Rendering successful displacement in Maya 2008

[Scott Spencer]

Maya 2008 Displacements

It appears that a lot of people are having problems with Maya 2008 and rendering displacement maps. Two major changes have been made in Maya 2008 that impacts the ability to effectively render 32 bit displacement maps.
I did some reasearch and set up a mel script that will set up the scene file correctly. Thanks must go to those who found the problems with Maya 2008 early on. ZBC member marcotronic (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=66884) uncovered the CCMesh change.

The changes that Autodesk made are to the Alpha Detection and the mental Ray export mesh at render time. Maya 8.5 and earlier use Subdivision Surfaces at render time when a subdivision approximation node is assigned. Maya 2008 defaults to the CCMesh or Catmull Clark mesh. This is intended to be faster and support tris, ngons, and quads. The problem is it creates seams in the render.
badRender.jpg

The second change is to alpha detection. Bloated renders occur because Mental Ray is defaulting to not considering Alpha as luminance.

bloat.jpg

You can set this manually on each file node or change the default setting under Window>Settings and Preferences>Rendering Use maya style alpha detection.
The script I am posting will throw this switch for the scene file returning it to Maya style alpha detection.

Setting up the script

This is a simple process. We will just copy and paste the script into the script editor and create a MEL shelf button for it. First off open the script editor:

sriptIcon.jpg

Copy and paste the text of the script from the end of this post into the bottom window of the script editor. Highlight all the text by pressing Control A.

editor.jpg

Then using the Middle Mouse Button click and drag the text up to the shelf. If you dont see the shelf just press Control and Spacebar to show all the menu elements.

shelf.jpg

Now this button will execute the MEL script when pressed. Just set up you renders as normal and then press this button before rendering. It will make all the changes. You only need to do this once if you save your scene file. It will also support multiple subdivision approximations in a single scene. The script will select and convert each of them.
Make sure to save your preferences so the shelf button stays between Maya sessions. Save prefs with File>Save Preferences

A successful render after running the miSetupScript
goodRender.jpg

I hope this helps. My thanks to everyone who has shared their experience and fixes on the forum especially marcotronic (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=66884); who uncovered the new CCMesh primitive on the Autodesk site.

Scott

//COPY THE SCRIPT FROM HERE
// mental ray Subdivision Approximation script

// by scott spencer

//scott@scottspencer.com

//converts all subdivision approximation nodes in the scene from CCMesh to subdivision surface as well as sets the option

// to use maya style alpha detection

optionVar -iv "miUseMayaAlphaDetection" 1 -sv 1 1; //sets maya style alpha detection - mthe same as

// checking the Alpha is Luminance box in the file node but this works for all displacements in the scene

string $selected[] = `ls -type mentalraySubdivApprox`; // selects each subdivision approximation node in the scene and adds to an arry

int $size = `size ($selected)`; // creates the counter variable

for ($a=0;$a<$size;$a++) //increments thru the array

{//beginning of loop

string $name = $selected[$a]; // this variable accesses each element of select using $a as an index

addAttr -ln "miExportCCMesh" -at bool $selected[$a];

}

//END OF SCRIPT

[mnmava]

Thanks a bunch for this it will help a ton.

[MRC_O]

thanks a lot, right now i did my first (good) displace render with sss material.....
cheers prova.jpg

[claybub]

You are fabulous!!!!
the seams were always a huge headache for me, and i could never find out what caused them.

Thanks!

[psi0nic_gh0st]

Well Done Scott, well done.... :D

[kgg777]

A do it all in one Mel script makes the process a whole lot easier than doing it manually via the previous 2008 fix method out there.
Thank you!

[r4ptur3]

Whoever rated this as a 1 has obviously never touched ZB or MAYA before. Awesome tutorial for an otherwise complicated issue. Displacement seams = huge headache.

[MRC_O]

Hi Scott, Please Could You Tell Me, The "expression String" That You Wrote On Your Videotutorial Under The "alpha Gain Offsett" Node????
Thank A Lot
Marco

[feureau]

Oooh! Thank you very much! A wonderful all in one script!!

[bicc39]

Many Many thanks, as usual...

you have no idea how helpful and timely this is!!!!!

[bicc39]

mr co

= - filenodename.alphaGain / 2;

[Scott Spencer]

No problem guys, Im glad it helps. I took a LONG time to move to Maya 2008 and when I did I put this together. Figured I would share it here.
Now I need to update the displacement guide and my Gnomonology tuts.

Thanks Again!

S

[ryankingslien]

You're awesome Scott! Thanks for sharing the love! :)

Ryan

[Elixir]

Silly question:

Is there a version of Multi-Displacement for ZBrush 3.1?

I have been looking without any luck :(

[yiannis t.]

Thank you so much for that!

also thanks to marcotronic who spotted the subdivision approximation node bug in the first place.(that was a hard one to find!)

[Scott Spencer]

Elixir: It comes as part of ZBrush 3.1 Its under ZPlugin : )

Cheers,

Scott

[dcr8iv1]

. . Hey Scott,

Thanks for that info from you and marcotronic. One less headache @ wk in the Maya experience of 'New Version Bugs'.

Dan

:tu:
Gnom. Anat. Class

[pndraggn]

As always some good stuff. Thanks Scott

[yolao]

Now I need to update the displacement guide and my Gnomonology tuts.
Hey Scoth, thanks a lot for the great script and tutorial.
Speaking of your Gnomonology tuts. When are you goin to make the second part of the zbrush-maya disp. maps for extracting and applyng multiple disp. maps on a single mesh?

I can apply multiple disp. maps plus SSS in maya to a single mesh with diferent UV regions but with ctrl_multidisplace. I will like to do that with just maya node and shaders

About the script...i suppose that i don`t have to copy also the line //COPY THE SCRIPT FROM HERE....but i have to copy from the next line....
sorry..just checking...

Best Regards

[mphilip]

I'm still getting seams ?? have your gnomonoloy video to and followed it. Any one see somthing I missed? I tried 8 and 16 for boarder settings and adaptive and dpsub and auto map in maya
settings.gif
render.jpg

[psi0nic_gh0st]

Should be using mental ray to ren der bub, and auto UV in maya sometimes leaves overlap so check for that too with the UV Check in the textures tool setting thingy:D

[mphilip]

thanks for teh reply but i am using mental ray. the setting your looking at in the image it just the default render I believe. Also I tryed 3 different uv maps and checked for overlap. you can see there was none in the zbrush map.

[hogan burrows]

Hi select the mesh, and exicute put this in the script editor!

addAttr -ln "miExportCCMesh" -at bool mentalraySubdivApprox1

Make sure all the mesh is quads (poly smooth if need bez)

or change the name of the Approx node to your approx node name

Good luck!
remember to turn feature displacement off on the shape node too!

[mphilip]

I ran the command but still no luck. If your wondering about the seam moving that was me trying a new uv layout.
still.jpg

[mphilip]

:D thanks I guess I just didn't execute the command. Thanks a million

stil2l.jpg

can you explain to me what that command is doing or point me to a place that does. it's good to know why somthing is happening for trouble shooting other things



here is a link to a script to convert tiffs to maps on the mac if anyone finds this task is a hassle

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=56223

[zsz98781]

fixed

[Scott Spencer]

If you execute the mel script and it disappears that means it worked. Are you getting seams in the renders or the maps? The image seems to be of a map.

S

[zsz98781]

fixed!

[zsz98781]

fixed

[zsz98781]

have some trouble ***12290;headache***65281;
error.JPG
intel core 1.7G cpu
ATI x2300 display card.
1024MB RAM
MAYA208 MR

[zsz98781]

oh!my GOD! seams still here! :cry:
when i use DemoHead to test.
error.jpg (javascript:zb_insimg('85877','error.jpg',1,0))

[mike0006]

Kudos to Marcotronic!!!

I think he should get an award or something.

[Scott Spencer]

Make sure that the script is run before renderings. also try and regenerate the map using GUV tiles or maya auto mapping. Otherwise it should be working. I am not on a machine with Maya at the moment os I cant check the scene file.

mike0006 (http://209.132.96.165/zbc/member.php?u=37890) vbmenu_register("postmenu_436556", true); : I agree. Marco found the change in the mess of documentation on the Autodesk site, a massive undertaking. Dude I owe you a beer or something. :)

S

[Scott Spencer]

Hey zsz98781
I got your PM but I havent seen a reply yet. Did you get it working? If the script reports nothign back it means it worked. if you get an error it usually mean it has run and there is not a ccmesh to work on.

It may all be moot at this point. Check out Marco's thread for an update on the Service Pack to Maya 2008. (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=54042&highlight=maya+2008)

S

[zsz98781]

thanks for hot Scott Spencer!
sorry,i have used you supported script to work before maya sp1 publish.but cant get a good fixed. it's unknow.
I Have fixed the displacement seams use maya sp1. and some new error appearing. some spine on the UV border.and the displacement losted a lot of details of skin bump.

***26410;***21629;***21517;.jpg eerra.jpg

[zsz98781]

for avoid some spines ,i reduced the uv border at 8 to 2 in ZB-DE3,but the displacement seams is returning as a nightmare! when i using your supported script to create a ccmesh node at the 'mentalraySubdivApprox1'.but theTriangulate face become some holes and seams be fixed. maya2008sp1 myr_maya2008_sp1_releasenotes.pdf has mentioned "for ccmesh objects,fixed texturing on seams",but the hole is appearing.
hant the good way to fix any all!!:cry: spines, seams and holes.
***26410;***21629;***21517;.jpg

[shhark]

Try MeshLab (http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/). It has many filters that let you close holes, clean,decimate triangle & polys, convert files, etc. It likes to crash on large files which is a pain but it's free.:)

[zsz98781]

sorry! you hant understand my meaning.
when i make my model by marcotronic supported a MEL to convert "ccmesh" and rendering by MR. but some holes is appearing.it is a phenomenon in rendering .cant use your meshLAB to fix ?

[marcotronic]

Hi,


sorry, I don´t know if I have understood you right - I´m a bit confused now what you did in which order... :) But you don´t need to do anything concerning that ccmesh stuff when you use Maya 2008 with SP1 - no need to run that MEL script for the ccmesh fix...

Marco

[zsz98781]

'no need to run that MEL script for the ccmesh fix...'??? i havd intalled Maya 2008 with SP1 .but ..seams still here~~~~~
&_26410.jpg

[marcotronic]

mhhhh.... that´s strange.

