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Rule of Thumb for Polycount and Map Resolution when exporting?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey,

I’m currently working on a head mesh I’ve imported from max with about 2,000 polys and I want to create some details in ZBrush and then export a Displacement Map to take back into max. The map is going to be 4K, but I’m unsure about the level of polys I should use in ZBrush to get optimal results without sacrificing performance. Is about 2 million enough to get details like skinpores onto the displacement map or will it be too inaccurate for a 4K map and I should go up to 8mil?

Thanks in advance.

#2

A 4K map has about 16 million pixels. UVs, however efficient, can’t use all that space but you can probably reckon on getting detail from about 8-10 million polys. 2 million probably won’t be enough for the finest skin pores.

#3

1024x1024=1048576 pixels in the map. Each pixel basically equates to each vert. So a 1k map needs ~1mil points to get as close to a 1:1 as you could hope.

2k=4mil
4k=16mil

Hope that helps.

#4

Oh boy. Thanks.

I was worried that would be the case. 8mil points already causes quite a bit of sluggishness on my system (xeon 1230v3, 16gb ram), so maybe I’ll do the rough shapes like lips, birth marks and a few tiny wrinkles here and there at 2mil and then add more details like skin pores and very small wrinkles and lines in photoshop instead of ZBrush.