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3ds Max 2009 Displacement from ZBrush Maps

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey Room.
I have gone through tons of tutorials for applying maps generated in Zbrush 3.1 on the respective characters in #ds Max 2009.All Modeling, and texturing was done in zbrush.Now, after exporting Obj files and maps, I’m so so stuck in 3dsMax. I sincerely have not found any viable one that produces accurate results. Most are either V-Ray renderers or so. I use Mental Ray as my renderer, and have lots of textured characters but can’t seem to move forwad because of this problem.
Please, help would be most appreciated.Thanks in anticipation or replies.

#2

Hi Teeto - I’m no expert and I use neither V-ray, Mental ray or Max 2009 :confused: - however, it seems to me that a high proportion of displacement issues are caused by scale problems between different apps. ie if there is a scale problem displacement sort of works but not very well and you are left making a thousand adjustments trying to work out whats going on.

So, be methodical and dont start with a complex character, start with a basic cube or something with a couple of lumps sculpted into it and test your workflow...

  1. make sure you have UV’s setup

  2. create a 32bit disp map from your cube/simple object- you must use ‘Multidisp 3’ no other method! (paste ‘DE-LBEK-EAEAEA-R32’ into the export options box first)

- the 32bit map from MultiDisp 3 has the displacement scale baked into it which means you dont have to play around for hours trying to make it look like your Zbrush model - (any other disp method from Zbrush creates a 16bit disp map which does not have this feature and will give you many more variables to adjust.) 3. export to obj... 4. import to max at 1:1 scale - this is crucially important! then test in the renderer of choice - if this works then you know your in business, follow the procedure for a more complicated object - if it doesnt work go back and check each step. hope this helps all the best - Julian
#3

Hey dear,
Thanks for your reply…I’ve been in and out of this site most days and never even have the time to check on a few things… Really soory it took me time to get back to you.

I think I got a solution to all my problems...I got a 3ds max pipeline from one of the forums and it is truly the best thing I've seen.I'd need to learn to use blender cos of the tutorial, but it thoroughly explains how and what to do in Blender, and then finally rendering in max. I have one problem with blender though, and don't know if you could help. After selecting my edges to be laid out in Blender, no UV Face flat or something like that name shows up on the pop up. Don't know if you use blender, but I figured it best to learn proper UV laying out just so I know. I could send you the PDF if you are interested...

take good care of yourself and do hope to hear from you.