and we render in MR at work : ) Oh its SOOO fast though!


Keep in mind maps you make with the ADE most likely wont need that multiplier when you render.

Keep us posted on your other results!

S

[CvH]

DispTestHead.jpg ZSwordDispTest.jpg

For info on the settings: http://www.microcan.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6

[Roadie]

Here's my test using Cinema 4D 9.5 and following Trurl's directions in his post. There are a few differences in 9.5 from the version 6 he is using I guess.

Cinema 4D head test.jpg

[sannyasi]

Heres a render test done in Lightwave 8.5


P4 3ghz 2gb ram

36.8 sec

1.7 million polys (subD render level=25)

texture mipmap = off

texture pixel blur = on (this was required to stop creasing I beleive was introduced due to the non contiguous UV's - just a guess. It didn't seem to affect detail however)

1280x960 5-pass Low Antialiasing
default light no shadows

This was done using an alternate version of NormalDisplace plugin and a 16bit tiff loader plugin both found here http://lynx.aspect-design.de/plugins/normal_displace_info.htm

[Braincell]

Hi, this is a nice thread and i'd like to post my solution for 3d max 7 with VRAY. It took me quite a few hours to read through all the tutorials and tips but i'll post here instead of making a new thread.

1-Import obj
2-Convert to editable poly
3-Editable poly > Tick the Render > Iterations box and put a value of 3
4-Create a new material (i create a VrayMtl but standard should work too)
5-In the material put the displacement map TIFF file in the displacement slot (under Maps rollout)
6-Go to Coordinates rollout of the map > V tiling set to -1.0 (not needed if you flip the displacement map vertically in an editor)
7-Blur: 0.01
8-Add a VRayDisplacementMod modifier to the stack (should be above Editable Poly)
9-Click on the "None" button under Texmap to choose a texture map for the displacement modifier.
10-When the new window opens, find the material you just made with the displacement map and select it. You can do that by choosing "Mtl Editor" and you'll see a list of materials you have in the editor at the moment.
11-(Still under VRayDisplacementMod) Put Amount to 13.34 and Shift to -6.672

Now you should be able to render and the results should be OK as seen in many pictures above. I dont think i missed anything. :)

Edit: Here i added one of my renders

An important note: How to calculate the "Amount" and "Shift"?
Amount = (displacement-gain / OBJ auto scale value) * 10
Shift = -(Amount/2)

Displacement gain you get from zbrush when you make your displacement, or in this example it was given in the first post.
OBJ auto scale value you get by opening the exported OBJ file in a text editor and looking at the Auto scale x= values (three of them should always be the same). In our example of this head:

Amount = (0.834 / 0.625) * 10 = 13.344
Shift = -(13.344 / 2) = -6.672

Edit2: Another note: If you take the alpha depth factor as the displacement-gain (which you should) after making the dispmap the usual way (without any plugins) then amount should be that*2 and shift -that. You get the alpha depth factor from the alpha menu, select the created alpha and its at the bottom.
Edit3: But now in some testing it can also be amount=alpha depth factor*10 ... i dunno im confused, just see what works 4 u :confused:

[metamesh]

that's cool but i don't think u need to put the iteration at 3? anyway if it works for u , then great! :lol:

[Braincell]

Yea you can do with 2 i guess, i just used 3 to make sure low iterations werent my problem. Getting rid of banding was a headache so i had to try everything.

[Shonner]

Rendered in Carrara Pro 5.1. An amplitude of 12 was used for the displacement and a smooth rendering of 4 was used on the polygon model.

[Reuben]

Finally got a good sword render from ElectricImage 6.5



Using AUV tiles, the trick is to turn off texture AA, turn up the sampling level to 2x2 under "object info" and under render settings/ Anti-alias.

Reuben

[KsiKsu]

how were the maps exported? which special settings were used? i export disp maps out of zbrush through the normal zbrush tool routine and they generated models look always trashy.

the models generated with the pixolator ispmaps look awfull crazy perfect

why do his maps generate a perfect 3d disp object in my renderer?
and why dont my do this? what should i use for settings for exporting a disp map`?

[broken]

Now that Blender has better subsurf-UV interpolation and can use >8bit/channel textures (cineon, DPX, EXR) I thought I'd give it another try, and was pleasantly surprised.

[/url]
Subsurf level 4, ~1 min render (1Ghz Powerbook G4)

[url="http://mke3.net/projects/tests/Zhead-subd5.jpg"] (http://mke3.net/projects/tests/Zhead-subd4.jpg)
Subsurf level 5, ~3 min render (1Ghz Powerbook G4)

I'm not sure what's causing those gridlike artifacts though - they seem to be following the topology/subdivision, but also influencing the spec, which is odd. Might post a bug, unless I made a mistake when I flipped the UVs vertically...

