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

[DarthWayne]

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

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

Wayne...

[ryankingslien]

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

r

[DarthWayne]

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

Wayne...

[Enigma]

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

[Scott Spencer]

AWESOME results!

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


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

Keep us posted on your other results!

S

[CvH]

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

[Roadie]

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

[sannyasi]

Heres a render test done in Lightwave 8.5


P4 3ghz 2gb ram

36.8 sec

1.7 million polys (subD render level=25)

texture mipmap = off

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

1280x960 5-pass Low Antialiasing
default light no shadows

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

[Braincell]

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

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

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

Edit: Here i added one of my renders

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

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

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

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

[metamesh]

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

[Braincell]

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

[Shonner]

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

[Reuben]

Finally got a good sword render from ElectricImage 6.5



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

Reuben

[KsiKsu]

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

the models generated with the pixolator ispmaps look awfull crazy perfect

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

[broken]

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


Subsurf level 4, ~1 min render (1Ghz Powerbook G4)


Subsurf level 5, ~3 min render (1Ghz Powerbook G4)

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