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NEED Help on HeightMap Modeling for Game Environement !

Hi Everyone !

I 'm currently working on Heightmap Environement generation for Game, and I’m currently searchin a good tutorial to model the height map with Zbrush from a Plane model in Maya , who is at the O,O,0 position , and who have a scale of 4096 Metre by 4096 Metre of width and lench.

So I import that object in Zbrush , and with Smt active, I subdivide that plane 6 , 7 Times , and model that object with only deformation along Y axes. ( It’s for Heightmap game system ).

So I would like to create a good balanced level displacement map, to use all the range of the Tiff 16 bits deph. But the displacemnt I generate , at subdivide 1 was at min and max 30 % grey to 70 % grey so I doesn’t use all the 16 bits range. Help me on that.

So when I can produce good displacemnt map it was pretty good. But, how I can load the Ground plane, subdivide it “n” times, and load the object that composed the scene (like road, buildings etc…) and only work on the modeling of the heigmep , to snap it to the Tri mesh object like Roads ?

I want so see how the set was done , and try to model the terrain, with good define precision.

Can I load different OBJ object and parent all that one , to the ground plane, and work only on the subdivision, and modeling of the Heightmap ?

I work On Maya, So I need to Get back the High define ground plane to Maya, by dispacement map. how I manage the Alpha Depth Factor, in Maya from Zbrush ?

What worflow do you use ? did you have any good Tutorial on it ?

ZBrush currently uses only the amount of color depth necessary to accurately represent the details in the high resolution model. In some cases, this does end up being the full 16 bits. But for most models, less than the full 16 bits are necessary.

Stretching to use the full 16 bit range would require interpolation of values to fill in the gaps between those values that are actually necessary. Interpolation is never 100% accurate. It’s basically an educated guess, and could introduce errors into the map.

This is something that we’re looking into expanding on for future releases of ZBrush. Pixolator has already stated that floating point displacements will be available in the future.

For understood my problem . I give you a visual explaination.

1: First I have done a Plane Quad in Maya for 4096 Metre ² to create the environement ground.
2: Then I model the Highway. I precise that the highway was not flat, she flow a curve for little variation.
3: I export to OBJ file the Highway and the Ground separetly.
4 load as a tool the Highway Object, and Grab the Zdepth of that object, and store that alpha as a 16 bit tiff who’s name was Zdepth_ADF_ 1p4519 for 1.4519 Alpha depht Factor.

5: Now I reset the document, load the ground plane as a tool, and want to displace the ground plane divided by 12 to get snapped to the highway , to finally works on the environement elevation to add some montain, cliff, and other stuff without taking care about the highway thas was already done.

6: Finally I want to bake the displacement map from that new highdetailed ground plane to a tiff 16 bits, and maximise the range to the pure Black from pure White 16 bits. To use that file in a Third party software, to generate heigtmap in real time.

How I can determine, the intensity of displacement that I need to Snap ( reatch ) the ground to the Highway. I only know the Alpha Depth Factor.

Can I specify a range of 100 Metre of Altitude, between -10 Metre to +90 Metre and try to displace the plane in the same range ?

How Can I calculate the amount of displacement intensity in Zbrush to perform the displacement needed to snap the ground terrain ( heightmap ) on the highway ? Cause I f I export that plane in Maya , I doesn’t think that the scale was good :wink: to find a ground snaped to the modeled Highway.

For info Max and min altitude of the highway was around -8 Metre to +6 metre. For 4 km long

PleaseI need help , and I hope that i’m not the only one who want to use Zbrush as a spectacular world generation tool !

Here’s what I would do in this case:

  1. Import the plane
  2. Press Tool>Clone to duplicate the model in the Tool palette.
  3. Press Tool>Import and load the highway model. By loading it over top of the cloned plane model, both models have the same scaling factor applied to them. This will be useful in a moment.
  4. Resize your document to be a square. Preferably 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 in size.
  5. Select the Plane model and draw it on the canvas. Activate the move gyro. In Transform>Info, set the X and Y sliders to half the size of the canvas. Your model will now be centered on the canvas.
  6. Activate Scale. Set the Info sliders to be half the size of the canvas.
  7. Activate Rotate and set all three Info sliders to zero. Your model should now fill the canvas exactly.
  8. Press M to set a marker, then return to Draw mode.
  9. Create a new layer
  10. Select the highway model and click the marker that you’d placed on the canvas. Because the highway and plane model share the same scaling info, the marker will draw the highway perfectly in relation to the plane.
  11. Return to your first layer. Use ZBrush’s various 2.5D brushes to paint the landscape. You’ll be able to build up around the highway without affecting it (because it’s on another layer). What you’ll probably find happening is that you build up detail with Zadd so that it overflows over the road, then use Zsub to trim it back down again at the highway itself (possibly using the Single Layer brush).
  12. When you’re happy with the landscape, press Alpha>GrabDoc. This will capture the current layer as a depth map while ignoring the highway layer. You can export that Alpha and use it as your landscape displacement map.