[womball]

Hey Broken! Glad to see you here! I have had a similar problem with displacements. However normals work quite well in blender as well. Even in version 2.41. I will post my Journey begins in several places when its done. The dog zbrushed. And I tested what looked better, normals or displacements. If you use a lot of light normals will show more of the details you want. However they do throw off the lighting a bit.

[isacatcar1]

Free Daz Studio 1.3

Daz_studio.jpg

[AVTPro]

I did these some time about. The first time I ever got Zbrush displacement renders in ElectricImage. Still studying the process. EIAS doesn't have 32bit renders, it's great but will only do 8bit. Nor does it do mid gray level displacement. DE may be a great help with this,





I did the pixolator head but I'm using Photoshop to separate 8bit pos and neg displacement/bump maps and I think I cut image data can got flat parts.

[enslaver]

Vray 1.48.03

zbrushdisplacementhead.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2737380%27,%27zbrushdisplacement head.jpg%27,1,0%29)

Probably could've done with some extra tweaking but it looks ok =)

Details:

nurms subdiv 2
vraydisplacementmod:
2d mapping
amount 8
shift -4
resolution 1024

displace map flipped (u 1.00 v -1.00)
blur 0.01 offset 0
no colour map curve editing

[loulan_witch]

this is my render

gggggggggggggggggggggg.jpg

[billrobertson42]

My render with gelato and gelobj (http://www.tekbot.com/gelobj)

sword.jpg

[xvampire]

this is my first try for few mins during the class ( oops :p )

for description :
im using Xsi 5.11,
Im doing a little bit tweaking from deffault rendertree (generated for displacement if you load up the disp map at the first time)

I cranked up the new start and end range ten time (maybe hundreed time i forgot :D)

and max disp into 2, sometimes I tried more than 2 it doesnt change anything

lemme know if this sword suppoesed to have more detail.

ps : im not usually
using fine displacement
usually using angle disp, it render faster, but it also create seam prob

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=40246&stc=1

swordie2.jpg

[xcid]

hey woundering if you could help with a detail problem in maya , i see your displacement is perfect. i export using Multi displacement export2 and even tried the in built zbrush exporter on adaptive... in maya i make sure filtering is off in mental ray and off under the file node, my displacement settings using the =file#.alphaGain/2 expression, yet my renders are not nearly as high detailbut when rendered the poly count on the mental ray appox (displacement and SubD) are really nice and high...


where is the detail being lost and why does it look smoothed out?
without the subd approx (if that is the reason for the smoothing effect and loss of detail ) and just the displacement approx ...the render looks blocky and lower detail still , so it needs the subd approx

[BilloBob123]

I Like that lighting. Dam That just got me back into Maxwell as a renderer.

Thanks for sharing:)

[JCvanDamme]

hello
i've got a problem with my OBJ Auto scale value. when i work on a model and later on try to export it the auto sclae numbers are always x=1.0000y=1.00000 z=1.00000(sometimes even x=0). so i cant use the equation:Amount = (displacement-gain / OBJ auto scale value) * 10

what do i wrong?

and another question.it seems that my auto depth factor is to high,it is about 2.54,thats unnormal,isn't it?

please help me

[JCvanDamme]

sorry,double post

[Shonner]

compare.jpg

Rendered in Carrara Pro 5.1. An amplitude of 12 was used for the displacement and a smooth rendering of 4 was used on the polygon model.

[billrobertson42]

My render with gelato and gelobj (http://www.tekbot.com/gelobj)

Updated. I had some time to figure out a bit more about displacement.


sword.jpg

Thanks for looking.

[dahwan]

hehe, this is fun. Well, after hours of experimenting, here is my result.

3D studio max
Mental ray
meshsmooth 4 iterations
displacement strenght 6,0
luminance center 0,0
And a homemade skin shader :P
sssrender.jpg

Raytrace material with a lot of specularity
blirender.jpg

standard material, no lighting
clarender.jpg

[aliaslies]

This is my attempt using R10.
Standard map as supplied,added into filter and contrast tweaked
15 second render with the skin shader
finhead12.jpg
I don't know if the hypernurbs object has changed but using settings mentioned early inthe thread the render takes about 15 minutes and still looks poor.
The main setting difference is no hypernurbs object just setting 4 and round geometry in displacement.

[Framedworld]

by "R" do you mean PRman?

[lemonnado]

I bet he refers to Cinema4D R10. Here is my attempt with the same weapon:
C4DR10.jpg
Lemo

[aliaslies]

You're right Lemonnado, Cinema 4d it is.
Sorry didn't mean to cause any confusion .
What settings did you use for your displacement map ??

[lemonnado]

I used micropolygon displacement in AR and the Sinc Algo for mapping the displacement map. Unfortunately the 16bit map still shows quantizing errors without blurring it. MIP mapping is flattening everything badly. But I think the detail came out nice with that setting without showing any ridges.
Cheers
Lemo

[Sylvia Lorrain]

for your posts...
and also your demo and tut about displacement maps. :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu: :tu:
I tested many different ways to keep the geometry between ZBrush & Maya and before, the result was awful!
Then, I did your example and it was really better! So, I tried to see what is happening with our meshes, and... it works!!! (but I have to scale x10 in Maya)

Really thank you for help and sharing!!! :D +++ Respect!!!

www.marcboulay.net (http://www.marcboulay.net/)
www.hox.fr (http://www.hox.fr/)

[matasorapit]

Hi people, I hope all have had a wonderful xmas and start to the new year.

I use zbrush alot but unfortunatly cannot afford any large quality 3d programmes like Max, Maya and C4D but have been playing with a tutors version of C4d as I intend to buy one in the next few months. We also have Maya in our computer Lab.

Anyway, I have had a play using the maps provided. The sword works fine. I duidnt do anything with contrast as do not know how to yet. This coming weekend I will take the manual home and study it.

Let me know what I have done wrong as it seemed really simple.

zbrushheadao3.jpg

[Angrytofu]

Hi, I did the two test files attached to this thread and they worked out fine. I did then did a test with a low poly model I had that I did some additions in Zbrush with. I first just did it on one object of the model a shoulder pad and I brought it back into maya, rendered it with MR and it worked fine.


I put it down and I decided to do the whole body and followed the same steps, now when I render it with Mental Ray I see the changes on the model but it is in a hard edged mode. I open up the render log and the script ediitor and I see this error.

// Error: (Mayatomr.Geometry) : NewbodyforMaya:polySurfaceShape1: polygon mesh can't be exported as a subdivision surface //

MENTAL RAY RENDER DIAGNOSTICS:

Textures

- Filter type of file node "file1" (Quadratic) is not supported.

Performance

- file1 has a resolution of 2048x2048 which may be unefficient.

- If file1 is not a memory mappable file, use imf_copy to convert it to .map format, to improve the performance.

// Warning: 3 warnings, see script editor for details. //


any help would be awesome and very appreciated.

[afxwinter]

Rendered In 3DSMax9 using Scanline:

swordmax9.jpg

-Displacement map image has a -.5 RGB Offset and .01 blur
-Turbosmooth applied with 6 render iterations
-Displacement Modifier applied with a strength of 10 and existing mapping checked.
-All other settings not mentioned are at default values

[Lasse Eriksen Bjørseth]

Hello all.
Just wondering if anybody knows how to set up displacement maps in Maya and render it in Maxwell?

Thank you!

[Rom6]

hi...i use 3d max 8 and vray 1.50 rc 3..i cannt find the right size for amount and
shift..but i ussualy use 10 and -5 for that....can all of u help me for that?..and one major factor is size of u divide mesh..but since i turn down my subdivision to 4 ,many kind of various result. is that right the lower divition my impact the result for displacement?...if i go to sub dived 5
....my displacement sometime become more sharp and bummpyyy....please help....and what tipe of tile that 3d max and vray user ussualy use for sclupt and game industry??..is guv or auv?

and i cannt find right size for vray light to....so please help me...

[Pigumon]

This is my first displacement test ever :)

I'm really new to the whole 3D thing, the apps just seem too complicated for me.
I LOVE the way Zbrush works and Modo was recommended to me for being a great modeler and renderer.

Thanks to Philip Lawson at Uberwave.co.uk for the tutorial on how easy it is for these two apps to work together.


head06.jpg (javascript:zb_insimg('57299','head06.jpg',1,0))

[VJanomolee]

Nice! Pigumon...
As a mac user I think you staying in Modo and Zbrush is nice solid set of tools to accomplish what your interested in.
Stick with it. and dont let the extensiveness of the 3D world overwhelm you.
Take it it one step at a time.

