ZBrushCentral

bump map viewer to texture???

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I started sculpting a model I made and then decided to create a bump map (rather than just subdividing alot). I applied the bump map viewer material and made a bump map. However, because I didn’t assign a texture, the bump map is there but I can’t extract it as a texture. It’s in memory when I load the model but I don’t know what I did wrong.

Can someone explain the process of using the bump map viewer so I can get an idea of where I went wrong and how I can extract the bump map?

Thank you in advance.

Cheers,
Revanto :stuck_out_tongue:

#2

Something is odd. The bump map viewer material only uses the assigned texture. If there’s no selected texture, then you wouldn’t have any bump showing on your model. You should simply be able to load the model and press Texture>Export.

If that’s not working for you, can you provide a link to a zipped copy of the model?

#3

It sounds like you are using polypainting together with the Bump Viewer material. You should be able to extract the bump map like you would with polypainting. Enable and assign UVs and press Tool > Texture > Col>Txr. Texture size is determined by the currently selected texture.

#4

Thanks, TVeyes.

That makes alot of sense. I’ll try things out and let you know if was successful or not but I believe that this is most likely the case. I actually did create UVs but maybe they didn’t work or something. I have a few tri polys in my model so that may be the case.

Anyway, thanks again.

Cheers,
Revanto :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

Yes!!! Thanks, that worked! You just saved me alot of stress.

I should like to note to anyone else who encounters the same problem that things should be like this when converting your ‘col’ to ‘tex’:

  • Make sure you have the bump map viewer as your active material
  • Make sure you have a nice and decently sized blank texture set up
  • Make sure that after you have set your UVs, go to your highest subdiv level before pressing ‘col > tex’

Thanks again, TVeyes.

Cheers,
Revanto :stuck_out_tongue:

#6

Your welcome Revanto :+1:

I should note that it is not necessary to have the BumpViewerMaterial selected when using the Col>Tex function. You might however want to convert the resulting RGB texture into an Alpha before exporting.

You are correct in that you should select the highest subdivision level before pressing Col>Tex to capture exactly what you painted (if you painted at the highest subdivision level). But in some cases I guess it could be useful to also perform a Col>Tex at a lower subdivision level, in addtion to the highest, in order to perhaps do some layer blend mode alterations in Photoshop. Probably more useful for Color textures rather than bump maps. Just a thought.

Using the BumpViewerMaterial with polypainting can result in a blocky or stepped bump map display. To get around that you can turn off Transform > Quick 3D Edit which instructs ZBrush to use the settings in Tool > Display Properties. Increase Tool > Display Properties > DSmooth to 1 and probably leave DRes at 3. This should give a good approximation of the resulting bump map when pressing Col>Tex with Tool > Texture > Grd (Gradient Colors) enabled.

Note, the above only has an affect on textures that are modulated by a material such as the BumpViewerMaterial. For painting standard color textures with standard materials there is no benefit to turning Quick 3D Edit off, in fact it just increases the CPU usage.

#7

Hi,TVeyes.
I use your method,but I feel that it has been no improvement.
I think that the pm method is better than polypaint(bump)