Now Im having fun

[MealeaYing]

I can’t respond properly to all this because the webmasters removed the multi-quote (and even the regular quote) feature from the site.
GRRRR…
Every time they update this site they remove good features and add silly ones. Its like replacing tools with toys.
To make it worse Im three pages behind!

Anyhow that is some amazing stuff you guys!

Ok, someones said that displacement maps could only be straight lines, this is incorrect.
Heres one that has exactly 0.0000 straight lines:

Thank BioDesigner for that, he makes outstanding stuff.
Displacement maps can be ANYTHING depending on what you are after.
Here you go, a whole can of worms:
Truchet made the original pattern. Interesting person.
hehehe!!!

Someone remind me of WHY .EXR files even exist please.
I have NOTHING that will open them.
What are they for?

Paleo CgMystic, Michalis and Megacel, those are GREAT…
I need the goddamned frigging quote this fo this.
I have three windows up for one bloody post!

Patpotlood Loops should still work the same for the most part, but things like the displacement slider for edge loops has been seriously altered, I now don’t know what a good setting is, and will need to examine it further, its now got a bunch more decimal places and its actually rather hard to use now. Maybe try what I suggested, start at 0.05 and adjust as needed from there.
Most of the rest SHOULD be the same, but all of my tutorials are out of date and I can’t edit them.
I could edit and repost them maybe, but that would turn this thread into a total mess.

BTW, never use the AO map as displacement, avoid any editing such 32 bit maps, avoid any 8bit formats, avoid jpg as hell.

Or, do what I do, always use the AO one as the displacement map (its more subtile), eit the hell out of it, its fun and interesting, and use Jpeg at various levels to create instant texture. As far as eight bit stuff goes thats fine too, it would be cool if we could use animated gifs as displacement maps, but if you happen to want to use eight bit images go ahead, some of them could be amazing, some could have lots of noise due to dithering and that might make interesting textures.
In the long run Michalis is correct, these are things to avoid (aside from the AO thing in my opinion) because you will in many cases end up with muddy results. Experiment with stuff after you get it to do what you want, or if you are like me experiment till you change what you want because something new happened.

CgMystic, you mentioned the render stuff in KeyShot vs. Best Render, I have to ask, because it DOES look like you used Best as opposed to BPR in that render and you are correct, the difference is huge.
Did you use Best Render? Try BPR if so and turn on just about all the stuff in the Render Properties…
Best Render is TOTALLY different than BPR, in some ways its better, and in other ways BPR is better. It depends on what you are after.
I think of it like this:
BPR is for 3D
Best is for 2.5D (with numerous exceptions).

Im not freediving, Im fixing something an idiot broke, I wish I was freediving! Its against the law to smack idiots, and perhaps impolite.

Also its 127 pages now… I can’t dig through it any more my self, I haven’t got the bandwidth!
But yes, this is the thread I was likely referring to, Thank you Tungerz!!!

Did I miss anything?
I bet I did…

We need to give the webmasters hell about removing the quote and multi-quote thing.

The only possible reason I can see for them having done this is images being re-posted, and thats not a good enough reason in my opinion, its not like there are any large images on this site, they are all under a half a megabyte.

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[MealeaYing]

Heres another example of NOT needing straight lines:

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[MealeaYing]

hehehehehe…

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[MealeaYing]

This:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?191587-polybridge-problem&p=1125400#post1125400
Is splendid!

[michalis]

Someone remind me of WHY .EXR files even exist please.
I have NOTHING that will open them.
What are they for?

It’s a 32 bit format. Tiff supports up to 16 bit.
The more the bits the better.
8 bit format should be avoided for displacement. Ugly scaling effect.
Here, have a look.
Tiff 16 bit is OK.
Every decent application can open 32 bit exr. Pshop, gimp, Zbrush, etc etc
If your zbrush can’t you should report the bug.
See under displacement panel, it exports exr alright, so it can import them.
Half of my exr shared textures have been constructed and baked in zbrush.