[sinmania]

Hi all from Bulgaria. I am new user of Zbrush and I want to make a nice workflow with Maya and Maxwell render so. Here is my tut it is combined from all kinds of material found about this topic so I will be very greatfull if you guys fine tune it:
Zbrush->Maya->Maxwell render (http://3d-tips.blogspot.com/2007/06/zbrush-3-maya-85-maxwell-render-15.html)

PS: It is still under construction. Because I have exams to take;).

[clareCG]

Hello,

Here;s my attempt. Been learning zBrush for about 3 weeks and decided it was high time that I started practicing displacements so that I could take my stuff to the next level.
Thanks so much Pixolator, Scott Spencer, Ryan, Aurick and Sunit for the fast displacement tutorial you posted some time ago. Been ferociously reading all I can on the forums.

Played around with attribute displacement settiings in both Maya and Mental Ray ( actually still playing...).

My render time in Mental Ray for this was quite quick = 12 seconds with an Alpha gain of 14, alpha offset -7.5.
Machine is 2.4 gHz with 2 gigs of Ram.

Just had to say thanks and keep up the good work. We appreciate itThanks,
Clare
South Africa
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/attachment.php?attachmentid=59421&stc=1

[DOA44]

Does anyone have the sword files? The link doesn't work.

[mstatz]

link doesnt work....helppppppppppppp

[Endbozz]

Does anyone have the sword files? The link doesn't work.yep, would be pretty nice, all the links are dead:cry:

[Zoanoid]

Dear pixelator,

The links are dead, could you repost them if possible.

Sincerly yours,

Zoanoid

[Schbeurd]

Hi,

Go to the Download Center on the Pixologic website (http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/#zmodels)

You should be able to download from there

[Mikeporetti]

Maya7/Mental Ray

I followed scott spencers tutorial and i dont seem to be getting a very nice image :(

ive set the alphagain to 2 and the offset to -1

http://i11.tinypic.com/4y0enax.jpg
I seem to be getting alot of noise that isnt present in the nicer renders ive seen... what could be the cause of this>?

[cecofuli1]

Hello,

I write a little commercial tutorial for the VRay displacement map. For displace map example i will use the head model in this thread. I can? Obviously I put the pixologic name like author of this model in my credits.


Thank's

:)

[Mr Fudge]

OK Here is my attempt. Max 8 and VRay. However I have a question, does unit size in max affect the way displacement behaves. For some reason I have to make amount and shift really high to get more pronounced definition. I tried bumping up the contrast in PS but that distorted too much from the original. Also looks like some definition is lacking from the eyes.

Thanks,
FDisp_Settings_01.jpg

[comic_craig]

thank you people- very helpful

[MoRbIdBoY]

I'm pretty new to 3D in general and just applied my limited knowledge to trying this in 3DS Max. I've managed pretty good until this one, I've got, modelling bump maps and all kinds of stuff pretty much down.

Then on this I failed miserably, which was kind of disheartening :cry:

I've downloaded the object file, and tiff. Imported them both OK in max. Tried both displacement modifier and material displacement and even a mental ray material, but for some reason the displacement of the physical model is all to whack?

I can't seem to get the displacement parameters correct, when I try to change the displacement values as some of forum members have done, my model just bulges out of shape. I this something is misaligned somewhere.

If it's pretty easy (step by step) to do, would someone mind posting me the exact steps they used. I'm using 3DS Max 2008.

I just need a result. Otherwise my head will quite possibly BLOW! :eek:
Thanks!

[MoRbIdBoY]

3D Max 2008 - Scanline Renderer (Actually I lie, I used V-Ray, but it didn't look much different in the default scanline renderer, and I didn't use V-Ray displacement, just a straight render).

Left Side

http://img30.picoodle.com/img/img30/5/12/12/f_RENDER1m_41ce61a.jpg

Right Side

http://img31.picoodle.com/img/img31/5/12/12/f_RENDER2m_ddd9bb3.jpg

I went for more depth to the "Strength" parameter to give him an older look.

I imported the Object Mesh included in the zip file (which has moved now to the general download section of ZBrushCentral website).

Added a MeshSmooth modifier and set the itterations to 4 (I changed the itteration render values only - to speed up the viewport).

Then I added a displace modifier and added the TIFF file to the MAP BITMAP (Selected Bitmap from the list of materials and selected the TIFF). I had to click the V-Tile flip in the displace modifier to get the displacement map to align correctly with the model. I also set the displacement strength to 2 and the decay value to -0.06.


Also, I dragged TIFF map from the displacement button to a slot in the material editor to create a new instance of it that I could edit.

