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#81

You’re pardoned. I wasn’t replying or commenting on anything you said, 3am. In fact, I’ve ignored your posts entirely until now. Notice that I quoted an individual that goes by “upham.” Besides, you were focusing your “whining” on the amount of time it’s taking to complete this pipeline; I was saying I don’t care about time as long as what should be addressed within the pipeline is addressed. They say English is the most difficult language to learn, so I understand your misunderstanding of my post. I live on the kind of planet where there are so many languages and interpretations of those languages that it’s amazing anybody can communicate with anybody else.

Have a great day :slight_smile:

#82

C4D users are also waiting for a Zbrush to C4D guide, but we are willing to wait…not too long hopefully. :smiley:

#83

A ZBrush to Lightwave and or Modo guide gets my vote. :+1:

#84

Are you still keeping the FAITH? hope you ARE…

#85

Not sure what you’re insinuating by that, but I’m still patiently awaiting the Max guide. Autodesk/Discreet must be having to make another plug-in to get it to work…:lol:

#86

Hello Max users -

Just a heads up. We got some great information from Autodesk and are working on putting it in a format that is similar to the other ZPipeline guides. We are still a ways away from a delivery, however. I am anticipating a month or so out. We are also looking at augmenting this with several different Max renderers and additional educational tools for Max users. Sorry for the wait guys. :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Viva La Pixol!

Ryan

#87

the Zbrush-XSI companionship in lovetour scared the gees out of discreet and made them uncover some cards :wink: Just kiddin’, we are anxiously waiting, this is great news!

#88

Sweetness! :slight_smile: Some news to add to the anticipation. Sounds like it will be a very thorough delivery…

Keep up the good work :smiley:

#89

Im going to stop whining from now on, but one thing I wanna know is that

Did you just get the info from Autodesk?

OR

You got that Info while ago and you POSTED the thread because of someone’s bitching around again?

okay, Im done. I have been waiting two longest-month and now I have to wait another month again!! Im dying to know how great tut its gonna be…

#90

Hey, thanks for the heads-up!
I’m seriously thinking of dumping Studio Max after constantly hitting-walls with Studio Max and ZBrush. I’m really looking forward to the Pipeline!

Upham :slight_smile:

PS. Discreet is dead. Studio-Max is under the Autodesk banner now.

(like Maya) :rolleyes:

#91

I was hoping someone might be able to offer some advice as to why my Maya displacement renders aren’t coming out as well as I think they should. I attached some images below. In MR, it doesn’t appear that the finer surface detail is showing up, as welll as the displaced geometry is kind of “pointy”, whereas in ZBrush those details are fuller and rounder. This “pointiness” is especially appearent in the characters abdominals, and under his rear shoulder.

Pertinant info…

System:

XP Pro SP 2
Dual Opteron 248
4gb RAM
6800 Ultra Card
Maya 6
Z Brush 2 w/MultiDisp plug in

Mental Ray SubdivApprox settings…
Method: Spatial
Min Subdivs: 4 (any higher MR crashes)
Max Subdivs: 9
Length: .001
Alpha Gain = 2.2
Alpha Offset = -1.1
Feature Displacement turned off

In ZBrush -
Hi Res Model = 3071488 polys, 3071490 points
Low Res Model = 3041 polys, 2960 points

  • Rendered out Disp map in ZBrush at 4096, DpSubPix set to 4, R32 with Quick Code in pipeline document, converted to .map, (all other settings like in guide)

  • Used level 1 base model exported from Z Brush as base mesh (in Maya, also tried adding 1 iteration of poly smooth to get rid of some triangles that were rendering funny). Base mesh was 3043 faces/5816 tris before polysmooth, 12002 faces/24004tris after (In Maya).

  • No overlapping UVS (UVs done in Maya)

_ import option set to false

  • In output window, triangle count (after render) including and excluding retessellation was 6145024.

  • Dunno if this matters, but…
    BSP Max Depth: 40
    BSP MAx Leaf Size: 72
    Average Depth: 33
    Average Leaf Size:7
    Render Global Settings: Size: 10, Depth 40

  • the Maya/MR renders are done at high quality

also tried -

  • On DispFile node: setting Filter Type to none, tried parametric setting (no visual difference but faster render) as per Pipeline tut, setting Filter and Filter offset to 0 (as per Alvarez/Gnomon video, to prevent possible blurring)

  • Also tried adding Displace Approx node like in Scott’s older video tut and the Gnomon/Alvarez video. Settings were the same as SubdivApprox settings. Didn’t really do anything except speed up the render.

  • Adding another level of Polysmoothing which just decreased the amount of Min Subdivisions I could use before MR crashed

  • In Render Globals > Memory and Performance, set Physical Memory to 2000, about half of physical memory on machine (according to another MR Gnomon video)

  • Rendered with one directional light with raytraced shadows

  • What should the settings be in the Tool: Displacement settings when using Displacement exporter?

