ZBrushCentral

The Inflate and Smooth Alpha Selection technique

ZBrush Artworks
#1

The technique of using an alpha as a Selection on a tool along with Inflate and Smooth is wonderful. It gives great results, and it’s fast and easy. Mentat has explained how to use this method here.

The picture below shows the untextured tool I created using this technique, along with a portion of the texture used to generate it. The texture is fairly low quality and was found on the web. There are quite a few rock and pebble pictures available for free (no royalty) on the web. NewTek has a few stone and rock textures that they give away free when you register on their site. TurboSquid also has some free textures and some texture collections for sale.

I started with a 3DPlane and initialized it to 256x256. 128x128 can give quite good results as well. I also wanted to quadruple the size of my original texture. I did this in ZBrush by tiling the texture on the plane 2x2, and then using the MRGBGrabber tool to create a texture and alpha that was 4 times bigger than the original texture. This texture was not seamless, and it showed in 2D texture, but can you detect it in the 3D tool? I can’t.

I then cleared the texture and applied the alpha as a Selection using TOOL:MODIFIERS:SELECTION:ALP. Because I used an HDivide and VDivide on the 3DPlane of 256x256, I did not need to Smooth as aggressively as Mentat suggested here. I Inflated by 25 and Smoothed by 100, then Inflated and Smoothed once again. Then I cleared the selection and applied the original texture, tiling it 2x2 to match the alpha I had created:

The material is Mentat’s FishRock material that he shared in the link above, modified with some extra bump to make the pebbles look more like granite. Without the bump, they look like smooth river stones, which is also good.

The picture below shows the tool placed with Perspective turned on:

#2

Here is the same technique with a stone wall texture. I think it might have looked better with no Smoothing at all. The stones are a little more rounded than I would like, but it still looks pretty good.

#3

Rock & Roll Jay
You find here some free Rocks Textures
and others of great quality !
You will make marvelous montage with it and Zbrush :slight_smile:
Have funny Smooth Inflating :cool:
Pilou

#4

thanks jay
that would look really cool for a dungeon wall

#5

thanks for the reminder, i have been trying to get that look with the scatter brush and 3d primitives for a couple of days now with some pretty bad results

#6

Those are some pretty interesting experiments Jacephus. :slight_smile: :+1:

#7

I’ve been using that technique mostly to get a bump-map on a tree. It’s easy to make an alpha selection of a wood texture on an object and then inflating-smoothing it. Gives great results , especially if you apply a nice material to it.
Thanks for the reminder :slight_smile:

#8

UPDATE: Enhanced picture

Here’s a ‘cracked earth’ texture I did at lunch. I’m wondering what the upcoming pixol deformation feature will look like with this texture.

#9

Oooo…I like that cracked earth Jay!! Very rockin! Do you have a larger version of that cracked alpha that you might share? :smiley: Just wanted to note that the main reason I didn’t use an H and V divided of 256 is because of managability. The higher the poly count the longer you have to wait when editing the object as the computer “catches” up. A division of 256 just bogs down my computer when I am doing a large landscape. But that is really the only reason why I don’t generally divide that high.

#10

Yeah, I don’t really want to ever go above 256x256 until I get a new computer.

Here is a link to the texture above:
http://www.web3d.org/WorkingGroups/media/textures/nature/ground_7.jpg.htm

That site has a lot of seamless textures that are not public domain textures, but they are ‘free to use’ in certain contexts. I’m not sure that you can freely use them in your art, but they have the list of copyright holders, so you might be able to get the textures from them.

#11

i would like to add my image here if thats ok,… its not complete because i still want to play with it,depending if this topic keeps going.
99.9 percent done in zbrush, imported textures.
edit :large_orange_diamond: just a little tip here,… i used a 3d plane with the brick texture to make the inside of the door,… refraction was then applied to that 3d plane.

#12

Nice examples of that technique Jay. Just wanted to add that I generally try and set the H/V divisions of the tool to the same size as the textures dimensions. That way the alpha exactly matches the 3D tool. Of course it allways fits but this way you get a texture pixel to polygon masking.

Also, for example with the texture you provided the link to, I would maybe try and set the plane3D divisions at twice the texture size (512*410). Divisions at twice the size of texture size seem to allways work better for getting the results I want. It does slow things down though :slight_smile:

But if necessity drives you to using a “lowres” 128*128 Plane3D(for example), you could apply the alpha, do your deformations and export then import it back in again. Now, under modifiers, you also have the added benefit of the Edge Smothness slider which might help when applying Deformation :small_orange_diamond:Smooth on such a “lowres” mesh.

Just wanted to add my experiences with this technique, thanks for bringing this up again Jaycephus :+1:

#13

Great walls, Dr. J :+1: Put some mood lighting in that scene, and it’ll be hot.

Good points, TVeyes. I used the cracked earth texture in a 2x2 tiling, so I would want to double the resolution if possible, since the texture has been doubled by tiling. Unfortunately, I can’t really work with a 3DPlane that dense very easily.

#14

Frenchy: :+1:

Thanks for the texture link. Are you aware of Texture Maker? It looks awesome for what it costs. It’s shareware, so you can try it for free. One of the many features that make it great is the ability to take something like a non-seamless picture of grass, gravel, concrete, etc. and randomly generate a seamless texture from it. Another is the ability to make an ‘orthogonal’ texture from any portion of a non-orthogonal picture. For example, if you have a picture of a house taken from off-center, so that perspective is very noticeable in the picture, TM will let you select a non-orthogonal box around a window or door, and then turn it into a nice square useable texture. I know Photoshop can accomplish these things, but TM is cheap and appears to do these things very well.

#15

Hi Jay
You speak about this prog ?
It’s seems fine.
But why not use Zbrush :slight_smile: It’s also a fantastic Texture maker :cool:
If my memory is good, you can make also texture witout seams Page 37 38 of the Manual
and the Pixo’s Apple Tut in “Texture Master” and other prodiges :slight_smile:
Don’t hesitate to use the “tilde key” ~^^~
Have nice texturing + Alpha Smooth transfigurating :cool:
Pilou

#16

Man, texture and normal maping is all good but the arch u have jus made, its construction is not logical… the brick shoud go with the arch curve…