Under the Output option, I clicked the Enable Colour Map to enable editing of the graph. I changed the left graph slider to about -1.75 and changed the right slider to just under the 2 to give the tiff map much more definition. My other options on the "Output" section were Output Amount 1.0, RGB Level 1, Bump Amount 1.

Thanks for this thread and the model, I've learned tonnes just going through this.
:tu:

[phix314]

Awesome.

The actual displacement with the shown settings was only about 1:30 on a Dual Core AMD @ 2.4Ghz and 3g ram with 2 directional lights and raytraced (1 ray) shadows.

Added some FG and HDR to pump it up a bit. Render time went to 9:15-ish.

Used maya 8.5. Maybe if I brought the filter on the file down a bit more detail would be brought through (duh) but this doesn't look half bad.

head1_small.jpg
head1_subdiv.jpg
head1_file.jpg
head1_displace.jpg

[MRC_O]

HI, CAN ANYONE TELL ME EXACTELY THE STRING ( EXPRESSION!) THAT SCOTT SPENCER WROTE ON HIS VIDEO TUTORIAL UNDER THE alpha offset NODE?????
THANKS

[rybeck]

"= - name of image file.alphaGain / 2 ;"

Space may not cuase trouble, but if does, eliminate them, and try again...

[MRC_O]

:tu: THANKS MAN!!!!

[Scott Spencer]

rybeck got it, but I dont use the name of the image file, I use the file node name in the epression.
The expression is

= - filenodename.alphaGain / 2;

[rybeck]

Hey, Scott,

You are right about that! :)
I don't use maya as much as I used to, and indeed I was hesitate to use 'name of image file'..
Thanks for correction..

By the way, I am counting down to get your new book (http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Clay-Character-Creation-ZBrush/dp/047024996X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202067853&sr=8-1) coming soon~:)


Rybeck

[Shonner]

I just pre-ordered it.

[MRC_O]

thenks scott for the correction, one more thing guys, i downloaded the head for the displacement test, but i think i cancelled the displacement file for maya, DO ANYONE STILL HAVE THIS FILE??? so i can make my test??????

thanks again
marco

[tez]

I dont remember Modo one so here are the results for Modo 301.

apewx4.jpg
apemodoscreenekv9.jpg

[rybeck]

DO ANYONE STILL HAVE THIS FILE??? so i can make my test??????
It is still available in pixologic download page..
http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/
Look at the very bottom of the page for "Human Head 3"

[MRC_O]

thanks a lot, i'll soon post my test....:tu:

[Shiskebab]

I dont remember Modo one so here are the results for Modo 301.hi, i'm also trying to render the displament file in Modo 3.01 but for some reason it's not working. Could you maybe attach the .ixo file so i can take look? I followed your screenshot attachment but that didn't work.

[Shonner]

modo 302.

http://www.shonner.com/drafts/images/modo_displacement_and_sss_1.jpg

[yuyoimba]

my try

[a.vector]

This is my attempt in blender:

Blender doesn't (in 2.46) read 16 bit tif imagea but handles up to 32bit openEXR images. So here is how i made this:

1) Used the displacement map in zbrush to create a 5.5Mil poly detailed head.
2) Used Multi Displacement Mapper 3 with standard D32 export settings to generate a 32bit tif.
3) Changed the file format from tif to exr using photoshop and the proEXR plugin keeping it in 32bit and using zip16 compression.
4) In blender loaded the low res obj and sub-divided it to level 5.
5) Applied a displacement modifier with mid-level 0.5 and strength 5.5 using the 32bit exr displacment texture I created. (learned later than model should be scaledx4 in blender edit mode and strength set to half of alpha displacement value to get exact matching)
6) Rendered in internal renderer with ao.

A.vector

[UvMaPmAsTeR]

Hey guys,

we're still posting this right? :p

This was in vray-max, i tried to get it to work in mental ray-maya but no joy, i followed every instruction, i really am baffeld mmm:eek: . Thanks for all the info, pixolator and scott spencer, you both rock!!

[shokan]

I have looked all over for someone who has had success with importing a ZBrush textured and painted object into Vue. Only crashing results with Vue, also misaligned textures, but mainly crashing. Anyone have actual experience with this?

Thanks.

[BeerKeeper]

Have u tried flipping texture verticaly before u export it.

[tez]

hi, i'm also trying to render the displament file in Modo 3.01 but for some reason it's not working. Could you maybe attach the .ixo file so i can take look? I followed your screenshot attachment but that didn't work.
Sorry I didnt get back sooner. Do you still need the file, if so il upload it?

