Please help, trying to recombine my bodyparts for maya

[system]

I’ve made a char and fully painted and sculpted it. I split up the char (made body into seperate subtools) in order to speed up performance. Now I’m having a problem with getting all the pieces rendering properly in maya. When I combine the objects, the dis. maps are at different levels, I’ve tried everything (diff. approximation settings etc.)

Should I try to recombine all the subtools in Zbrush and reimport uv’s then remake all my maps or is there a way to make the seperate displacement mapped pieces combine together properly in maya?

(P.S- Somehow when splitting the subtools, one of the hands somehow changed border vertex locations and now it doesnt line up properly when I try to combine its subtool. Is there a way to copy a hand over from the other side and attach it while keeping everything’s subdivison levels?)

Thanks in advance, this has been killing me for days.
Dave

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[aurick]

Are you a PC or Mac user? If you’re PC you can use Multi Displacement 3 to export 32-bit displacement maps. These combine very well. If you’re a Mac user the best that can currently be exported is 16-bit. In that case you need to record the Alpha>Alpha Depth Factor value for each map. You use that value (modified by another value that you’ll need to determine for your project) to control the intensities of your maps in the rendering engine. For example: ADF x MyValue = Maya Value.

You theoretically can combine your SubTools together again in ZBrush. The easiest way to do this is with SubTool Master (from the Download Center). The catch is that you’re probably going to be left with a model that’s too dense for your computer to handle.

[system]

Thanks for replying,

PC - I am exporting 32 bit maps, but just with the regular dis. exporter. I looked at another post and I’m wondering if this is the problem. (Back in maya) Each bodypart (head, torso) has its own UV’s each occupying 0-1 uv space. Is it creating the problem because when I combine the seperate bodyparts in Maya, all the UV sets occupy 0-1? I wonder if I can move each uv set to its own uv region, then apply one subd approximation to the entire mesh and apply the individual shaders to each bodypart’s faces, that would work. Do I need to remake the uv’s, each in diff uv regions, then remake the maps, so they apply to those regions?

Here’s my problem with the subtools. When I tried to recombine one of the hands, its vertices were pulled back so the vertices wouldnt merge on import/export. So I thought I would try to copy the arm from the other side, but whenever I delete hidden geometry in order to make a clean copy, I lose my high freq. details. (I should just be able to delete lower from the side I want to copy, then clone, mirror, insert, then remake sub-d levels correct?)

Another weird thing, after I manage to delete hidden (hi freq detail is gone), when I delete lower sub-d levels, the object disappears???

Thanks again
David

[aurick]

In order to export 32-bit displacement maps you can’t use Displacement Exporter. DE works on maps that are in the Alpha palette, and the Alpha palette supports only 16-bit images.

To export 32-bit you need to use Multi Displacement 3 (in the Zplugin palette). This writes the maps directly to disk, bypassing the Alpha palette.

[system]

ok, I’ve got the 32 bit map thing worked out, they work great, I’m still getting merging issues between the pieces tho. Should I try to setup each piece with its own approximation editor then combine them in the end, or combine them before with 1 approximation, then add the unique shaders to each group of faces. How should my UV’s be setup?

Today, I got so fed up, I figured the dis. map isnt doing all that much anyway, I’ll just do take it out and get the detail with the normals… normal maps arent merging well either??? I want to cry

Let me know if I this is getting too far into Maya territory_
Is there a tutorial somewhere for this sort of thing? I barely see anyone talk about it.

Thanks a ton!

[system]

I found the full Scott Spencer multi .dis. map pdf- it explained about the uv regions, problem solved.

Thanks for your help