:mad: When trying to create a normal map or displacement map either the menus are grayed out or I get a message “MAP CANNOT BE CREATED WHILE THE HIGHEST SUBDIVISION LEVEL IS ACTIVE” Sometimes Freezing Subdivisions is available but still does not help . I still get the same message .
I run into this on other procedures as well . Where it says I have multiple subdivisions active and it won’t let me deactivate divisions through deletion .
The thing that pisses me off the most is that these higher divisions are made automatically . I never made the higher division . Yet it’s not giving me an option to get rid of either the higher or lower divisions !
If there is a way to keep the higher division from being automatically created it sure would be helpful .
It always surprises me how I seem to run into these issues that must be common issues and yet there is almost nothing about the issue anywhere . Only one or two others that posted the same question about 3 years ago was never helped by anyone . I have yet to get any responses to my questions .
You don’t want to delete subdivisions or even freeze them. You NEED higher subdivision levels in order to create normal/displacement maps, otherwise there would be no information to displace and you’d just wind up with a blank map.
What you want to do is drop down to a lower subdivision level (either use Tool: Geometry: SDiv slider, or Shift+D). Then the displacement/normal map created will contain the differences between this active level and the highest one.
- For polypaint color maps, you’ll want to create the map on the highest level in order to capture all the vertice color information.
- For Displacement/Normal maps, you’ll want to create it on a lower level in order to capture the difference in detail
Other operations might generate a similar message if they alter the topology of the mesh by either adding or removing vertices. In these instances you’ll want to either delete the higher/lower levels, or freeze them (freezing will temporarily delete the subdivision levels, and upon unfreezing will try to project the old detail onto the new topology)
Good point . But right now I’m just trying to get a normal map or displacement map to work . I keep getting stopped from doing either map by this message > “MAP CANNOT BE CREATED WHILE THE HIGHEST SUBDIVISION LEVEL IS ACTIVE” . I even tried to use the standard star that comes with the program . Same message . The few times I was able to remove all the divisions it still gives me the same message even though there was no other subdivisions . No matter what I do to the tool divisions I get the same message “MAP CANNOT BE CREATED WHILE THE HIGHEST SUBDIVISION LEVEL IS ACTIVE” even when there is no subdivisions .
Have you followed the instructions of Cryrid? Your answer doesn’t seem to have in account what he said.
The few times I was able to remove all the divisions it still gives me the same message even though there was no other subdivisions
Once again, DO NOT REMOVE SUBDIVISIONS. If you have no subdivisions on the mesh then there is no detail to bake to those maps; you might as well just create a pure gray or blue texture map in that case. You are getting this error message because you are on the highest subdivision level as a result of removing the rest. To put it another way: a model that has no subdivision levels is considered to be on its highest subdivision level. You need to have higher subdivisions present (but not active) in order to bake.
Instead of removing the subdivisions, just step down through them and then bake.
Thanks , that makes more sense to me now . I’ll see if that cures the issue . Its confusing that there is a higher and lower subdivision button . Yet no way to delete either of them ( in this case ) . From what you are saying there really is no subdivisions to delete , if the delete subdivisions function is not available . Seems to me it would make more sense if the higher subdivision button was not available when there is no actual divisions . I guess I don’t understand why there is a higher subdivision button available if there is no actual higher division .That makes no sense to me .
To clarify why I don’t really care about the details or having higher divisions . I’m just trying to get things to work . I’m experimenting . Once I know how to get things to work then I’ll worry about the details . Simply getting the maps to generate , function is my main concern at the moment .
I’ve worked a little with texture maps . But not normal maps or displacement maps . Never had these issues with texture maps .
Thanks that solved it . I just added a division as you suggested .
This issue was mostly because it was telling me that I had higher subdivisions active even when I had just one level . As you stated the program sees that one state as being the highest subdivision . Where logic would be that you can’t have a highest without having a lowest ( two states , levels )
. And that by having a low and high division button active would imply that there were two divisions created automatically .
That part I still find confusing . Why it would have a higher division button active when there is actually only one level . And why it would tell me I have a higher division active even though there was only one level .
I do understand now that having one level is considered the highest level of division . But it seems like flawed logic to me . It would make more sense if the higher and lower division buttons were inactive when there is only one state , one level . There is something I don’t understand still about why they would imply two levels when there is only one level .
It used to be that that button was grayed out as well when there were no subdivision levels present. However, it’s now active due to a newly introduced feature inside of zbrush 4r7; dynamic subdivision. It’s sort of like a preview of what the mesh would look like if subdivided, but without actually subdividing the mesh and creating new vertices.
It trips me up occasionally too when I hit the wrong shortcut key and mistakenly think I’m working on a higher level when I’m really not.
Maybe that’s why it’s confusing me so much . There has been long periods where I hadn’t used the program . And I can’t recall having this issue in the past . It was more straight forward before . Makes more sense to me now . Thanks .
FINALLY, I have much time to fail and not work it. later, Oh said No Delete before Bake to Normal Map.
Thank!