ZBrushCentral

Bump Detail to Displacement Tutorial

For better performance on slower machines try this out:

When modelling your creation, don’t worry about modelling high level details, which require further subdivisions with a performance trade off, just make sure the main areas of form are defined, such as bone, heavy folds of skin etc.

Bumping:

First create a new texture to use for a bump map, the larger the better. I used the max 4096 by 4096 and set it a mid grey colour, 127,127,127 (roughly half of 255,255,255). This colour will the base level that does not have any bump.

Select the bump viewer material, which is found in ZBrush 2’s default material directory.

Use Projection Master to detail out your model, for clean results. Use any brush with Zdepth off, and texture any protruding details (e.g. spots), with shades from the base grey to white and any depressions (e.g. wrinkles) with shades from the base grey to black.
To erase details select your base grey colour and paint them away.
Tip- use the roller and directional brushes to quickly create detail.

When your bumping is complete, convert the texture to an alpha.

Displacement:

Change the material from the bumpviewer to a basic material.

With the bump alpha in the alpha slot, create a new texture, which is active in the texture slot. (If no texture is selected then the displacements will not show).

In the Tool menu, open the Displacement options >>>

Switch on the ‘mode’ button (for true displacements) and change the intensity slider to a low value – I found that if you divide your mid grey colour by 10,000 (which gets us 0.0127), it seems to be a good way to match the bump viewer settings.

Your model is should now be displaced correctly, and you can colour and texture your model, using the displaced bumps as a guide.

Tip- if you get any seams when texturing, go to the texture menu and hit the ‘fix seam’ button, to get rid of them.

Test out some cavity material settings to see how all the bumps are picked out nicely.

hope this helps,
Rob. :slight_smile:

Sweetness! :+1:

How cool! I was going to make a turtle today :slight_smile:

Great day for turtles…

Your model is very likable charictor… Great work :slight_smile:

thanx grub! this will definetly help because imy machine is pretty slow. hopefully i will getting some more ram soon. nice turtle!

artboy

A wonderful character elegantly realised with finesse. It’s fascinating to see the process and how much these new capabilities now bring.
Thanks for posting.

damn nice model, good capture i think of the cuteness in the character!

Hi Grub,

This is one of the most useful tips so far to new users of ZB2. THANKS!

A technique that provides excellent detail and saves greatly on total poly-count, what could be better than that?

Sven

Excellent!

I figured out how to use the bump material to get the details I was looking for, all I was missing was the displacement tips.

Good job, and thanks for sharing. I’m itching to get to use Z2 this weekend. I wish I didn’t have to work! LOL

A top tip and terminally cute character :+1:

Cool tut and model :+1:
Pilou

That is a very cute creature and nicely modeled ! :+1: :+1:

awwww … hes so cute :slight_smile:

Is he washable? My son would like to play with the turtle, but he’s kind of messy :slight_smile:

Thanks for the tutorial! You put all the pieces together for me with your method.

this is the technique i`m just looking for!!!
so nice tutorial!!!
THX!!!

Thanks for the tutorial, very useful information. :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1: :+1:
Dave

Thanks for your comments, Z Friends! Happy to have helped out. :+1:

Thanks so much for this tut it is
really helpful. I know it took alot
of time thanks again.
Regards
TuSo

Thanks, Grub! :slight_smile:

Thanks for posting your lizard Havran :+1: I’ve got some more bump related juicies over here for ZBrushers interested in further exploration of the technique:

Egg Man Thread

what is the point to convert the bump texture to an alpha?

When your bumping is complete, convert the texture to an alpha.