[sjogren]

That would be great if you could upload that file for some off us.
I just downloaded Modo 30 day trial becuase I am looking for a nice Modeller/ render application, would be great to test and see how it works...

and/or som info about the displacement settings in zbrush and modo.

[tez]

Here is the ape head with Modo LXO file. You must use the displacment map in this archive as its been fliped verticaly, the original isnt. There was no messing with this, just imported, applied the map and added a floor and sss to the head.




http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MD0FHB5F

ape head.jpg
(http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MD0FHB5F)

[DanasArt]

I didn't read through all the posts, but I am new to the whole process and I am using Vray for Rhino and I am not having any success. I just don't know the proper way to do it. I can't get the displacement map to go onto the model properly. I've tried everything that I know (which isn't much).

Has anyone tried this with Vray for Rhino that could give a quick tutorial on this? Thanks.

[tez]

Dont know if these would help?

http://www.vray.com/vray_for_rhino/manual/displacement.shtml


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ZNdMbkM94&feature=related

[DanasArt]

Thanks, but I have read that and a lot of other articles and I still can't get the displacement map to correctly wrap onto the model. Anyway, Thanks for the help. I'll keep playing with it.

[ZETS]

This is my attempt in blender:

Blender doesn't (in 2.46) read 16 bit tif imagea but handles up to 32bit openEXR images. So here is how i made this:

1) Used the displacement map in zbrush to create a 5.5Mil poly detailed head.
2) Used Multi Displacement Mapper 3 with standard D32 export settings to generate a 32bit tif.
3) Changed the file format from tif to exr using photoshop and the proEXR plugin keeping it in 32bit and using zip16 compression.
4) In blender loaded the low res obj and sub-divided it to level 5.
5) Applied a displacement modifier with mid-level 0.5 and strength 5.5 using the 32bit exr displacment texture I created. (learned later than model should be scaledx4 in blender edit mode and strength set to half of alpha displacement value to get exact matching)
6) Rendered in internal renderer with ao.

A.vectorI can't get this to work. Are you sure that you have mentioned all important details. I have a problem with attaching displacement to a model inside of Blender. All I get is some kind of black texture. Please help cause there is not enough info on the internet about this.

Thanks,
Marko

[Sigmund Hentze]

Can anyone help? Is there a configuration setup for Modo in ZMapper available yet?

Thanks Ziggy

[tez]

Can anyone help? Is there a configuration setup for Modo in ZMapper available yet?

Thanks Ziggy
Hi there. I have just done a video tutorial on mapps from Zb to Modo, iv also included my own Modo config as well. Check it out.

http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=34124

[Sigmund Hentze]

Great and thanks a mil....

Ziggy

[YouZC]

I went through all the steps in trying to apply the displacement map on the Head, but maya crashed on me. Error reading about Runtime



Using Maya 2009 32 bit PC
Nividia Graphics Card
Windows XP
Pentium 4 3.20GHZ 2 GB RAM

error.jpg

error02.jpg

[arian_a991]

Well I have folowed the tutorial posted by Scott Spencer, but this is the result I got.
haha I know I know... at first I fealt bit shy to put it here lol. But I was hoping someone could help me fix this :)
ok well thanks everyone and have a great day

ugh.jpg

[nexusbird]

arian, what application are you using? thats the first thing i need to know to help you, by the looks of your outcome you need to take the displacment into photoshop and then you need to, CTRL+A, then CTRL+T, then right click and hit "Flip Virtically", then save it, and it should show up correctly.

I have just downloaded this as i too have been searching for the last damn year trying to figure out how to do it lol, i finally fount out how to do it in 3dsmax, and the results are well.. FANTASTIC! here is a pic.

sucsess.jpg

[PanoptIcoN]

Has anyone achived a good result on zbrush to maya - maxwell render workflow_?_? :ex: :cry:

[Jysky]

Here is my test with Blender 2.49!

1. Download files from first page of this thread :)
2. Open tif with Photoshop (without color management).
3. Flip vertical, mode to RGB, depth to 32bit.
4. Levels, input black to around 50.
5. Save as *.exr
6. Load model in to Blender. (nothing special)
7. Load texture in to Blender. (nothing special)
8. Add sub surf modifier to model. (render levels 4 or 5)
9. Add displace modifier to model and assign texture for it. (midleve 0, Strength 9, Normal, UV, UVTex)
10. Setup some camera and lights and render! (OSA was 16 to get nice antialiasing. With lower OSA it's even faster to render!!!)

First image is rendered with sub surf 4 and another one is with 5. Not too much difference on quality, but much slower to render.