Should displacement textures contain straight lines only? Horizontal and vertical lines - patterns?
Of course not. However, there are some issues. Line patterns can be easily aligned to a topology. Topology is a quad based pattern.
Altering topology, creating loops, this will produce a curve of the texture.
UV maps need to be aligned to this topology. AUV, GUV, such methods do this. (and a few more advanced, found in other apps like blender)
Not a big deal, if we work on very hi subdivision levels. ZB r7 can do it, 64 bit you see.
Again, however…, hm hm lol,
you may need a low poly mesh, displacement maps can be rebaked as tangent space normal maps***8230; such things.
There is always a “however” :lol:

Great works Mealea, glad you are posting again.
Keep posting nice artwork !!!

[megacal]

Hey mealea!

I thought I felt a disturbance in the Force as your bow wave approached!

Just a quickie as we’re out the door in a minute for a few hours.

re: curved diplacement graphics…if you export the .obj from ZB, does it look that good in
e.g. Blender, etc, asssuming normal normals?

My problem is getting jaggy lines in even ZB even though I divide to level 5…do you go way higher?
Yours & paleo3d’s always look so clean.

Life interrupting now.

Later

[paleo3d]

If one looks carefully at my comment on vertical and hozizontal lines in displacement maps I wrote this :

“you will see “broken lines” at the interface between Polygroups after you apply the Map” (See Temp.jpg )
One also gets this effect with Vertical and Horizontal lines but the effect is not as apparent…
Is this not correct?

@Michalis : what is ***8230 ?

Also, the *.exr for the displacement works in ZB but I don’t know how well yet, since the map does not look exactly as it does in Psp
( looks “paler” ). As for the AO/Texture.exr the results are terrible ( see Temp2.jpg) .
( I’m importing the disp. exr Map through the Alpha Palette and the AO from the Texture palette)

Anybody having luck with this?

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[michalis]

Oh my, what is this num? I was just editing my post.
LOL, LOL

Also, the *.exr for the displacement works in ZB but I don’t know how well yet, since the map does not look exactly as it does in Psp
( looks “paler” ). As for the AO/Texture.exr the results are terrible ( see Temp2.jpg) .
( I’m importing the disp. exr Map through the Alpha Palette and the AO from the Texture palette)

Map shouldn’t look like in Pshop. Don’t bother, it doesn’t work this way. The dynamic range matters, nothing else.
AO textures, no need to be exr I guess. However, I’m not experiencing any terrible issues (on OSX).
Exr support should be different under OSX or WIN, I wonder what’s happening.

[MealeaYing]

Megacal:
It should look exactly as it does in ZBrush, the trick is that as far as I know ZBrush has this displacement stuff more for exporting stuff made in ZBrush to things that can’t handle what ZBrush can in terms of polycount.
We are just playing with it cause its fun, and because we can.

[paleo3d]

Possible solution to *.exr Maps : Import them BOTH from the Alpha Palette and transfer the AO.exr to the Texture Palette and apply.
( see Temp3.jpg)

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[MealeaYing]

Paleo:
Try using UVP for that map, and dont worry about polygroups, you dont need any in this case.

Michalis, why are .EXR’s better than something else? Like .TIFF or something?

[MealeaYing]

2

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[paleo3d]

UVp works very well but I never thought that, one day, I’d apply Planar Mapping to a sphere!!

[megacal]

@paleo3d,

Possible solution to *.exr Maps : Import them BOTH from the Alpha Palette and transfer the AO.exr to the Texture Palette and apply

the result is very clean.

But when I tried to import the .exr it didn’t show up in the Alpha palette (see earlier post, bottom p126).

What level of division are you all using?

re: tiff vs png vs jpg…I tried each type, and only see artifact with jpg, so I guess it’s a moot point if
I can use the exr in ZB…maybe because it’s OSX vs Win? I was able to use it in Blender, so assumed it
would work in ZB. Lots to learn yet.

A Dutch neighbor once told me they have a saying, “Too soon ve get old, too old ve get smart.”

[paleo3d]

megacal, You are getting jagged edges probably because you are using “low grade” displacement maps…such as some jpgs etc…

Try using this one http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?273033-Sculpting-with-UVs-and-displacements/page19
at post #374. Get the biggest size available ( 1280 X1280 ) I think. I threw it in Psp and increased the contrast and sharpened it, used despeckle and removed noise ( jpg artifacts ) etc… to help,
but it’s still a jpg…you will notice some distortion ( grainyness ). ( That was the first one I started with… )

Nothing beats the tiffs or exrs by Michalis however…

What’s this about your .exr not being in your Alpha palette? If its in your computer somewhere just transfer it to your Alpha map folder ( or wherever you store your images for ZB).