Are you sure you have installed SP1 correctly? Does Maya show "Maya 2008 Service Pack 1" in the splash screen when starting Maya? At first I had installed SP1 without de-installing Maya 2008 and thought it just had updated to SP1 but that wasn´t the case - you have to de-install Maya before installing the SP1 package. Did you do that?

Marco

[zsz98781]

yes ! i have to de-install Maya before installing the SP1 package.is flash screenqq.jpg

[paccini]

teste.jpg perfect seamless head. i also used this script in conjunction with "zbrush to maya video tutorial".
regards

[Mikeporetti]

looks like you got some bloating, if you fix it let me know id like to know how,.

[kgg777]

Can someone who has installed service pack 1 (or has extension 2) tell me what the mental ray screen says in the output window when you load maya? The date of the mental ray version?

Is the fix inside the SP1 for maya or in the mental ray pack?

I dont have access to a machine with either at the moment--but I tried a 32 bit displacement on a machine with extension 2 and still got that wonderful seam problem. I had to use the Scott script to fix it, though the rendering time was much faster(and it seemed to support tifs better?).

[paccini]

... i just used a displacement map and nothing else. also, as the head comes from the file a little bit big, i used a high alpha gain, maybe 12 in this case,and i didn' tweak it. i just did this "exercise" just for, lets say, peace of mind.
that's why i got some bloating.
was i clear?
regards

[justlearning]

i'm going border line insane with this stuff as most of us probably have. I'm getting normal displacement along the equator of my spherical shape, but along the bottom and top things get really strange.

onion_top.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2787700%27,%27onion_top.jpg%27,1 ,0%29)

I've tried just about every combination of settings in zbrush exporting and maya importing and maya displacement setup.

Process. Polygon sphere in maya with sawtooth UVs. extruded top of model a bit. Exported obj with groups, point groups, matierals etc on export options as ON also tried OFF(same results). Had to slightly shrink UV shell in editor otherwise MD3 recognized it as 2 tiles(still didnt change final result)

Imported to zbrush with correct flip import/export options, subdivided 6 more times. 2.3 million polys final count. detailed level by level. exported base mesh as OBJ with Export options MRG on, GRP off, than MRG off and GRP on, than both off(same results all round). Displacement settings, mapsize 2048, mapsize adjust 0 everything else default. exported displacement map with the LBEK-EAEAEA code. converted to .map

Imported .obj back into maya applied lambert, added displacement map. set color balance AG to 2.2 and offset to -1.1 just to test. Approximation Subdivision node setup for obj, set to spatial, min subd 3 and max subd 5. Length set to 0 than to .010 than to .050(same results). Disabled displacement on geometry.

I think that covers just about everything. I am going coocoo coocoo. Should i set my original sphere .obj to have pinch polar UVs instead of sawtooth? is there anything i can do?? even a remote hint is greatly appreciated

[psi0nic_gh0st]

can you post your Uvs?

[Scott Spencer]

mental Ray (previous to maya 2008) hates tris. the top of a polygon sphere is all triangles. I suspect if you sculpted the stalk from the side of the sphere you wouldn't have this problem.

Thats my inital reaction to the image. May be something else happening here.

S

[justlearning]

ahhh lord spencer.... that makes total sense!! i was extruding the tris at the top and base of the mesh. i will remodel and report back. quick question.. after i export from maya and import to zbrush. can i just apply the displacement to the original OBJ? or is it best to export the obj after its been touched in zbrush? also.. will normal maps increase the accuracy when trying to get models to look like their zbrush counterparts?

will mental ray have issues displacing the sides of the sphere which is where the tris will be if i model on the side? should i smooth in maya before exprting?

psi0nic_gh0st: here's the uvs for your interest.
uv.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2787708%27,%27uv.jpg%27,1,0%29) (texture from an older revision)

[Elliott Mitchell]

Scott and the Gang,

I was wondering if any of you have run in to this problem with batch rendering zbrush generated displacement maps with mental ray in maya 2008? When I render a single frame the displacement map looks good. When I batch render no displacement details appear. Everything works well until I batch render.

I am using .map files

I have a shader network that connects displacement maps with blendshapes.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Elliott Mitchell]

Well it turns out I have a fix. I was using David Johnson's (djx) dj_mix_colors (http://www.djx.com.au/blog/2008/02/01/layering-shaders-with-mentalray/) shader to blend/mix the displacement maps driven by blend shapes. As I said before, render current frame worked great. Batch render not so good.

I decided to just use the mib_color_mix instead of the dj_mix_colors and it worked!

(http://www.djx.com.au/blog/2008/02/01/layering-shaders-with-mentalray/)

[justlearning]

hey spencer, i did what you suggested about the stem on the side of the zsphere. I'm getting this strange star shaping on the sides of the sphere now though in zbrush in the higher subdivisions. its virtually impossible to smooth down. do not i sudbiveded once in Maya before exporting for fear of mental ray hating the tris when i rendered displacement

star.jpg (http://javascript%3cb%3e%3c/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2787743%27,%27star.jpg%27,1,0%29 )


any suggestions?

[psi0nic_gh0st]

Having all quads helps, but at the center of the star, do you have alot of vertices meeting at 1 point? Like more than 4? Having 5+ edges come from verticies can cause stuff like to happen and maybe that could be causing the star you see in the render

[justlearning]

yeah. its a maya polysphere which has lots of points coming together at its ends. was trying to figure a way around it

[psi0nic_gh0st]

Well if you start w/ a cube u can keep subdividing it so it won't have those edge poles at the end

[justlearning]

psi0nic_ghost: the sphere UV mapping seems to work best. i can deal with the star stuff if it bother me down the road. Working with the top here where most of the geometry is. Check out the image. Im trying every combination in the Alpha Gain and Offset to match it but this is the closest i can get.


top.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2787778%27,%27top.jpg%27,1,0%29) mayavs.jpg (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%2787779%27,%27mayavs.jpg%27,1,0% 29)

I've seen in a tutorial a guy using Auto+A.D.F. in the MD3 export options instead of A.D.Factor. I cant really get close at all to the level of detail i get in zbrush.(3.4 million polys) approximation editor at Spatial with 3 min and 5 max divisions. Length at 0 and/or .010. Alpha gain at .3, alpha offset at -.15 also tried higher numbers like 3 and -1.5. my map is at 2048, should i increase its size?

Are normal maps used to add that extra fine level of detail that is at the higher subd levels?

note: exported level 1 subd model from zbrush, imported into maya.

DISPLACEMENTS = FRUSTRATING!

[shellsing]

Holy **** thx! I've been bashing my head against displacement+sss for ages now and this fixed it. Thx alot for this :P!

[zsz98781]

mental Ray (previous to maya 2008) hates tris??
when i render tris in maya 2008 sp1,the hole is filled,but the seams is appear.
other,i render with 'ccmesh mel',the seams is fix.but the hole is appear,
MR 'Approximation' have a option convert tris to quad ,but is failed .
must to do smooth convert quad.

[A_HUGHES]

MY GOD MAN!!!!!
if its not broke dont fix it ,,, since autodesk have taken over there seems to be
always something freeky with each version ,,
i hate instailing new releases , i allways spend the next month pulling my hair out wondering y stuff is changed
who knows maybe auto desk wants to play with peoples heads "sicko's"

thankyou scott for that mel script ,, it worked "once" i thought all my problems were over , but now when i run the script it givs me an error ,

there are post saying change the Aprox name to something els ???/

it seems to work once with one mesh but when there are two disp' mesh's it dosnt work, i get the error??,,

sometimes it wont come up with and error but still wont work ??

i dont know what the prob is , hopfuly some one has figured it out because i like the idear of a one click solution

oh yeah ,, there is another problem i have noticed ,, its a bit strange , sometimes when i bring back a mesh into maya "2008" the uv's seem to be brocken up into sets of four polys ,,, the uvs are all layed out the same but when you grab a uv and go to shell it only grabs another few uvs ,,, strange
i dont know if its something that happend in maya or zbrush but i am thinking that it maybe maya "2008" seeing how it has never happend in 8.5
" just another thing for me to loose a bit more hair over in the next few weeks"

[A_HUGHES]

well then,, i hope i'am not the only person still having a problem with this stuff,
that would just make me feel just wonderful!!!!!

ive gone back to just using the "addAttr -ln "miExportCCMesh" -at bool whateva i name them to; and it worked "yippy"

untill i saved and re-opened it the next day, with a smile on my face in anticipation of my render i see my mesh all jaggered up like someone attacked it with a knife ,,,

i tryed to run the scipts again and it gives me that fricken " cant add atr error"

good god why o why , why me , why must my computer play these games with my head, dosnt she know i need sleep!!!!!

iam just about to put maya 2008 extension 2 on my com , can someone let me know if these problems are fixed or will i stay a very unhappy boy untill
maya 2009 comes out and a new game begins,,

[A_HUGHES]

hey ,,,,

just re-instailed maya again and there dosnt seem to be an issue now ,,,

i guess it got board playing games with my head,,,,, iam just glad i came out of it with some hair left ......

[psi0nic_gh0st]

Can someone w/ a maya subcriber account write to maya tech support (which is bs u need an account to write to IMO) and tell them to stop releasing new versions with new features before the break the ones from the previous versions. :mad::mad::mad: And I want my smooth mesh preview to render smooth dang it!

[Elliott Mitchell]

A_HUGHES,
You need to select everything in a scene with a displacement at the same time and then run the script. You can only do it once in a scene. My students run into this all the time.

Your other problem with uvs from zbrush may be from importing the obj into Maya without deselecting "create multiple objects" in the import options.

I hope this helps.
:tu:

[Scott Spencer]

You should just be able to run the script with nothign selected. It will run the conversion on any displacement node in the scene. I need to add in a catch so it tell syou if you ran the script already because as of now it will throw up a warning if there are no CCMesh nodes in the scene file.

Scott

[justlearning]

Question.. is animating zbrush displacement maps in lets say Maya extremely difficult? I was interested in using some zbrush objects in Rigid Body simulations.. will the displacements interact or will just the low res poly models interact?

[Elliott Mitchell]

Hmmm good question. I would expect dynamics to work with displacement maps as log as it is not cached based on the lowres pre-render. I will try this today and report back.

