I am currently working on a broadcast commercial and need to export out 8k textures maps so that close up they stand up to scrutiny. As of right now zbrsuh is not currently allowing me to achieve this. As every-time i have tried to make the cavity map in zmapper larger then 4096 it crashes and says that there is a memory limit and that my current graphics card will not support anything higher then 4096. is there any way around this?
the max you can generate a map for is 4k. This actually makes sense because zmapper applies 1 pixel per vertex on the model. an 8k image has over 67million pixels in it, so your model needs to be at or around 67million polygons as well as be using 100% of the UV space. Also…if a 4k image can’t handle a close up…even at 1080 then something is wrong I would think.
If you really really need an 8k image you can break the model and UV’s into 4 different quadrants and then render out your normals and comp them all together and move the UV’s back into place in regards to an 8k, or simply keep them split and apply 4 different maps to your object.
I am really puzzled by what you could be doing that requires an 8k image…heck, even IMAX is only 4k across I think. Anyway, I hope this helped some.
Goodluck.
I’m with goast… I’d be interested to see what a 4k texture couldn’t handle with today’s broadcast standard resolutions. The only thing I can figure is that you’re trying to do some sort of space-to-earth zoom and trying to use a single texture for the whole thing…
if you can share any details (vague as they may be) we may be able to help you figure out another way to attack your problem…
I have worked in broadcast for awhile now and you would be surprised at how many times i have used 8k textures for 1080p and not had the textures hold up when you have a camera directly next to them. We are flying really close pass glaciers and in my part of the industry people like to pardon my french “frame ****” the animation. We had been using 4096 maps for the disp but even then the pixelate when you are rendering your comp at HD setting cause when you are zoomed in on a part of and object and the whole map is 8096 then that resoloution of that area is still only whatever space it was given.
Goast666: After thinking about it and reading what you wrote, I think in the future i would make seprate maps for the object so that areas can have sharper pixels then having one map for the entitre object.
Thanks for the comments made me think it through a little more.
Yep, that is the best solution. Normal and displacement maps can’t create details that aren’t present in the model. A 4K map has 16 million pixels. So it can’t possibly hold more than 16 million polygons’ worth of data. In truth, there’s always wasted space in a UV map, so in most cases a 4K map will hold about 12 million points of data.
Trying to create a larger map won’t make the map hold up any better if the details aren’t present in the model to begin with. For example, take a 1 million polygon model and create a 1K map, a 2K map and a 4K map for it. Compare them side by side. If anything, the higher resolution maps will look worse than the 1K map does! This is because a 1K map has 1 million points of data, which is a match for a 1 million polygon model. In order to create a 2K or 4K map for that model, ZBrush will have to interpolate data to use the full available space.