I can’t think of any other info I should post at the moment, but there’s probably something I’m forgetting. On the following images, the renders on the left side are MR, and on the right side is ZBrush for comparison. I also included the Maya wireframe just in case. So any advice or anything would be greatly appreciated as I’ve been at this for the last few days and I’m kind of out of ideas. Also, thanks to Scott Spencer for his time and efforts, as well as the rest of you who help people trying to learn this stuff.

http://www.trevorsart.com/HogBackRender.jpg

http://www.trevorsart.com/HogFrontRender.jpg

http://www.trevorsart.com/HogWire.jpg

#92

Often when I get strange edges like that on otherwise smooth forms I find that my original base mesh may be a little too low poly. Try switchig to level 2, deleting the lowest subD level and generating a new disp map. Then export level 2 and render again in Maya with this new map.

In tools:displacement the only setting that will affect the multiDisplace plugin is the adaptive button. If it is pressed the map will be generated as adaptive instead of DpSubPix.
Try generating one of each map. I found on one of my dinosaurs that the places I used nudge and inflate didnt render accurately unless I used dpSubPix on the level 1 mesh (not the moriph target)

Hope that helps. Let me know if it works out.

S

#93

I’m not sure on the exact way to fix your problem but you are trying to render a crazy amount of detail in maya, you could try using a displacement map for the bulkier details and the fine detail use a bump map.

If you had a 5 sub-div level object in zbrush, on say the 3rd level make the object a cage and then export a displacement map, this will pick up all the fine details like wrinkles and can be used as a bump map in maya. Then export a displacement map from the lowest level that will pick up the larger deformations to the mesh. Should be much kinder at render time in mental ray. Have a look at the section in the practical manual on making a hand, the method is used there.

As for loosing muscle bulk, Spencer sounds right, i’m sure i’ve read something along similar lines in another thread (probably being answered by him) He knows is stuff :wink:

Hez

#94

Hez has a really good point on using the bump map to accentuate the displacement details!

I missed your last image if the wireframe and if thats level 1 it looks like the mesh is plenty dense enough. Is the test render one where you had a displace approximation attached? I also found I got similar “crenating” surfaces when I used the displacement aproximation in conjunction with Subdivision which is why I only use Subdivision now.

Looking at your fine details it appears that they are indeed starting to show up just the shadows are not as strong in the MR render and they are being lost in the default gray of the surface shader. TRy setting up raytracing to get better shadows there after the base forms are rendering better.

Looks like its almost there just gotta get over some tech hurdles : )

S

#95

Scott Spencer - Thank you for the reply. I think I’ll try exporting some different resolution base meshes (instead of smoothing the base mesh in Maya like I did) and generating some DpSubPix and Adaptive maps based on the different res base meshes. These renders didn’t have the Displacement Approximation on them, and the Inflate and Pinch brushes were used in modeling. Could you clarify “I used dpSubPix on the level 1 mesh (not the morph target)”? I’m not quite sure what you mean. FYI, I don’t have a morph target, I’m just exporting the base mesh as is.

Hezza - You are right indeed! Ironicaly, as you were typing you’re message, I was showing a friend my model, saying “I’m definitely using a bump map next time for these details”. :+1:

Thank you guys. I’ll post my results in a bit.

#96

Sometimes people store a morph target of the original mesh when they import it into ZBrush and generate the map from that mesh instead of the level 1 mesh that is slightly alteredby sculpting in ZBrush. I just meant generate a dpSubPix and adaptive map from that level 1 mesh not a restorrd morph target. I believe thats what you are doing anywhay but the different map generation methods can sometimes make a difference especially when using inflater and nudge.

S

#97

Just thought I’d leave an update on my situation…

I used the second level mesh, which was 25k triangles instead of the original base mesh that was 6k tris (smoothing it in Maya didn’t work very well either), and an Adaptive map, and things turned out pretty good. There was a very noticeable difference between the rendereed Adaptive map and the DpSubPix map.The Adaptive map seemed much more “forgiving” in areas that are displaced a fair amount from their original surface and seemed to mainatin the overall volumes better. Anyway, thanks again gentlemen.

#98

Just one other thing i noticed, you said previously that you smoothed your base mesh in maya to sort some render problems on triangles. I had this same problem but didn’t want to smooth the base mesh for animation purposes. One thing i found out was that in the SubdivApprox attributes theres an area called Mesh Converstion, under there set Conversion --> Quads to Triangles. This sorted out the render problem nicely and allowed me to keep my low poly mesh.

Just wondering if Scott could provide any info on this, is it considered bad working practice? will it throw up any other problems furthur down a production line? I’ve just never heard it much mentioned.

Anyway, best of luck and lets see some new renders.

Hez

Think i’m gonna go mad and kill someone this morning, i swear this bloke down my road is just revving a chain saw for the hell of it and not actually cutting any trees. He’s been at it for ages.

EDIT: It seems he must have been cutting trees, cause he’s just started the BLOODY WOOD CHIPPER. ARGGHH!!!

#99

Hezza - Thanks for that info! Much appreciated. Especially since I already had my low res base mesh skinned. I did notice when rendering with Quads to Triangles set, the accuracy of my displacement map was compromised just a little bit. Not enough to worry about, though, just FYI. I’ve included a final render comparison between two Maya models with 3k and 50k faces, alongside the 3million face Z Brush model. Thanks again for the help.

.http://trevorsart.com/FinalRender.jpg

#100

Glad it worked out for you!

Convert quads to tris I have seen before but never used. Ultimately all quads are tesselated into tris at rendertime and I can only assume this is a pretesselation option. Hey, if it works it works! I wouldn’t imagine it would cause problems down the line.

S