[justlearning]

thanks elliott! if things dont workout as i hope, may hav eto head back to some maya modeling tutorials

[Elliott Mitchell]

A_HUGHES,
I did a test with a passive ground plane that had a displacement map generated by Zbrush. An active sphere seemed not to be effected by the displacement mapped ground plane with default settings.
See video clip here. (http://www.elliottmitchell3d.com/albums/VBC_Video/DynamicsNdisplacement320x240.mov)
I am by no means an expert on dynamics but I still have hope this can work. A possible workaround would be generating a cage at div 1 or 2 in Zbrush to get your base mesh to more closely resemble the displacement map.

I'm not done with this problem. I'll keep ya posted.

[Elliott Mitchell]

My previous displacement / dynamics post was for justlearning not A_HUGHES. Sorry

[zsz98781]

the displancement seams solution (dict://key.0895DFE8DB67F9409DB285590D870EDD/solution):use the scott scottspencer 's mel,thanks !
addAttr -ln "miExportCCMesh" -at bool $selected[$a];(i think this mel is the function that to connect a hide node "CCmesh" to model for render,the " not need do anything in maya2008" is mistake.)
and the the hole solution (dict://key.0895DFE8DB67F9409DB285590D870EDD/solution) :
not need add smooth to convert quads faces model. this operation results double faces.please change the mentalraySubdivApprox1 attributes.
aaa.jpg

please take some test , every friend!

[justlearning]

yeah i've been following the posts elliot mitchell. i really appreciate your taking the time to put that .mov together to demonstrate the lack of rigid body interaction with the displacement maps. As i am deeply concerned with this outcome and the general lack of information there is on the subject, i have moved back over to MAYA to do the bulk, if not all of my modeling in.

Never got incredibly detailed in the polygon and/or subd modeling, always found it daunting with like multi patches and stuff, which is why zbrush seemed like the perfect for it.

I guess i'll do some research into low to high poly proxy rigid simulations

[romilkchoprazb]

hi masters,
i m having problem in applying the zbrush to maya pipeline.i have tried the zmapper,nut not really getting the desired result,so can anyone guide me through this process{from generating maps from zbrush to apply them in maya}.And i will be having the uv layout in this different process ?so that i can paint the colour maps in the photoshop onto it.i will be very thankfull.


waiting for ur reply.

[Goldenry]

Thanks, this script helped a lot.
I think there may be a small problem with the script (maybe just me though)
A ran the script and the problem appears fixed when doing a single render.
However, when I do a batch render, the mesh gets all bloated as it did before. Manually turning on the 'Alpha is Luminance' box for the displacement map seems to work, though.

[Schlechter]

That little script help me a lot!!!
I should tatto this in my hand:
addAttr -ln "miExportCCMesh" -at bool mentalraySubdivApprox1;

:D

By the way I was having a little diferent problem, the mesh displacement was ok, but when I put some texture in it I lose a lot of information in some parts of the model, I realized that it was a problem with the suddiv approximation because if I set the number of subdivitions to 2 or let it to 1, the texture render better, but I lose detail, and if I use Spatial instead of Parametrical, I didn't get the detail what I wanted... then, I found this little piece of script, and with some scepticism, I tried it, and it works!!! Now my model looks nice, thanks!

Bellow are both renders, for you can see the differences.

girldispparametric.jpg
girlOK.jpg

[psi0nic_gh0st]

I've also noticed that sometimes 2008 will screw up the color map when rendering, in order to fix that you need to turn the default filter off in the image's node. Yet another broken 2008 feature. Maybe someone should start a 2008 workaround thread
;)

[joie]

You guys say you can render 32bit displacement textures with Mental Ray..., Wich extension do you use?, I can't render any 32bit displcament map in TIF format in Mental Ray, MAYA refuses to render and stops the rendering process.

Any ideas?.

Thank's.

[psi0nic_gh0st]

There is a maya plugin "TiffFloatReader" but I think that's just for the thumbnail images. You could try loading that, maybe it'll do the trick, other than that I don't know, Tiff's have always worked fine for me...

[Elliott Mitchell]

joie,

I have three suggestions:

1) convert the Tiff to a .map format. Here is a link to (Edited) Francesca Luce's convert tiff to .map application off of Scott Spencer's post. http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=236569&postcount=77

2) If you insist on using Tiff format then be sure there is no LZW compression on the Tiff.

3) Mental Ray has issues with some custom shaders / utilities and scripts. Check if your using any.

Best of luck:tu:

[JasonKing]

You are the main man, THANX!

[cgguru]

Hi everyone,

i have followed the step for the script but am still facing the seem problem. i am using maya 2008 ext2 for creating the displacement i have done the exact step shown in scott spencer's displacment tutorial and then run the script before rendering still giving me error help me

[Elliott Mitchell]

cgguru,

I don't have ext 2 installed for Maya 2008 yet so I don't know if that is a factor or not. What exactly is the error?

A couple of possibilities:

I've noticed you can only run the script once in a scene.

Tiffs can be a problem. No PSDs.

One thing that might be the problem (I've had it before and so have my students) is with the geometry. In Maya you might want to clean up the mesh. Non-manifold geometry has been a culprit in the past.

Does your model have UVs?

What else is in the scene?

You may want to export the mesh as obj and start over in a new scene.

Hmmmm?

Best of luck-

[cgguru]

Hi elliott,

Thanks for the reply

1. I exported it into a new scene and tried but same thing

2. using a .map file

3. Also did a clean up itz clean

4. Yes it has uv's and is showing the seem exactly where the
texture border is

6. The scene has only this head

7. Tried out with a new scene also same thing

[Elliott Mitchell]

cgguru,

I have few more suggestions.

Did you try to render without running the script first?

Check that all the normals are facing the same direction.

Maybe simplify by taking a plane from Maya and go through the process as an experiment. This reduces factors. If this works then you know it's not Maya.

MentalRay does use lots of RAM. Last year students of mine were having issues rendering character animations with MentalRay and Displacement mapping. Any single frame would be fine but a batch render would always render the same frame multiple times. It's a memory issue. You might want to go to the task manager if your using Windows and give the batch render or Maya app highest priority under the process tab.

If you want I could take a look at your files and try on my BOXX.

Best of luck :tu:

[Blu Ego]

Well, I think I have another Z4 feature request:
Smooth UVs as CCmesh does

Maybe I have to post this on Z4 whishlist thread :)

[matellion]

OH GOD u solve my problem

THX very much

[joie]

Hey guys, thank you all, my problem was I hadn't loaded the Tiff32 plugin, I wasn't aware of that plugin existence... :(

[dougBrooks]

Hey Everyone,

I'm having an issue with zbrush and maya 2008 and can't seem to find anyone that has a similar problem. I've done all the steps in Scott Spencer's Zbrush to Maya ZPipeline Guide (http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/pipelines/ZBMAYA-pipeline.zip) as well as the Rendering Displacement in Maya 2008 Tutorial (showthread.php?p=429433#post429433) and it's mostly working with the exception of the alpha gain being 2.2.

I'm finding I need to scale up the alpha gain considerably from this value to get even close to what I see in Zbrush (e.g my current test is at 20). Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'm using multidisplace 3 entirely. Any thoughts on why this is?

thanks
Doug Brooks

[Goldenry]

I'm finding I need to scale up the alpha gain considerably from this value to get even close to what I see in Zbrush (e.g my current test is at 20). Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'm using multidisplace 3 entirely. Any thoughts on why this is?

thanks
Doug BrooksHey Doug,
Yes that sounds familiar. Everything works for me following the threads.
I've been bumping the alpha gain up between 30 and 40 to get what I'd expect. So the value of 2.2 definitely is not working here.
Have no clue as to why this is since I thought that using MD3 was supposed to eliminate this fiddling around.

[joie]

I found a relationship between the quality attribute of MD3 (I think it's called "subpixel" or something like that).

If you set it to "0", then the alphaGain in MAYA can be set to 2.2 and works as espected. But if you set it to "2", then the alphaGain must be set to 22 to get it working...

[dougBrooks]

So this is in fact a bug. If you have any value other than 0 in the DPSubPix setting of the displacement rollout with cause multi displace to be inaccurate. If you need the res, just do another subdivision.

[Curtis Poirier]

Hey everyone,

Im having some issues here. Last night I followed your guide to setting up the script and executed it. It seemed to work, (I was at school, so anything on the computer gets wiped everytime you log out). I logged off to take a break, came back tried everything again, every step, and it no longer works again. Even tried it several ways on my computer here at home. Ill post some pics.

The zbrush file is obviously what its suppose to look like, and the maya file is what im rendering out.

Any help would be great, thanks.

[WoodyLWG]

First off, a HUGE thank you to Scott for de-mystifying 32 bit displacement in Maya. Also, a big thanks go to joie and dougBrooks for uncovering the DSubPix bug! I've been tearing my hair out for the better part of a day now trying to figure out why I was getting such 'watered down' results from my displacement map. I was exporting from MD3 at a DSupPix setting of 2, like Scott suggests. Setting my AlphaGain to 22 gets the look right where it should be. Weird! :confused: I certainly hope that this will be fixed in the future.

Thanks again guys!

[UvMaPmAsTeR]

Hi guys,

i too am still getting seams. iam new to maya and this is my first maya to zbrush integrated tutorial, i recommend this to any noob by the way it really is in depth. i cant get rid of the seams, i use scotts mel script and i get this msg in the editor

// Error: *Fatal* (mental ray) : mental ray encountered a fatal error. The system may have become unstable. Please save the scene and exit Maya. //

i get the msg, its obvious, i just dont understand why it wont work. also how do i exicute a command correctly. As i say i am a self tought noob.

Thanks for any help guys, i'd really appreciate any!!!

[UvMaPmAsTeR]

Hi guys,

also my output window is telling me that my mental ray is out of memory.

mental ray: got 8 satellite CPUs.
mental ray: got 8 satellite CPUs.
mental ray: out of memory
mental ray: out of memory
mental ray: out of memory
mental ray: out of memory
mental ray: out of memory
mental ray: out of memory
MEM 0.3 fatal 031008: can't allocate 86110416 bytes.
MEM 0.3 fatal 031008: can't allocate 86110416 bytes.
mental ray: got 8 satellite CPUs.
mental ray: got 8 satellite CPUs.
mental ray: got 8 satellite CPUs.
mental ray: got 8 satellite CPUs.
mental ray: got 8 satellite CPUs.