Thanks to reply Aurick But can you Precise more ?

Here’s what I would do in this case:

  1. Import the plane ( Just Import in the model library or Put it on the Scene canvas )
  2. Press Tool>Clone to duplicate the model in the Tool palette.
  3. Press Tool>Import and load the highway model. By loading it over top of the cloned plane model, both models have the same scaling factor applied to them. ( How Can I load that object as if I load a OBJ in Max or Maya that load it at the same scaling factor. ) This will be useful in a moment.
  4. Resize your document to be a square. Preferably 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 in size.
  5. Select the Plane model ( I doesn’t know, how to reselect a tool that I have unselected, in Zbush; Tahts incredibly difficult to find a a tutorial to know how to work on a model , import another, model it , and select the past model ) and draw it on the canvas. Activate the move gyro. In Transform>Info, set the X and Y sliders to half the size of the canvas. Your model will now be centered on the canvas.
  6. Activate Scale. Set the Info sliders to be half the size of the canvas.
  7. Activate Rotate and set all three Info sliders to zero. Your model should now fill the canvas exactly.
  8. Press M to set a marker, then return to Draw mode.
  9. Create a new layer
  10. Select the highway model and click the marker that you’d placed on the canvas. Because the highway and plane model share the same scaling info, the marker will draw the highway perfectly in relation to the plane.
  11. Return to your first layer. Use ZBrush’s various 2.5D brushes to paint the landscape. You’ll be able to build up around the highway without affecting it (because it’s on another layer). What you’ll probably find happening is that you build up detail with Zadd so that it overflows over the road, then use Zsub to trim it back down again at the highway itself (possibly using the Single Layer brush).
  12. When you’re happy with the landscape, press Alpha>GrabDoc. This will capture the current layer as a depth map while ignoring the highway layer. You can export that Alpha and use it as your landscape displacement map.

Do I have to create Triangle to define the Zdepth range in the Plane Model 1 triangle at -10 Metre and 1one other at 50 Metre of altitude ?

Can I subdiv only a Part of a mesh, as an obj model who store 3 quads with nonshared vertex ?

Do you know good tutorial about Marker tool or MultiMarker system , cause I need these knowledge , to work fine with that type of workflow ? :smiley:

What Can I do , to select the marker of the Ground if Ground and Highway as the same coord for the Marker ???

For Those who are French , that a link that can help you to understand my problem. http://www.zbrush.fr/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=8855#8855

for illustrate my problem :wink:

By Aurick
By Marcus

NO reply …:cry:

Please need Help … If you doesn’t understand me in english try the French Zbrush Forum Up this topics…

Hi Everyone.

I have done some test of workflow, to resolve the proportional scale in Zbrush between 2 OBJ models.

I Have created in Maya, 8 Sprocket who serve me as 8 point of recerence to define a Bounding box that Zbrush can not ignore. Taht object was export with the both model that i need to import in Zbrush so I have that one, for the Ground and that one for the Highway.

So when I load that 2 objects in Zbrush, I can be sure , that they have the same scale. I just need to delete the Sprocket faces with “delete hidden” tool to remove that was unnecessary. And Begin to divide only the ground , and model that one fairly !

Take a look at that model … I have just hide the Highway , subdivide 3 times the ground ( 64 edges by 64 edges ) and aplly a Displacement with the Alpha Depth info of the Road, with the Alpha / GrabDoc tool. Note that the AlphaDepthFactor was 124.3876.

I have done a displacement with an intensity of 0.069. Thats works well , but I would like to find a good process to caculate the intensity factor that i need to Snap the ground to he road. Please help me on that problem. That just a Test , and I need good accuracy for a model that need 4,096 Km / 4,096 Km and that have just an amplitude of 0,4 Km from -100 m to +300 m.

The amount of intensity in that test seems that I need ADF / 2 000 = Displacement Intesity ( 0.062 ) . But that valor not work as mutch as 0.069 .

Pilou

No info about the intesity ratio for good displacemtn proportion !!! :cry: