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Help with displacement from zbrush to 3ds max

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi All,

I amhaving lots of trouble trying to export a displacement map to use in max in mental ray. If someone could point me in the right direction that would be great. Or if there is a tutorial for this that i havent found.

CHeers

#2

Do you have zb3.5r3 or…?

Not huge difference but some menus are different.

Hello Don’t know where at you are in this process.

In ZB 3.5r3

  1. Model in edit mode. Go down to the lowest subdivision. must have some uvs whether you made them in max or zb (if in zb3.5r3 puv is supposed to be best).

  2. In tools/displacement map make your displacement map. In zb3.5r3 you have to hit the clone button when displacement map is made and it will move it over to the alpha if anything else but zb3.5r3 once done computing your displacement map will move right into the alpha menu. I usually have the smooth UVS on DPSubPix setting of 4 but will take a while to compute (2 is fine). Turn on mode. I don’t know that much about the multi displace ie:32bit sorry if that is what you need.

  3. Go to the alpha menu, flip vertically here or in max, and export.

  4. If you have Photoshop or another painting program take it there and change the image from grayscale to rgb and save it again.

  5. Delete all upper geometry and export your low rez model making sure that texture or texture coordinates is on in Tools/export sub menu is on.

In max

  1. Open max and import your obj.

  2. Save as max file believe me it helps strange things can go wrong I have found if you don’t.

  3. I don’t know what version of max you have I have 3ds Max version 8. Put a uv unwrap modifier on it.

  4. Put a smooth modifier turbosmooth works well. Get it close to the same amount of geometry as your high rez model or at least close to it. Use a lower amount in the view port than what you need but make sure the render has enough subdivisions to compute your high rez details so that you can still get an idea of what you need but not bog your system down.

  5. Put the displace modifier (remember this modifier must always be in the top of the stack in your modifiers always max may crash or do some funky stuff if you put anything on top especially when rendering). For an example you later want to put a clothing or hair modifier on it select a lower modifier click on hold when the dialog comes up and then select your modifier. This all goes save for the vray modifiers or other rendering modifiers.

  6. In the displace modifier prams click on the map or button that says none and choose your displace map. Open your materials and drag the button with your map name on it to an open slot. Click on instance.

  7. Play with the strength and decay sliders. Luminance center is on. If having some difficulty with it being too extreme please scale your model or push modifier it bigger.

Sorry have to stop here this is what I have learned so far. I haven’t learned VRAY yet but did find a tut while writing this and they use the Vray. It is for an older zb version but still applies save for the tools menu.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=61434

Also the Pinup in the tuts has a good tut using vray too.

http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Tutorial:_Pinup#Back_to_3DS_Max

Hope this helps. :smiley: Happy Zbrushing!