Is this my computer slowly dieing on me or is there a way of going into maya and setting my mental ray memory higher? :cry:

[vangivang]

Unreal! Thank you so much for this tutorial! It improved my results so much, its simply unreal! :D
It also helped me nail a job at a 3d studio over here...

Of all the tutorials I've seen or read, you've got No.1 right here!

[justlearning]

i posted in problems forum but may be better suited here.

Importing my gemoetry from zbrush to Maya is causing crashes. when i get the obj in if i select the model in Maya half the time it crashes with "Fatal Error" and sometimes i can select it fine. everything is setup correctly with feature displacement off and approximation setup.

After a few tiles get rendered(when it doesnt crash in the perspective view) mental ray says "error, the system has become unstable"

I have a zbrush texture as well as normal map applied to a blinn that is on the model.

the imported poly obj is 45,000 polys with a final poly render number of around 2.9 million . Is there a reason this is happening. it seems so random. does maya hate 32bit displacements?

[ronybuster]

i have used it and did it i have got the result and im thank ful for ...


Total respect
Ronybuster

[samkerly]

you are very good teaching and clear explaining i like your tutorial.
thank again

[3d70mohamedaly]

thanks :)

[Ayhorya]

Hi there!!!

This question is for Scott. Dude have you experience a render where your displacement looks perfect, but the material turn out to be transparent.
It looks like the Disp.Map force the shader to go transparent up to a 50% and when I manipulate the color gais and decrease the color to be less white, the shader gets back to normal, however if I touch the viewport again, the shader goes transparent again.
The Disp.Map file is the bad guy.
And also when I run the script again, the error message reads as:


// Warning: Name 'miExportCCMesh' of new attribute clashes with an existing attribute of node 'mentalraySubdivApprox1'. //
// Error: Found no valid items to add the attribute to. //

And also ther's a warning message that reads:

Warning: (Mayatomr.Scene) : polySurfaceShape1: empty UV set map1 detected, ignored

All the models has been layout whit correct Uv's before beign worked in ZBrush, so this message it's weird.

After try and error I have done getting a some way a normal render, but I'm still anoyed by the viewport issue. And The model look some what exploted as you may see.


I wonder if ther's the posibility to make this script more stable or even a shader that has the property to bake the disp.maps(32bit) and works normaly.

I'm not a ssavy on this I doesn't even like texturing, but I need to finish my characters the best way possible and this issue in Maya 2008 is making my life miserable.

If any dude from Autodesk reads this message, please be shame because Maya is mean to be better everytime. Don't change what works fine for crap.


Thanks Scott have a cool one.

Ayhorya. :confused:

[Ayhorya]

Ok Scott. Ayhorya here.
I have repeat the process again, but this time I create the nodes one by one
the order:
Shader: blinn
DisplacementNode.
FileNode: The displacement.map from ZBrush and converted to a map.
then I conect the DispNode to the shader as Displacement.

Then I conected the Disp_FileNode to the default atribute to the DisplacementNode.

Runned the script. some crazy error showed up, but I ignored it.
And the rendered image looks very close to what I want.
At the end the process works, It's that the stupid bug is really staburn and the guys from Autodesk should fixed fast, and give to the clients a fixed extension or something.
Any ways, here is the render:

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Jesus/My%20Documents/maya/projects/Chromolio_Pro/images/BullyStills/Still02.jpg
Thanks again and have a cool one.

Ayhorya.

[CoreyArt]

How exactly would u go about making the displacements work for the new maya. Just by pressing 3 it renders out smoothly so im guessing u dont need to use aproximation editor? I can get a displacement to work, but it doesnt seem to ever want to render out the very fine details in maya 2009. Anyone tried using maya 2009 yet?

[BANDD]

can someone just copy and paste what exactly i have to put in the MEL script... i get syntax errors when copying scott's scipt i don't know exactly where it starts or what i have to copy... plz thnx

[cannedmushrooms]

I think I should add this link here. Maybe it will help in everyone's displacement troubles.

The forum posts ate it awhile ago but it shows how to use scotts script correctly.

Dont forget you should update your maya also, there are some service packs for 2008 that help take care of this issue.

In the long run the script still must be used however.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=446550&postcount=151

[kgg777]

In the long run the script still must be used however.

**Oh really? So I'll take that as confirmation that its still needed in maya 2009(only was able to do one test with it). Drat.


Great videos btw. Very informative.

[cannedmushrooms]

Better links cause Veoh sucks

http://www.mediafire.com/?am2zy2zvlzy
http://www.mediafire.com/?ot40vymnjdj
http://www.mediafire.com/?4nzmykzdzze
http://www.mediafire.com/?2j20hymmzmt

[BANDD]

i'm copying and pasting the script to a textEdit (mac program) putting all fonts to arial, copying and pasting it in the MEL section, hit enter and then i look at the script editor but it's blank besides the paste enter part that i put... so i paste the script again in the lower part, execute and get this

# Error: ('invalid syntax', ('<maya console>', 2, 39, 'optionVar -iv "miUseMayaAlphaDetection" 1 -sv 1 1; //sets maya style alpha detection - mthe same as \n'))
# File "<maya console>", line 1
# optionVar -iv "miUseMayaAlphaDetection" 1 -sv 1 1; //sets maya style alpha detection - mthe same as
# ^
# SyntaxError: invalid syntax #

.... any clue guys... anyone....

[BANDD]

LOL finaly i know my mistake and the syntax si cuz i wrote it in python.... duu...

but now, after the script and render i don't have seams but i have this... untitled.jpg

sigh..sigh sigh...

[santanu_3danimator]

Hi,
Many many thanks for your tutorial. It gives me technical support a lot.
I generally create displacement map from zbrush and use it to maya. It does not have any problem. But When I follow same steps in Maya 2009 it warn me as follows:
"subdivision surface does not support separate displace approximation, ignored. Tune primary tessellation / approximation for displacement. "

Could please help me.
Thank you.
Santanu

[cornishcrabman]

I'm getting lines on my mesh and i'm using the 16bit displacement(converted to rgb) provided with the Pixologic model. I can't seem to get 32bit displacement to work at all.
Aswell as the lines in the mesh i'm not getting much detail, is there anything I am overlooking? I've looked through all the tutorials...

I'm using Maya2008, mental ray, windowsxp64,
using the nexus shader.


thanks alot!

[radi0n]

Hi,
Many many thanks for your tutorial. It gives me technical support a lot.
I generally create displacement map from zbrush and use it to maya. It does not have any problem. But When I follow same steps in Maya 2009 it warn me as follows:
"subdivision surface does not support separate displace approximation, ignored. Tune primary tessellation / approximation for displacement. "

Could please help me.
Thank you.
SantanuI have the same problem. I also have black screen when i render scene.
When i turn off approximation editor in render objects appears but is no tesselation. /sorry 4 my bad english :/

[cannedmushrooms]

The black screen happens alot when Maya can't convert a file or write a file to the hard drive.
It is probably the file format you choose for the Displacement.
In some cases it helps to convert it to a MAP format
It is a memory friendly format for maya.

here is a thread that will help you ;)

http://zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=38022&highlight=.map

[radi0n]

Bad tesselation.that was it! thanks!

[Kerem]

Dear Scott, your rendering displacement map lesson on gnomon rocks! I appreciate you big time for that!!! :tu: And this tip and script works great. Still watching the lesson - nearly at the end.

Only thing here is Autodesk keep changing things on Maya like those kind of rendering options and placement of the commands on menus and this is just making things harder... :td:

[XxDarkMessiahxX]

Ok, so through several versions of Maya and over probably close to 2 years of attempting on and off and giving up, I was finally able to render a displacement map in Maya 2009 (x64 version)! :D :tu: I find it surprising that I was able to do it in 2009, considering Autodesk keeps changing things with each release to make things harder on everyone.

Here's my issue, that perhaps someone can shed some light on. I've followed every guide Ive ever come across to a T, and have had no luck. As you can see by all my settings below. I kept making small changes here and there until I started seeing results. The areas that finally made a difference is the alpha gain and alpha offset. What I dont get is why everyone says "set these at 2.2 & -1.1" The only way that I am able to see detailed results is if I crank these settings way up. For these renders, 30 & -15.

Correct me if Im wrong or Im not getting one of my settings right, but I thought I recall reading something, that with the use of a 32-bit displacement map, you didnt need to play around with these settings as much anymore. If Im wrong, is there another way to accurately determine what the alpha gain & offset will be?

Ive attached some images of my settings for reference.

Im also using the quick code of DE-LBEK-EAEAEA-R32 to generate my map.
I use the converter posted on this site to change it to .map format.
If it's relevent, my system specs are in my sig.

HeadRender.jpg
Renders.jpgSettings.jpg

[CyberSpawn2100]

I have yet to experiment with 2009 displacement mapping, but thanks for posting this issue. I think its a formula to the Alpha Gain/ Offset process due to Displacement Exporter settings.

[gfilmman]

i have an 11 million poly mountain peak, sculpted in zbrush.
i'm excited because it has rich detail that looks realistic,
but i cannot get the displacement in maya anywhere near
the way it looks in zbrush.

i'm on windows vista 32-bit, maya 8.5, zbrush 3.
i saved a morph target on the highest subdiv in zbrush,
then moved to the level 1 subdiv and exported a displacement map,
subpix 2, 2048 res.

my displacement .tif file (non-color managed, rgb, flipped vertical, 16-bit) and phong shader were setup as per scott spencer's
tutorial on the subject. i get very choppy, pixelated results from a 2k, production quality mental ray render, and a LOT of the fine details are missing. it's frustrating! i would love to do some full 3d landscapes instead of 2.5d cam projection solutions.


my alpha and alpha offset were set at 30 and -15 because the base mesh was fairly large in my viewport gui. even when i do tests on a 1x1 poly plane, exported from maya, to zbrush for sculpting, then back to maya it doesn't render the detail properly.

can someone outline possible pitfalls?? i keep catching glimpses of normal map, and uv map, and i don't know how or if they are affecting my results. i particularly don't know what normal maps are and how much of an impact it could have on the results.

please help

[XxDarkMessiahxX]

@ gfilmman... As for a normal map, it is basically a more advanced bump map that can better give the illusion of high res details on a low poly model. Its most commonly used in current gen video games. Normal maps dont displace the geometry the way displacement maps do, obviously, plus they render much faster.

Post your settings within Maya & make sure you are using the correct exporter settings in the ZBrush displacement exporter.