My computer specs are:

Apple Macbook
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
2Gt memory

You can find rendering times from upper right corner of attached images.

subSurf4.jpg
subSurf5.jpg

[Jason Belec]

Nice, however I see a big difference. And still you need to go further, you are losing a lot of detail. Go Blender. ;)

[shokan]

Sorry to create a sidetrack. Someone at C4DCafe said that a renderer called 3Delight will not render alphas at all. This could put the whammy on my plans to use it to render ZBrush objects with alpha brush details. 3Delight is a Renderman compliant renderer (Pixar).

If anyone knows more about this, please post.

[Jason Belec]

Uummmm, well 3Delight is utilized for an awful lot of films. I've used it off and on on projects (tv shows, features) since it's inception. It's very fast and high quality by a fella (or two) that are very talented in this area. Another to look at is Pixie. Both basically the same, but each has strengths. Of course quite a few RIB based renderers exist to play with. ;)

[shokan]

Can 3delight render alpha details created in ZBrush?

[OvidiusTiberius]

Well, i am rendering displacement with maya /mr since maya 7/8 and i figured out how to reach the result i want.It's all about some experience with it.
First of all you have to be careful what iterations you gave in the mr subdivision approximation node, i mean you have to start with lower numbers and see in output window what is the number of retesselated triangles during render time...it should be around the number of quads x 2 ,you had in Zbrush. So in minimum /max subdivisions (spatial mode) you shoul use 1/3 for the begining and increase if in output window you haven't reached the number of triangles from Zb.Also you have to experience with creating a displacement starting from a higher subdivision in Zb ..2 or 3 for example.
You should try with diffrent multi displacement map settings ,i mean with scale: Auto or Ad Factor or Off.Also do not forget to work with R32 and to convert the Displaacement .tiff file in .map file because Mr loves memory mappable files.Hope it helps.

[Jysky]

Here is one more image. Now there is 6 levels of sub surf. You might see slightly more details now? I tried to put 7, but I had no enough memory :D subSurf6.jpg

[Jason Belec]

shokan, 3Delight, Pixie, et all, are technologies based on Renderman. They can render anything. You are going to have to learn shading language or find the necessary shader or tools. Plenty exist. If you utilize Maya follow the link in my signature to Liquid. We've been exporting Maya scenes to Renderman, 3Delight, Pixie, etc., for years. I've been combining Zbrush with these tools since Zbrush 1.5. Perhaps a little session with the great God Google can provide you with the necessary information.

In this thread alone I've covered stuff and in others as have many other people.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=179237&postcount=284

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=215412&postcount=341


http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=33112&highlight=Pixie+3delight+maya+liquid

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=24941&highlight=Pixie+3delight+maya+liquid

I hope you take a look at http://www.highend3d.com where some very talented Renderman API people exist. Not sending you away from here, but information is information.

[arian_a991]

hey nexusbird (member.php?u=150586).
I am using Maya software and yes I did flip the normal maps verticaly. do you have any other idea what the problem might be?

[arian_a991]

Can someone please help me. I'm getting desperate here :(. I've tried everything and followed both of Scott Spencers tutorials. But i'm getting really weird results and I can't find anything to solve my problem.

This is the result I got when I tried to add the displacement maps for the creature posted on this thread.

ugh.jpg

And I followed the tutorial from Scott posted on youtube step by step myltiple times.

Also there's gnomon tutorial by him with this creature
shouldbe.jpg

And this is the result I got from it
gross.jpg

I don't know what is left to do. I've tried to do everything and I still can't solve the problem. I did hours of googling and followed the tutorials countless times trying to search for any error. And everytime I get this weird results.
Any help would be appriciated.
p.s do you think maybe the problem is in my video card.
I have ATI Radeon cards and I know they are meant for games and not CG stuff?
I can upload the maya scene if anyone wants maybe to see how the maps appear on their computer. But the file is pretty big because of the .map file (64 MB).

Software used: Maya 2008 and of course Zbrush.

[Jason Belec]

Looks like the map isn't attaching. Either due to it's format or you missed a step. So you get super bloated head because no area on the map is defined as higher than another. Thus all areas are affected or not affected, former seems likely here. Depending on your map as well, you have to shift the values to allow for negatives, Maya doesn't handle that right out of the gate without tweaking. ;) Just guessing, I'm not very knowledgeable. ;)

[robotball]

This is probably too little too late but I think you'll get better results from mental ray. Also I've noticed that in the file texture fro the displacement map you should turn on Use Alpha as Luminance. In some cases this is on but you still get bloating. It might be a bug but sometimes if you turn it off and then turn it on again it fixes the problem, at least in Maya 2009.