[megacal]

@michalis,

Every decent application can open 32 bit exr. Pshop, gimp, Zbrush, etc etc
If your zbrush can’t you should report the bug.
See under displacement panel, it exports exr alright, so it can import them.
Half of my exr shared textures have been constructed and baked in zbrush.

Yeah, it should be easy in ZB from what you & paleo3d are telling me.

@paleo3d,

What’s this about your .exr not being in your Alpha palette?
If its in your computer somewhere just transfer it to your Alpha map folder ( or wherever you store your images for ZB).

Maybe I’m not importing the exr correctly…>Alpha>Import>displacementLow.exr…save
…but still no image in the alpha palette. (sigh) )

I’ve tried it over & over, but no soap! LOL!

Shouldn’t I be able to load it from any place on the HD, or
does it have to live in the alphas folder? (can’t find it, btw)

re:

Try using this one http://blenderartists.org/forum/show…cements/page19
at post #374. Get the biggest size available ( 1280 X1280 )
Thanks! That worked much better
(I used as is, but will clean it up as you suggested)

BTW, I’ve asked a few times, but never got an answer…
how much division is necessary? I’ve been using 5…higher?
The abstract horse (see attached) is ~20.3 million polys.

Here’s my workflow for displacement as is:

1. start with low poly (5k) e.g.horse
2. process with ZRemesher (default settings) to get good distribution of polys (?) At least it
   looks better unwrapped after creating UVs than if I don’t use Remesher.
3. Use UVMaster to clone, then unwrap
4. in Geometry, divide to level 5
5. in Texture Map, add a blank texture (not sure why ZB requires a texture for displacement…?)
6. in Displacement Map, load a displacement map, increase or decrease intensity to create displacement
7. in UV Map, try different “types” of maps (?), e.g. PUVTiles, UVs, etc.,
   changing the AUV Ratio, HRepeat, VRepeat values.

Did I miss anything?

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[megacal]

@Zeriel100,
“Follow the yellow brick road!”

I.e. start here, try to go through 5 pages/day…it will take
about a month, if no new pages are added.

But since ZBrushR7 was just released, I expect this thread will keep
growing & growing, making catching up like trying to find the End of the Rainbow.

But unlike the rainbow, you can find pots of gold all through this thread!

[jan19]

It’s like bottled energy, this thread.

[michalis]

Use tiff 16 bit for displacement, at least.
You can easily bake excellent displ maps directly in ZBrush BPR.

1. go here and download the greeble excellent brush,
2. Insert a plane in your scene. The scene better be a square one.
3. Start placing greeble brush , hold M to select. shift to align them
4. Disable perspective view, go to top view. Zoom to have no empty space around.
5. Render as BPR
6. In renderpass panel, click on the depth pass and export as tiff 16 bit.
   Voilà

However, :lol: (always a however)
We’re in zbrush 4r7, right?

1. Start some construction ZModeler.
2. Make it one polygroup.
3. select the greeble brush
4. make it nano mesh
5. enter nanomesh and feel the object accordingly
   who needs displacements these days?
   
   Here, two renders, one is nanomesh (particles), the other is the same plus displ(bumps only)+AO map.
   However, I had to export to blender to UV unwrap it because I needed a bit of magic, sorry. (lol, just UV cubic projections, where is it in zbrush?)
   Reimported rendered in BPR. Costing ~ 76 k poly only.

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[MealeaYing]

To get things like Alphas, Materials and Brushes that you want to always be in ZBrush into ZBrush you need to put them in the right folder/directory.
In this case go into your Pixologic directory and look for the Startup directory, on the PC it would look like this:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Pixologic\ZBrush 4R7\ZStartup\

On the Mac it would be surrounded by angels and cherubs and when you find it harps would play and you would be fed something nice by your butler.
In other words I don’t know the Mac directory.

Dont do too many, apparently more than some number (25?) causes ZBrush to freak out, but I don’t know the exact number.