[pap87]

@gfilmman - 2048 is not nearly big enough. A 2k map contains just over 4 million pixels, which means that all small details above 4 million polys will be lost and that is in a best case scenario assuming the uvs are perfectly laid out to use 100% of the uv space. Try a 4k map and you should see a difference.

[Morph Division]

yeah well 4K will always have "more" in it.....but consider the following;

1.Take your map and tune its tonal range within photoshop using curves.
Basically place a point at a mid point of the range, black near one edge and the same with white.
What this does is expand the values of details which were all bunched up around mid grey.

2. Generate two maps, one for course/big details and the other for fine/small details, combine the two in your 3d app via a shader network.
For this you would have needed to worked your mesh into layers to extract seperate maps........however see the alternative below

2 Alt. Generate a map for each subd level. You will use the lowest subd level map for your disp. The other maps you can edit in photoshop.
Overlay the maps over each other, this new map will retain details but will have "muted" larger details.....Now either apply it as a bump or following the above example this new map would be the fine/small detail.

[The Alpha gain 2.2 and alpha offset -1.1, represents the tonal range. Therefore take any alpha gain and divide by -2 to get the offset...its that simple.]

Tip: With envirnoment you can strategically spilt the geo apart therefore allowing you to use 2K maps on smaller pieces, giving you more texture space.

cheers:D

[gfilmman]

Thank you for taking time to help. I haven't had time to do more tests yet, but I hope to improve my results with the advice given.

[XxDarkMessiahxX]

yeah well 4K will always have "more" in it.....but consider the following;

1.Take your map and tune its tonal range within photoshop using curves.
Basically place a point at a mid point of the range, black near one edge and the same with white.
What this does is expand the values of details which were all bunched up around mid grey.


[The Alpha gain 2.2 and alpha offset -1.1, represents the tonal range. Therefore take any alpha gain and divide by -2 to get the offset...its that simple.]

"The 32-bit floating point maps generated in ZBrush should not be edited in an external editor - doing so may alter the map in undesired ways"

Straight out of Scott's book, which is awesome by the way and well worth every penny.

Unless Im doing something wrong (which I probably am) Photoshop won't allow the 32-bit maps to be edited by adjusting the curves anyway.

From what I can tell by playing around in Maya 2009 the past couple weeks, cranking up the alpha gain & offset results in more visable details that are "hidden" in the map so to speak. I tried it on a couple of my models but it only seems to bloat the mesh more in places that shouldnt be displaced as much.

Curves.jpg

[Morph Division]

"The 32-bit floating point maps generated in ZBrush should not be edited in an external editor - doing so may alter the map in undesired ways"

Yes your right...but the method I use is 16bit which is fine to edit in PS.
I think for 32bit editing you may want something like "nuke" or possibly HDRIshop.

You could also re-map the values inside maya with a node, but personally I prefer editing the texture itself.

The reason for editing the map itself and not your alpha gain and offset is due to expanding the tonal range of the displacement, instead of multipling it (which will bring out more of the map however it still remains narrow as far as the tonal range is concerned). Think of it as a black and white photo...more contrast won't reveal more form.

hope this helps:tu:

[abnoid]

Hello,




It took me a while to assemble this post so I hope someone responds.

I'm trying to render a head mesh in mentalray for maya in maya 2008 and I can't get it to work properly.

I used the 32 displacement guide settings along with script that Scott Spencer uploaded to ZBC for the CCmesh. (I copied the script into a text editor then copy pasted that into maya and ran it before rendering)

http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/ZBrush_To_Maya_Displacement_Guide#Displacement_Map s_and_the_ZBrush_Alpha_Displacement_Exporter

http://209.132.96.165/zbc/showthread.php?t=56061&page=1&pp=15

For some reason I render with mray production settings and it's as if there is no detail on the mesh at all.
Any ideas?

Zbrush 3.1 Settings
R32 set in the Displacement exporter box quick code: DE-LBEK-EAEAEA-R32
MD3 settings are:
1001 initi file index
maps size adjust 0 (also tried at 100)
2048 size
dpsubpix 2 (also tried it at 0)
Border 8

Maya 2008 settings:
I tried rendering as a .map and a .tif
I also set my alpha offset to -1.1 alpha gain to 2.2
alpha is luminance is unchecked
I haven't scaled anything in maya, i just exported my level 1 mesh from zbrush and assigned the displ shader to it in maya.
imported multiple objects false.
Subdiv approximation settings are:
spatial
min sub 3 max 6 length .1
feature displ is off view dep is unchecked
set use maya-style alpha detection in prefs
My Uvs are all in 0 to 1 space non overlapping.
Mesh is all quads, ran maya cleanup script on it with no errors.
I also couldn't get maya 2008 to show progress messages, under translation they didn't have the progress message tab anymore.
I didn’t open the original displ map in photoshop I did however open a copy just to see if it worked and I saw some detail on it after adjusting the levels (I didn’t save anything from photoshop just opened a copy of the original)



Am I missing anything?

Thanks for any help, I'm losing my mind. Screenshot attached.

Darrell

[Morph Division]

abnoid,

I would suggest first mastering a 16bit displacement...32bit is used for high end film and game...did i mention high end.

1. check alpha is luminance, this is critical it will tell maya to calculate your map.

2. The multi disp 3 settings are there for exporting to particular programs, if you don't know what to use go with the code found on the scott spencer thread... personally for 16 bit i go with DE-HBEK-EAEAEA-D16

3. 32bit RGB and floating point is huge...check my previous posts.

4. 2.2 and -1.1 ARE NOT EXACT VALUES!!!! This bold this not to point out your inexperience but rather to highlight the fact that this information has been gven so many times in this thread and others for the past couple of years. Having said that the way to truely determine the correct Alpha gain and alpha offset values is to begin at 2.2 and -1.1 then increase or decease as needed. This is how to get good displacement, sorry there is no magic number or equation.
Each mesh is so different that tuning is the only way to get it...So you may find you need to boost these values if you haven't edited your disp map to increase its tonal range.....I mean comn' lets face it zbrush spits out maps which contain all the info needed for disp, but it doesn't spit out a map ready to use raw...it needs tuning itself, the map that is.

So 2.2 may become 44 and -22 or .08 and -.04 get it? Just remember to keep the values as multiples of the 2.2 and -1.1 relationship which means take a number, any number and divide it by -2, 44 divided by -2 equals -22.

You have these values because zbrush calculate mid grey as zero and maya calculates it at black..so what you are doing essentially is shifting these values.

5. This one is the most important of them all....displacement is dependant on the geometry of your base mesh.

A mesh polycount of 1000 will not work/look right if you try to displace up to 6 000 000, because even though you are adding a subdivision node to the mesh it is only an approximation. You can get away with this sort of thing for games because they requires normal maps.

The best way to check what you level you need as a base mesh is to inspect the silhouette of the object... when it looks close to the final hirez model then you know.

I think a common misconception regarding displacement maps is that a 32bit map will some how add all the detail back to a base model. Why not consider that a higher poly count will reduce the amount of render calculation and produce a displacement you know is going to work because the base mesh is high enough to contain all the major and some mid forms.

Anyways hope that helps:cool:

[abnoid]

MorphDiv,

I'm a character artist but I am trying to get a grasp of the process for highend film rendering of meshes.
Thanks for the response. I figured out if I turned in the Adaptive button in the tool pallate and set DPsubpix to 0 in MD3 (left all my other settings the way they were in my last post) the map works in maya.

I'm doing render tests now. I sculpted all my details into my zbrush mesh including pores. I'm thinking this might be the wrong way to go. Because when i render i get tiny artifacts in pore areas/areas with lots of fine details.

I guess I should paint a bump map for those super fine details, which means I guess i gota step back to Zbrush 2.0 to use the bump viewer material. Sucks I'm gona have to smooth out the pores and do seperately unless someone else has a suggestion?

Also I checked alpha is luminance in maya and did a render with and without it, did not see any visible difference.

Thanks for pointing out 2.1 and -1.1 are nto exact values, just a good starting point. For my render i had to step it back alittle to 1.5.

I'm rendering displacement on a reasonably dense mesh, around 40k for the head, all the major and most medium forms are in the geo itself.

Thanks for the comments

[Morph Division]

The details you want are usually done with either bump or normal maps.

There are methods in zbrush 3.1 to paint the details "resolution independant", however some character artists prefer mudbox for this reason as it lets you paint (not sculpt) 32bit norm maps...personally in production I find mudbox 2009 to be unstable and prefer to add the details to my norm map in zbrush, by filling my canvas with the norm map and using projection master to add fine details... that way you can throw it back onto your model.

Another way is to seperate your mesh and up rez to paint the map then fix seems by merging all the parts with zmapper through its projection feature.

zbrush 3.1 does have a bump viewer and norm material, if for some reason you don't simply go to your zb2 materials folder and copy the materials you want into the zb 3 materials folder.

I have gotten awesome disp in maya by using two disp maps plugged into one disp node and tuning the seperate alpha attributes to get all the detials, even close to camera.

I think its probly time i make a tut as no one seems to have tried this before and therefore don't consider it to be a production method.

Those tiny artifacts may disapear if you set your edge length to something like .001 but this will increase render time, then again theres only so much mental ray can do with disp, consider using renderman.

btw the highend film productions also come with highend render farms. ;)

would be good to see your results.:cool:
cheers

[abnoid]

I'm still working on the same project I posted earlier (using Maya 2008 on xp pro 32bit) , only now I got displacement working great, and the bump map is causing issues when used in conjunction with displacement.
My bump map is done on a 50% gray background with the alpha gain set to 1 offset to -.5 in the color balance slot (also tried on default settings)

When I render a bump map on a model with no subdiv approximation and no displacement it comes out clean, but once i add a bump map to the bump channel of a shader that also has good displacement with a parametric subdiv approximation, the bump map doesn't really show up at all, and causes artifacts. Screenshot attached. I really need this bump map to get the pores and tiny wrinkles goin on this model before I can call it done.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[Brownie3703]

Okay so the problem I am having is a new one I think.

I have 2 objs in my scene and each has their own SubD Approx. and a Disp. Approx.

At First only one of them would render but it looked really nice.

I used the Script you gave us scott and they both rendered with Disp! I was sooo happy!

But they only render in Maya Software. And one of them has wierd swirly lines all over it.

When I try to render in Mental Ray which I really wanna do I just get a drey screen after 1 second. Doesnt even start to render. every time. ?????

