ZBrushCentral

Displacement for beginners

ZBrush Usage Questions
#21

Just a small update for C4D. I’ve finally got a decent result and I haven’t even used DE3 for it.

faces.jpg

I didn’t know I could get results like this by simply making and Alpha map with the built in Create DispMap button? I’m worried it was a fluke.

#22

Asaxon,

I have been watching this thread with great interest. You are doing a great job here deciphering this thing. That last render looks very good.
Is it possible that you could provide screen grabs as before of your settings in ZBrush as well as C4?

Thanks

#23

Anyone getting the displacement to work in Maya/Mental Ray?
I’ve tried the same workflow as zb2 (http://www.zbrush.info/site/index.php/ZBrush_To_Maya_Displacement_Guide#Maya_Setup_for_Rendering), but so far the displacement doesn’t show up at all.

#24

DarkEdge, thanks and yes I will go over the steps in the next day or so for you. I need to make sure it works under different cicumstances as I’m still having unpredictable results with various Geometry.

mantella, I’m going to move onto Maya when/if I figure out Cinema 4D so keep your eye on this post.

#25

asaxon,

Did you load the map into the Alpha channel in C4D or the displacement channel? Why are you using the Alpha Channel?

Great results, but please explain what you did here in more detail.

Thanks

#26

Paint guy - yes I am going to try to go over the process in an hour or so, so check back.

I’m managed to get fairly good displacements so far although on more complex models I’m having problems with distorted Geometry when imported into C4D but I’ll keep cracking on at it until I get constant results.

#27

Ok here’s the walkthrough process for ZBrush to Cinema 4D.

I’ll be using ZB 3.1 and Cinema4D 10 for this example. Obviously if you want to use your own model etc, feel free.

  1. Load ZB and select the “Demohead” from the welcome screen.
  2. Divide the mesh to roughly SubDiv 6 or about 3 million polys so that we can add fine details to it like in the image below.

[3.jpg]

  1. Go to SDiv 1 under the Geometry panel.
  2. Go to the “Texture” panel and clock on EnableUV and then on GUVTiles to set up the UVs
  3. Export the .obj file
  4. Open the Displacement panel and activate “Adaptive” by clicking on it and then click on “Create DispMap” and after the UVs have been calculated a greyscale image will be added to your Alpha pallette. Note that this may take a few minutes.
  5. Open the Alpha panel and select the “DemoHead#1” alpha and then click on the “Export” button and save it as a PSD document.
#28

Now on to Cinema 4D

1. Open the .obj file we saved and when it loads scale it up so that it fits nicely on the screen. It's best if you scale it up rather than zoom in on it. 2. Create a new material and select the "Displacement" option and copy the settings as they are below. By upping the Subdivision level you gain more detail but it takes longer to render.

7.jpg

  1. Now double-click on the texture image file above where it says “Sub-Polygon Displacement” and make sure HDR Gamma is set to 1 and not 2.2
  2. Now we need to flip the disp map vertically and render and you’re done. If you don’t know how to flip the disp map vertically, right-click on the mini thumbnail of the material under the object manager and select “Mirror vertically” Oh and please note if it still doesn’t work after flipping it, try flipping it again and it should work.
#29

Standard lighting etc and by far not the best we can get from it.

9.jpg

Also note, I’ll try and push this further when I figure out DE3, but for now these results are easy and effective.

#30

Asaxon,
Excellent work mate. Not to be a bother but your C4 settings jpg isn’t showing up.

#31

Thanks. Not a bother mate, don’t know what happened there, should be ok now.

#32

Very Nice.

Thank you much for sharing all of your hard work. :smiley:

#33

Not a problem mate, it’s all new to me too. If you find out a better way than I’m doing it, please share. However much I love ZB, it’s useless to me if I can’t export it correctly for rendering.

As far as rendering goes, I really love the way Cinema 4D is simple to use but at the same time, just as powerful as anything else out there.

#34

That’s good to hear. The renders I’ve seen have been very good too. I’m a 2 year old Max user and for the first year it was very over whelming, so I’m looking forward to something that won’t cause brain cramps again.
Can’t wait to try your settings.

Regards

#35

I found this old thread that might help out MODO users.
http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=40097

#36

I don’t know if you guys have tested out the methods I posted yet, but I’ve done a few more tweaks and through the displacement map C4D picks up every detail I throw at it.

I was actually amazed at how well C4D coped with it all, no bloatedness, no artifacts, just smooth details.

Anyway, the couple of changes I made were within ZB.

When getting ready to save the displacement map, make sure the “Adaptive” button is on, the “DPRes” is set to maximum, and the “Mode” button is selected. This will give you very nice and detailed displacement maps.

Now in the Alpha panel, click on the displacement map, click on the “Flip V” button to save doing it in C4D and then select the “Max” button and then save. Now use the C4D settings I posted early, but don’t flip the texture vertically this time as we have done it through ZB and you should get some amazing displacement renders. I’ll probably summarise all this at the beginning of the post when I get some time.

#37

Woot! :d

#38

Here’s a render to compare. Obviously there are a few issues, but I didn’t bother to tweak it.

disp.jpg