[0bz]

Here is a quick write up on Maxwell with Zbrush 3.5 maps.
Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I thought it might be helpful to have in the knowledge base.

Took some doin,
But I got her figured out.

First things first, your geometry must have soft edges. Furthermore it should be subdivided at least enough to account for profile curvature, otherwise you will have faceted silhouette and if you "smooth UVs" in your map creation, it won´t line up right. So depending on your base cage, divide once or twice, remembering to smooth UVs.

Your displacement offset (the 50% point) with Zbrush 3.5 32bit maps will be .74
This is what you could call the "alpha gain" in Maya. With Mental Ray in maya, it is just set to .500
Why .74? If you take a 32bit map generated from Zbrush, and sample the pixels in monitor space (8 or 16 bit mode, not 32) it's a value of 74%.
So our mid point is solved. Maxwell knows where the grey value / surface origin is.

Now the height, or scale. Unfortunately this also works differently. It may be due to the built in scale numbers in Zbrush 3.5, or some other factor, but a height number is going to be unique for each surface.

How to find it?
Create and export your 32 bit displacement like normal, put it in your textures dir.. then, just create on in the displacement pallet in Zbrush, lower res so it is faster.

Clone it then look at the alpha palate for the AD factor. Whatever that number is, move the decimal point two spots to the right, and you have your height number for Maxwell.

Took me a good 6 hours of twiddling, but I finally got her. Works bullet proof.

dispComp.jpg


The body had an alpha depth of 0.0143, so that resulted in a height of 1.43 (scale of a 100, probably due to maya's scale factor for scenes in centimeters).

The jaw had an alpha depth of 0.9189, so a height of 9.189.

Remember, "height" or elevation is a %. So 9% of the jaw is not such a big number compared to 1.43% of the body. The numbers seem strange at first, but work if you think about it.

Hope this helps.

[mjolnir]

that was nice of you, obz. : )

[mjolnir]

the marshmellow man is always funny. and the look of terror on the faces of everyone that sees it for the first time. heeheehee. never ceases to amuse me. dont worry, bud. happens to everyone.

[JackMcRip]

Cinema 4D R11.5 Demo

Disp_TestHead.jpg

[pappete]

hi all...i have serious problem with displacement map ( 3dsmax 2010-vray)...t takes hours to rend and can't get even 10% of the effect...i use vraydispmod and no light in scene and no GI...last render take me 40min for a **** result
..my disp res is 2048x2048 16bit
i have an intel 4core i7 (2.67ghz)-6gm RAM -win vista 64bit

some help? =(

[pwduffy]

When I try this I get an error:

// Warning: (Mayatomr.Geometry) : DispTestHead_NG_Low:ZBrushPolyMesh3DShape: subdivision surface does not support separate displace approximation, ignored. Tune primary tessellation / approximation for displacement.

[TimeActor]

Hi everybody,
i´m very new at ZBrush and i would like to show you my first Displacement Render with Modo 401.
What do you think about?
I know this thread is very old but i followed this the last 3 Nights to get an result to get close to the pictures i saw here.
Sorry for my english!
Regards
Martin

[SNorth]

Thanks 0bz works like a charm with ZB4 as well.

[TimeActor]

Hi everybody,
another Render with VRay 1.25 in Cinema 4D 11.5.
What do you think about?
(http://imageshack.us)

[polyxo]

Hi Zbrush Staff,
as Next Limit just added a new and greatly faster Displacement Method to Maxwell-Render I thought running you old Benchmark-Scenes (Head, Sword) wasn't a bad idea. But I had to realize that these files are no longer available. Is there a replacement for with maps saved from Zbrush 4 R2 planned? Thanks for a short comment!

[koshey]

Yeah i am trying to render zbrush displacement in maya and it just doesnt seem to work no matter what i try. If someone figured out how to render misplacement properly a short tutorial would be greatly appreciated.

[mrtszak]

hi, I will very grateful for help. How do I export a correctly my displacement map so that my model looked identical in the other program as the zbrush 4 or 4r2. I export map from tool/displacemant map and multi map exporter and never get the same resuls in the other program.
Below send my setting.

http://screenshooter.net/4201708/icadbxs 32bit
http://screenshooter.net/4201708/xcpnsbs 32bit

http://screenshooter.net/4201708/ciapnva 16bit
http://screenshooter.net/4201708/gyqgytx 16bit

[Kelley C]

Anybody got the obj and tiff for this displacement map tutorial? Link no longer active. Thanks.