[Morph Division]

Brownie3703
make sure you turn off "feature displacement" and the approximation nodes are related to mental ray... which means you can't render in software with these nodes.


abnoid
At a guess would you need to set your bump alpha gain and offset to the exact settings as your disp?

Also just curious what advantages, if any, does parametric have over spatial?

(i haven't had this issue and usually paint with black as a base for bumps...thats how maya likes it)

[Brownie3703]

Hey there. So I went in to both objects and made sure "feature displacement" was turned off and when I hit render it goes straight to a grey screen and says render took 1 second. I get this in the output message..

SURF 0.0 error 391081: invalid topology, quad face 192
SURF 0.0 error 391081: invalid topology, quad face 193
SURF 0.0 error 391081: invalid topology, quad face 196
SURF 0.0 error 391081: invalid topology, quad face 197
SURF 0.0 error 391081: invalid topology, quad face 208
SURF 0.0 error 391081: invalid topology, quad face 209
SURF 0.0 error 391081: invalid topology, quad face 212

but I didnt get that before...

[Scott Spencer]

Recently I have had rendering issues where I go to use Mental Ray and all I get is a black screen. Usually this is some kind of geometry issue. I have been solving it by simply running cleanup (mesh>Cleanup) once or in some cases twice (?!?). This cleans up the bad geo and usually allows me to get a usable render.

Maybe that will help?

Scott

PS the sdvantages of parametric is fewer options and less to mess with. The more you know the better you can be with the other approximation styles. Not being a rendering guru myself I opt for the one with less options ;)

[Scott Spencer]

Hey abnoid, did you ever get your render working? Email me and LMK.

S

[Morph Division]

I wouldn't call myself a render guru, but I do like tuning my renders with more options available, spatial i find gives enough control without the headache.

I need to mention that if anyone has tried tuning their maps in versions of photoshop prior to CS4, you probly will get bit depth banding in your displacements...The work around and most likely more trust worthy method is to connect your file node via "colour R out" to a "remap uv cord V" and the output toyour disp node, then crush the levels...i.e make sure white is at top and black at bottom then bring them together to tune...this will expand your zb maps.

So whats the feeling here on 16 vs 32?
I mostly work in TVC, but I have worked with people from film that didn't neccessarily consider 32bit a standard option for ever render.

imo the amount of data in a 32bit map is huge, and sends render times up which is why i prefer 16bit for most things...but has anyone found that with mental ray 32bit actually is giving visablly better results with a raw zb map?

Most studios have migrated to renderman and the disp are beautiful, plus i tune/remap my maps within maya sometimes photoshop as well, so the result with 16bit tends to match the zb hirez model quite accurately.

anyways just asking...I would also like to see how the disp have turned out

cheers:tu:

[Scott Spencer]

Most studios I have worked with requested 32bit maps and only fell back on 16 when the overhead was too much or other extenuating circumstances. The difference in quality as well as the ease of use make them a million miles above 16 bit in my opinion. Just consider the fact you only need two set values to replicate the same level of detail from ZB. Compared with the endless tweaking of alpha gain vs scale vs approximation settings that comes with 16 bit.

The fact the realworld scale is baked into the 32bit map is what makes this wonderful streamlined approach possible.

S

[Morph Division]

good point with regard to real world scale :tu: however it can be multipled with accuracy if need be.

I would have to agree with you, 32bit is 'billions' of miles above 16bit.
Then again I heard even ILM decided to use 16bit open exr over 32bit which can give a floating point value.

Maybe 32bit was an industry standard before...maybe not, but it seems to be 16bit floating point exr nowadays.

Horses for courses, but I must say after tuning a 16bit map compared against a 32bit, personnally I have yet to visually see the need to go that extra billion miles, then again it does involve tweakin and if thats not your cup o tea then maybe 32bit is appealing.

Also I use renderman which requires less tweakin than mental ray to achieve the same results.

cheers
Ash

[Brownie3703]

Hey guys so I cleaned up my geometry and that must have had something to do with it because now it starts to render instead of giving me the grey screen. But now i get this in the output window...


GEOM 0.3 info : 1479820 tris in 39094.5 ms from chestLowPoly:polySurfaceShape1 [1]
GEOM 0.3 info : performance warning: object chestLowPoly:polySurfaceShape1 [1]: displacement shader returned values up to 0, please check whether max displace 1.60611 could be reduced


What does that mean?

[Morph Division]

Displacement test

both images rendered in mental ray, maya 2008
(with default production quality settings)

Settings

*use maya style alpha detection is on

*Mental ray Subdiv approx node settings the same for both

*Approx method = Spatial

min subdiv = 3
max subdiv = 5
length = 0.01

*file node settings for both images
alpha gain = 2.2
alpha offset = -1.1

* feature displacement is off

* Alpha is luminance is on

displacement map settings in zbrush

for 16bit, quick code = DE-HBEK-EAEAEA-D16

for 32 floating point, quick code = DE-LBEK-EAEAEA-D32

Both maps where generated at 2048 x 2048 with a DPSubPix of 2

Both maps took 54 sec to render. The 16bit actually displays more detail.

Please note the settings I used for this test are as standard as can get, there was no time spent looking for the right balance between settings, hence why I used 2.2 and -1.1 for the alpha gain and offset.

Note: Both renders in my opinion have a 'softness' which is a dead ringer for cg characters.
Although the 16bit has more detail it is far from what I would call done.

Remember this test was done in a clean scene with nothing but a model and its shading network. I wouldn't expect the same results with regard to time if it was for production.

I think the only reason too consider 32float is;

1. Zbrush doesn't yet support 16bit open exr (which is floating point)
2. You want a decimal based value range, not an integer
3. You consider pain is sweet and take your daily dose from mental ray
4. You are a dedicated zbrush fanatic and refuse to use mudbox to generate 16bit open exr displacement maps
5. You know better than people like Morph Division, who does he think he is?

honestly though good discussion, its made me probe the whole displacement question and although I jest, I would not think this debate is over

cheers
:D:D:D

[murat_önür]

Thanks for this awesome script Scott. I have troubled to take renderings for a time. But I get over this problem owing to this wonderful script :) Thanks again. Great job. The result is:

lionSideview1_mentalray.jpg lionSideview2_mentalray.jpg

[dymaxion]

Is this displacement seams information applicable for Maya 2009?

Also, the OBJ import options - File Type Specific Options in Maya are no-longer an option in 2009. Does anyone know if Maya still reorders the vertex IDs on the model keeping you from taking it back into Zbrush changes (as demonstrated by Scott Spencer)?

Thanks for the very helpful information.

[CyberSpawn2100]

Is this displacement seams information applicable for Maya 2009?

Also, the OBJ import options - File Type Specific Options in Maya are no-longer an option in 2009. Does anyone know if Maya still reorders the vertex IDs on the model keeping you from taking it back into Zbrush changes (as demonstrated by Scott Spencer)?

Thanks for the very helpful information.To my knowledge Maya2009 doesn't not reorder verities unless you have create multi objects pressed Checked

[snakes23]

Hey guys

Im a games design student and my latest project requires me to make a highly detailed model.Iv made the base mesh in maya, sculpted in zbrush and am now trying to generate and apply a displacement map, but im getting really odd results. I have the zbrush character creation book (By Scott Spencer) so im following that as closely as possible. Iv gone over the entire process countless times and its the same thing over and over. i just cant understand whats going wrong.....

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, im supposed to hand this in within the next few weeks.mess.jpg

[nickz]

Thanks for adding this info Scott! :)

[XxDarkMessiahxX]

Woah Snakes23... Implosion. Thats an odd result. Is your disp. map generated using the right settings and applied correctly in Maya? UV's laid out correctly?

[snakes23]

I fixed it....

Uvs were set up correctly, no overlaps. I think it was something to do with how zbrush flips maps vertically, i had mixed the setting for both preferences and flip in the displacement exporter.

Even when id sorted that there were problems, one of the legs imploded - but turning filtering off sorted that out.

[A_HUGHES]

hey ,, i realy hate this problem ,,, iam moving up to maya 2009 ,,

do you still need the

"addAttr -ln "miExportCCMesh" -at bool mentalraySubdivApprox1 script

or have they fixed it in maya 2009?

this issue is allmost making me to swap over to XSI ,,

allways have issues with rendering disp in maya ,, and the script work's ,, but for some reason not every time and theres allways a problem when there is many disp's in the scene ,,

you would think with so many people using this pipeline for maya they would get ontop of it ,,

hopefully it is fixed in 2009 so i can stop throwing my mouse across the room..

[Kerem]

hopefully it is fixed in 2009 so i can stop throwing my mouse across the room..Same here (except spitting to LCD instead of throwing mouse... eww! :lol:)

I didn't have 2009 yet so didn't checked. Also I'll not upgrade if they didn't fixed that! :D

[DarkXPS]

Nop, they didint fixed it. I hate autodesk, didnt they hear that if it isnt broken dont try to fix it? http://209.132.96.165/zbc/images/smilies/evil2.gif
Im having a very bad time trying to use zbrush displacement in maya 2009, not even the Scott script solves the problem completely.

[XxDarkMessiahxX]

2009 was the first one that I was able to render a successful disp. map in. The effects are really not that noticable though in my opinion if your are using a 32 bit map. Unless you crank up the settings beyond the usual 2.2 / -1.1 setting, then the details dont displace well. It really just has an effect similar to hitting 3 on the keyboard and smoothing the model.

Your might be better off exporting & render a medium level mesh if you arent animating it & use a normal map.

I agree through, dont fix what isnt broken.

[DarkXPS]

Thats exactly what happen to me, all minor details like muscles looks great, but all the major details like skin texture, hair texture, little bumping here and there dont look good on Maya. No matter what metod or script I use, no matter if I use 32 or 16 bits maps, everything looks like smoothed out. As you say it just looks like when you hit 3 for smoothed version.
Grrr damn Autodesk, as far as I remember everything works great on Maya 8.5, now I cant workflow with Maya and Z brush. :mad:

[jaystein777]

Just want to say thanks. I just did my first Mental Ray render in 2008 and I must say those seams were REALLY lame. Thanks Guys.

[Robb Flynn]

Hi,

I'm also trying to use displacements map into maya 2009.
and I have lots of troubles too.
I read all posts and watch videos tutorials about multi displacement 3
but things are not going very well.

Here is my problem !!

