Apply displacement to Zbrush
Lets say I like to import the OBJ head that’s used for testing the external rendering
and apply the same displacement map to it in Zbrush
would that be possible
ZBrush do not have displacement in core-preview. Alot of people including me misconcepted it before. ZBrush use Pixol Technology that does all the pixel and polygons works (2D, 2.5D, and 3D) in the preview.
So, double your model geometery to the highest-polys trhen you may do some detail work on it with ‘Project Master’ or other sclupture tools. After all the work is done on it, export it into displacement map and then put it on your low-poly model in other 3D software that have displacement map built-in.
ya I understand the PIXOL concept
I was woundering , since it has teh understanding to Export Displacmnet. why wouldn’t it import it
at this point I guess it can’t…
maybe the other workaround is to convert the displacment to Polygin in application such Maya and then bring it to Zbrush
ZBrush can certainly apply a displacement map to a model.
- Import the model and enter Edit mode
- Turn off Quick 3D Edit
- Set Tool>Display Properties>DSmooth to 1
- Import your displacement map into the Alpha palette
- Assign a texture to the model (it can be anything - even blank white)
- Divide the mesh a few times to give it subdivision smoothing.
- Activate Tool>Displacement>Mode
- Adjust Tool>Displacement>Intensity to something that looks good
Your displacement map will be rendered on the model, making it look as if it has more polygons than it does.
ZBrush can go even further:
- Divide the mesh a couple/few more times so that you have enough polygons to support the details being created by the map.
- Press Tool>Displacement>Apply Disp Map
The details from the displacement map will be baked into the geometry of the model. You can now sculpt the high resolution model to your heart’s content before going ahead and creating a new displacement map to send back out to your other software.
What kind of tiff format does Zbrush read I have made a disp map a while back converted it to rgb in photoshop and flipped it and then saved it out without any compression ect but when I try to open it from the alpha palette in zbrush it says file read error! Its obviously the type of tiff that photoshop saves out is there anyway to convert it back to the zbrush tiff format
I don’t believe Photoshop has the necessary settings. Just export it as a PSD instead. ZBrush will be able to load that.
Yes thanks guys I read it in a different post last night , works like a charm…strange how Zbrush cant bring back in the tiffs it exports…maybe in the next version…
If you export the TIFF from ZBrush, you should then be able to load it again. But if you open it in Photoshop and save it from there, it will no longer be in the format that was exported from ZBrush. It’s still a TIFF, but with different settings.
who do I have to harass to get my hands on the beta of this :lol: looks to good! wonder if all the renders shown are from within mudbox or taken to another app.
I tried the work flow described above, but i get some strange results when applying the displacement.
I first created a plain (10x10 polys) in maya, exported to zBrush, stored the morph target, subdivided a few times (withouit smooth to leave the shape) and modeled a bit. Then I created the displacement map. Now i draw a splineshape in Maya, cut this one out of the plain (this way the uv’s of the cut plain are at the same position like the uv’s of the original plain), imported this to zBrush, subdivied without smooth again and applied the displacment . Now everything is perfect exept the edge, which looks like this.
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Even if i import the whole plain again and apply the displacment map (there is no displ. at the edges of the plain at all = pur grey) this happens at the edges.
Why does it do that? And how can i solve it?
(I can’t/will not model at the cut out shape because i need different shapes that overlap each other but must be identical at the overlapping areas.)
If there’s nothing on the map at the edges, then it sounds like this is an error in your rendering engine. Perhaps relating to the type of surface that the map is being applied to? Or maybe the UV’s?
It seems it has something to do with the mesh-edge. But I don’t understand why. First i thought, its because the unregulated edge has some triangles which make problems.
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Perhaps a false setting in ZB ? Has ZB more than one rendering engine? The installation is only 3-4 month old. I don’t think that it’s broken. This is strange and frustrating. I don’t want to do all the work again 
This are the files (Maya 6.5, OBJ and ZB2) I used for testing:
http://www.phoenix4d.com/external/ZBDisplaceTest.zip