I have a base character head model into maya 2009 with good uvs, freeze transformation,...

I exported it in zbrush and do first a morph target and start to sculpt my geomertry.

At the end of sculpting, I am at level 7 of subdivision.

it's where problem start...

I cameback to level one and switch to my morph target and export the disp map (4k) exactly the same way I saw in Scoot Spencer gnomon

tutorials.

- and (of course) when I tried it in maya the displacement didn't really work
I directly use the script to try to fix the problem but nothing change.


- for the second try I didn't use the morph target and assign the displacement,
it didn't work neither but the result was a bit better and cleaner.



- another try was to export the mesh at level two (obj) in zbrush (level 1 deleted) to see if a higher resolution can do something
I first try on the morph target and the result was better but still with some weird parts.
so I try at level two without the morph target and the result was almost there, my mesh had just a little inflate on it.


- what I do to try to fix it was to delete the morph target export the mesh at lower level of subdivision as obj and re-import
it as a new morph target.
and it worked perfectly into maya. the render between high res and low res mesh with displace looks 95% the same. whouhououuu !!



but now I'm blocked because I loose my initial base mesh with the morph target.
and the caracheter head is already rigged with blendshape and everything.

I have two solution for the moment:
- keep the base mesh and have a bad displacement
- or have a nice displacement with no possibility of using it on my base mesh. because level two of subdivision is not the same than in

maya and vertex ids change.



I hope someone have an idea for me. Displacements start to driving me nuts.


Thx

[Scott Spencer]

Robb, what happenes when the mesh "dosent work" or when you get "weird parts?" Do you get a render that looks fragmented, or bloated maybe?
Post some images of the problem you are having. Seeing it can help determine the issue.

S

[Robb Flynn]

Hi Scott,

Here is some pics of the model.

the first one is the high res mesh rendered in mentalRay (render correctly)
http://www.digitaledge.be/tmp/forum/headHigh.jpg (http://www.digitaledge.be/tmp/forum/headDispMorprhTarget.jpg)

the second is the displaced mesh without the use of morph target (render correctly)
http://www.digitaledge.be/tmp/forum/headDipslace.jpg (http://www.digitaledge.be/tmp/forum/headDipslace.jpg)

the third one is the displaced mesh with the morph target (render with artifacts)
http://www.digitaledge.be/tmp/forum/headDispMorprhTarget.jpg

as you can see on the third image there is a strange bump next to the nose and a thin line under the lips.

On this model there is a little update. I use the projectAll tool on another model to be able to use it in maya with my base mesh and it works :)
but I still have problems with the morph target.

thx for your Help

[Morph Division]

you should be able to re-construct your base lvl subdiv in zb...most of the time.
If all your blend shapes and ztl where created from the same original mesh then vertex ids will remain consistent at different levels of subdivision (in maya nad zbrush)....you could subdivide your blend shapes in maya...although obviously this could result in too high a poly count, however a way around that is to create the blendshape (node) then delete all the shape meshes.

Something I've heard is to check SUV on your ztl BEFORE you start sub dividing your mesh, something to do with the border of the maps zbrush generates, apparently SUV will improve if not solve the issue of seams (among other methods).

hope this helps

[Robb Flynn]

you should be able to re-construct your base lvl subdiv in zb...most of the time.
If all your blend shapes and ztl where created from the same original mesh then vertex ids will remain consistent at different levels of subdivision (in maya nad zbrush)....you could subdivide your blend shapes in maya...although obviously this could result in too high a poly count, however a way around that is to create the blendshape (node) then delete all the shape meshes.

Something I've heard is to check SUV on your ztl BEFORE you start sub dividing your mesh, something to do with the border of the maps zbrush generates, apparently SUV will improve if not solve the issue of seams (among other methods).

hope this helps thx for your reply

I actually use the project all to rebuild my mesh and now it works fine
I can use the mesh in maya with the blendshape

my last problem is the morph target
when I export my displacement map with the morph target switch
I always have some atrifacts in maya

but if I export directly without switching the morph target it works without any problems.

[Goobatastic]

Im having a few problems rendering a bump map with a displacement map. It looks like the bump is being rendered under the displacement map.

Help.jpg

[Framedworld]

dont tell me, you're using maya either 2009 or 2010 and thats a mental ray approx node? am I right? Of course I am! :P In maya 2008 2009 2010, mental ray uses a new method for approximating the surface (called ccmesh) when using those nodes. and they have termination issues. your bump is terminated at that point.

I'm hoping your using maya haha,

put this in the mel:

addAttr -ln “miExportCCMesh” -at bool mentalraySubdivApprox1;

Try it again in the problems persist try using maya smooth mesh preview which can be read by mentalray

[Goobatastic]

Hi FramedWorld

Haha yes it is Maya 2008. I will give that mel script a try cheers mate.

[Goobatastic]

Sorry im a bit of a dunce when it comes to mel stuff where do i the script?

[Goobatastic]

Hi FramedWorld

Sorry to be a pain but if you got time could show me a screenshot of how your meant to enter the mel script. Cheers Mate

[Goobatastic]

That worked a treat Framedworld. Cheers for the advice much appreciated. Any other bugs i should be aware of lol

[kpamir]

Could someone please clarify something for me?

Does Scott's script do the same thing as going into the maya settings and preferences and clicking the box that tells MR to use Alphas are luminance?


Or does Scott's script deal with the CCmesh issues?


Or does it fix a whole other issue altogether?

I ask because i am having my displacement maps come out bloated in certain areas, poking through their clothing/armour in parts.

I am using 32bit displacement maps made from zbrush 3.5 r3 and rendering them out in Maya 2010. I am following all the steps that Scott posted in his youtube video but things are getting a little bloated here and there.

[Scott Spencer]

HI Kpamir,

The script sets al the Maya prefs settings as well as converting all subdivision approximation nodes in the scene to the original method disabling CCmesh. This is run once - if you run it again you will get an error because the nodes have all been converted.

Cheers!
Scott

[kpamir]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the quick, reply.

Hopefully this isnt too long but here goes.

I rendered out a displacement map for a model i was working on a few weeks ago I used the addAttr -ln miExportCCMesh -at bool mentalraySubdivApprox1;
command. And it worked out fairly well.

Since then I moved from Zbrush 3.1 to 3.5 R3 and once again I am trying to render out displacement map in maya 2010.

Unfortunately, the model is coming out bloated when rendered. I should correct myself, its not all blobby the displacement map renders out fairly well, with even the most minute details rendered out. But things are poking out where they shouldn't. For example the thighs end up poking through the pants, and the belly through the chest plating.

So i went back to the previous model, and attempted to render out a displacement map made in 3.5 r3 for it. And I get the same thing, details are rendered, but it seems like the models dimensions increase, as if I scaled it up a tiny bit.

I think I have reached a dead end, as far as my knowledge goes with the technical side of Zbrush, and Maya.

My assumption is that it might be the scale setting in the Zbrush 3.5 r3 displacement map tab but again that is causing slight issues with my render along the outer border of my bust.

I changed the scale setting to .5 and it seems better but i am getting this crease along the bottom. That isn't there in my previous render.

Sorry for the rambling.

Cheers.


Quick edit.


The render below, is not using the script you created or the standalone addAttr -ln miExportCCMesh -at bool mentalraySubdivApprox1; command. And I am not getting any of the seems or segments in the model where they usually appear.

Instead I get that little ridge of sorts along the bottom of the neck. And a weird white streak over one of the hairs.

This just confuses me further. Is zbrush 3.5 r3 doing something different with its displacement map outputs??

I included an image of the forehead anomaly as well.

Other than those two things, the render is pretty much a dead ringer for the Zbrush sculpt, which makes the little issues even more frustrating.

[Scott Spencer]

Well one new change I forgot to mention can impact the scaling/bloat you are seeing here.
As for ZBrush 3.5 the 32bit maps will all have an alpha gain of 1 and an alpha offset of -5

plug those in and see if the bloat is gone :)

Scott

[kpamir]

Hallelujah!

Man what a relief, I thought I was going to be stuck in this figurative ditch for weeks!

How would one go about figuring out these numbers? In the all too likely situation that these numbers end up changing in the for the next iteration of Zbrush/Maya.


Thanks again for the much needed help Scott.


Cheers.

[Scott Spencer]

No Problem!

These should stay consistent. Its always supposed to be these two values but only with version 3.5 did the maps generate in this range correctly.

Cheers
Scott

[NoWayOut]

Hi Scott. I don´t want to hijack this thread, but is it correct that your new book`s already out?

[Scott Spencer]

NoWayOut,

No worries man, yeah it is out
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470450266/ref=s9_simp_gw_s4_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1W2QKPBZCTEVYPVEJ464&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

Theres nothing on displacement in this one though that's all in the first book.

Sorry for the shameless plug : )

Cheers!
Scott

[NoWayOut]

NoWayOut,

No worries man, yeah it is out
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470450266/ref=s9_simp_gw_s4_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1W2QKPBZCTEVYPVEJ464&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

Theres nothing on displacement in this one though that's all in the first book.

Sorry for the shameless plug : )

Cheers!
ScottOrdered! Shameless plug? Hell no. Your first book is the best learning resource for ZBrush. I use it as my ZBrush bible.
It´s a diamond! Shame on you that you don´t advertise it more :D
And from reading the first chapter (.pdf at the publisher´s site) I can tell your second book will be even better :eek:
Why? Because it´s not a book which places special emphasis on the technical aspect of the software. It´s a book about the art behind it and how to achieve it in ZBrush. That´s more valuable to me than any technical instructions :tu:
And Scott is a gifted teacher, too.

[XxDarkMessiahxX]

I need a bit of work when it comes to the anatomy of my models. I loved your last book so much that I ordered your new one without even really taking more than a quick glance at what was contained in it. Once I saw that there was a focus on anatomy, muscles, underlying forms, etc. I was sold. Looking forward to receiving my copy in the next few days.

*Sorry to take the tread off the topic of Maya displacement maps for a moment.*

[SAMBA_001]

Just started using Zbrush and this was a major problem, couldnt get anything to work, not even the script, in the end all I did that worked was to make sure this box is unchecked in your mental ray sub div node.


http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/9489/picture20it.jpg

[3d70mohamedaly]

thx a lot mate.... i use this script from like a year..and it works just amazing ..thx again ...

[SAMBA_001]

The problem I am now having is getting creased edges on my mesh to render in maya 2008. Does anyone else have this problem?

I originally built my low poly cage in maya ( with some creased edges) and then exported it to Zbrush as a .ma file so as to retain the creases.

After sculpting in zbrush I took my mesh back into maya to render with displacement maps ( which has worked fine on other models without creases)

I can get my model to render through the MentalraySubdivApprox with creases if I have the cc mesh export attribute checked, but with this I get the displacement map seams. If I uncheck the CC mesh export I get no displacement seams but it smooths all my creased edges.

Is anyone else having this problem? Is there a way to render with creased edges but without the displacement map seams?

It its not one thing, its the other. :(

Thanks!

[cherrypig]

thank you so much!!

[Kerem]

Friends, is it worth to update Maya 2010 - did they fixed those issue? Would be great if anyone tested it.

I'm also thinking Zbrush + Modo instead of updating Maya.

[comic_craig]

I'm not getting a successful render of displacements in 2009. I'm also using zbrush 3.5 r3, but I seem to have the same issues with 3.1. When I use Scott Spencer's script, I get a too soft looking render- details get lost. When I don't use the script, I get artifacts around the UV borders. If I turn off smooth UV in the export options from zbrush, I get no seam artifacts, but the displacement map looks off, kind of hard edged where it should be curved. It appears that by turning off Mi Export CCmesh is what makes the render appear soft, but with it on I get the artifacts. I didn't seem to have this problem with Maya 2008. Is there a new script or fix for 2009?

Thank you in advance
Craig

[yanggaizhi]

Thanks for the post



I'm wondering what value should i plug in for Alpha gain in maya. Is there some value i can begin with and then anchor from there??

thanks

[jimeeh]

Also on the subject of alpha gain:

@Scott:

Did you mean the values in the maya 2d_file_node were now alpha gain 1 and alpha offsett -0.5 for a 32bit displacement created in ZB3.5 R3 instead of the previous 2.2 and -1.1??

(Assuming that the mid point is left at 0.5)

I noticed that gain 2.2 and offset -1.1 bloated my model and that gain 1, and offset -0.5 looked correct.

Thanks for your time

James

[Morph Division]

the gain and offset are a ratio.

Meaning if you can scale the intensity of your map by shifting the value range.

Displacement is more about what looks right rather than a science.

Note: For Maya 2010 on Windows OS
I have found converting your .tif files to a pyramid .map file will render nice

you can do this on windows by clicking on start, then typing in cmd
This will bring up a command shell

navigate to your directory using cd to change directory

Once in the folder where your .tif file is type

imf_copy -p nameofimage.tif nameofimage.map

the -p is to convert to pyramid texture, in maya use the mip mapping filter on the file node.

[Scott Spencer]

Hi jimeeh (member.php?u=77679),

Based on my experience the new alpha gain and offset values will be 1 and -.5 which is what they were always intended to be. I get really dead on render details with that setting.

As for the image conversion see the script in my signature to make that process easier.

Cheers!!

Scott

[jimeeh]

Thanks scott!

I assumed the old 2.2 came from saving the displacement in the sRGB colour space of a tif file, which meant it needed a multiply by 2.2 to be correct.

I'm guessing the new displacement maps have this done all ready to the rgb values? or something like that:qu:

I'm not really sure.

James

[AdrenalineX]

Hi
Even though I've been using zbrush for many years, I don't use it on a regular basis and need some assistance with a uv seam problem. I'm using zbrush 3.5 (first time) and have tried to solve the problem in both Maya 2009 and 2011. When I export my mesh (level 1) from zbush as a .ma with my displacement and color map, the uv's gets messed up. The uv's look fine at first glance, but zbrush un-stich them into many small shells. When I render the model with these un-stiched uv's (default), I get no seams, but the displacement looks ugly/bulky where the uv borders are. To solve this problem, I manually re stiched my uv's in Maya again, but now I get large uv seams/cracks! I've tried both adaptive and DPSubPix displacement, but ended up with the latter one and have tried the Mrg button in the export section, but still has the same problem! This project has a very tight deadline so please help.

To Scott Spencer: I've just bought both your books and they rock!

mayaStiched1.jpg mayaStiched2.jpg

[AdrenalineX]

edit...

[Morph Division]

It sounds like you have forgotten to turn off "grp" and turn on "mrg" in the export submenu under tool.

Personally mental Ray in Maya requires patience (one size doesn't fit all)
judging by your model, you may be able to get away with a slightly higher Rez base mesh and a bump map.

Having said that I think the problem was in the way you exported your mesh from zbrush.

Also you should make it a habbit to establish a link between Maya and zbrush early on, by exporting and reimporting your mesh as obj.

Hope that helps

[AdrenalineX]

Thanks for quick reply. New features are always buggy and the export as .ma feature in zbrush 3.5 is no exception! I've already tried exporting my mesh as .obj in order to keep my uv's stitched and it works, but it does still not solve my problem. Yes, I might get away with only using a bump map and then use a blend shape to correct the mesh where the displacement was very strong, but will then also lose a whole lot of details on the legs etc...

Is really the Zbrush to Maya workflow this buggy or can there be another solution? I've done this with success many times before...

[Morph Division]

It's not IMO "buggy" anymore than every other 3d app out there, most likely less. I have been using 3.5r3 in production and alot has improved even the ASCII export.
Having said that Maya will re-order vert Ids on a mesh to suit its convention.
So its good to establish a connection early. I would go so far as suspecting windows xp playing some part in it too.

Anyway, you should export your mesh to Maya, run the clean, re-import.
If it doesn't fix it then I would bring in the Maya mesh and use project all.
Then only export the map not the geo, provided uvs and vert are the same.

As far as blend shapes and disp goes, you should really be using disp only for details and not for form.

If you like post your mesh and I'll take a look see.

[truthhunter]

hey i used to get this sort of problem a lots time
whenver i exported it again and again

so this is what i did selected all the uvs in maya and clicked on merge uvs

done the patchy uvs were whole again

and believe i am dead sure this works

so be happy and keep zbrushing

[Morph Division]

yes merging uvs in maya will fix the uv seam issue, but the issue still remains with the map generation which is why you need to bring the new uvs into the mesh or use it to rebuild.

[AdrenalineX]

I’ve checked my mesh and its uv´s for faults several times. I’ve re-merged my uv´s in Maya when using the buggy .ma export method in zbrush and have imported these “new” uv´s back into Zbrush before exporting my displacement. Other suggestions are appreciated? I hope I’ve missed something obvious that can easily be fixed.

[Luisms]

I have an issue with a displacement in Maya I have tried the file in 2010 and 2011. It does not render at all , screen comes up black. The other nodes in the scene do come out with their displacements in tact however one object doesn't. I use the zbrush 3.2 and work off of a mac book pro.

I have rendered several scenes with mental ray and have never had this problem. I have tried switching the morph target on the original mesh and other thngs like exporting a .ma file all with the same results. The wierd thing is the displacement shows up fine if I choose high quality render in the perspective port. Any body else ever had a problem with this?

[stubabe]

use polygon cleanup to fix non manifold edges in maya,and it will render.

[Luisms]

So simple and it worked! I see you have one post but have been a member since 2006 so thanks for coming on here to help me out much appreciated.

[Sonnya]

Hello,



I am running Maya 2011 / Zbrush 3.5R3

64x system 24G ram

I've read the above issues and solutions, I have applied all the settings and tried all the solutions Im still getting seams.

Is there yet a fix to this issue?

The closest I got was a hard Zbrush -> Maya2011 Export, smoothing the mesh. But still not perfect..

Also.. Does the edge artifacts prove that my UV's are too thin?

If anyone can steer me into a good direction please do.. I used to have NO problems before maya 2010

Thank you!
scriptAppliedIssue.jpeg seamsWithArtifacting.jpeg UVs.jpg

[Curtis Poirier]

If you want more displacement add more subdivisions in the approx. editor. As for the weird spike artifact, check your displacement map especially where the seams are... could have some unwanted whites in there. I hope that helps at bit.

[BldRnr]

I am new to zBrush, and I am thinking of buying zBrush 4. I have Maya 9 will I have issues using zBrush 4 with Maya 2009?

Will goZ help in the ongoing displacement rendering problems?

[Morph Division]

1.First correct your uv layout, looks like you have some uvs outside 0-1 and overlapping. Also the actual layout looks totally wrong, spend more time optimizing the space and the uv to poly ratio.

2.I would then suggest totally checking your mesh twice for any nasty geo.

3.Now export that clean mesh out of maya, then bring it back in and re-apply your shader and create a new approx node. (This is a maya related step, I have personally had meshes not render properly simply because there was a problem with the nodes in maya, exporting out then in again will solve this.)

4. Apply the disp as a bump, does it work? (of course re-create with better uvs first).

Use a higher mesh to render with
here is a list of values i use for the min and max of the approx node

2,3
3,5
4,6

make sure you are using a subdivision apporx not disp.
Change the approx to spatial at least, parametric is too simple.

Make sure you understand that undercuts will not render out.

Use 32bit, but do not edit it, if you use 16bit increase the texture size.

The artifacting (spikes) in your render is from the bitdepth banding and values of the map getting crunched from too high settings in your file node.

Some things to consider
When using Adaptive mode to create displacement or normal maps in 3.5, please first set the Tool : SubTool : PA Blur value to 8. This setting works in tandem with Adaptive mode to create the best quality maps.

When creating a 32-bit displacement map, please first assign any alpha to the Tool : Displacement Map thumbnail to enable the Mid slider. Once enabled, set this slider to 0. This will ensure that your 32-bit displacement map is created with the correct grayscale values.

When creating a displacement map for a model that has hard edges (such as a cube), do the following after sculpting your details: Go to level 1, restore your base mesh as usual but then Shift+Click on the Tool : Geometry : Crease button. Now create your displacement map. This will ensure that the hard edges are calculated correctly without any gradiation in the displacement map.

[SirRender]

Can someone please confirm or deny if the ccMesh smooth uv seams problem is still an issue with Maya 2011 and zBrush 4.

If so, does Scott's ccMesh script work with Maya 2011?

Thanks!

[kgg777]

When I checked the ccMesh seam problem isnt an issue in maya 2011 and you dont need the seam fix script.

[SirRender]

Great, I'm glad to hear this issue has been resolved in Maya 2011 and that the script is no longer needed.

Thank you for your reply kgg77!

[SirRender]

edit