Hmm, that’s really strange. Maybe it has something to do with the Mac version versus the PC version of Photoshop (which is what I use, Photoshop CS specifically). Same map, different readings between us. That is really odd. Anyone else want to take a crack at this strange oddity?
I’m using windows photoshop CS, getting the error as well.
Opening Pixolator’s image in a different viewer (imaging) makes the image show darker, so it’s obviously a bug in SOME versions of photoshop CS…
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>so it’s obviously a bug in SOME versions of photoshop CS<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Just checked the map in Adobe ImageReady CS, Irfanview, and on a whim Neat Image. All say 50% middle grey for neutral areas, same as Photoshop CS for me. So I guess that settles that. All I can say is make sure that you don’t have PS set somehow to assign/convert profiles when and image is loaded. For example, I set my color options to ask when opening everything and select “leave as is: don’t color manage” when opening maps. I also make sure profiles aren’t embedded in my file when saving. Beyond that, it might be a bug. (My settings below, set up for my photography.)
Thanks those settings solved the problem!
Can anyone point me to a Maya tutorial(s) on displacement maps from ZB. The full one(s) for N00bs. I need to take a whole new approach at this.
Hello!
Can you explain how to do displacement in 3dsmax to render with mental ray?
First you have to take the 16-bit grayscale and convert it to rgb and save with no compression. If you are using photoshop make sure you click “save as” just hitting save after converting seems to save with compression.
Second in 3dsmax add a 3d displacement to the displacement shader in mental ray connection section of the material. Under extrusion map add your bitmap and in the output options set the rgb offset to -0.5
as far as figuring out exact settings for the displacement in mental ray no idea yet 
reboren: Glad to hear it. Probably better to turn off color management all together if you don’t really need it. It’s only needed for photo editing really, or more specifically people who use various imaging devices each with a different color space, and thus require a color managed workflow (like making prints match what you see on your monitor for example).
wierdPal: Check out this tutorial. Or this one. And I’m not sure but I think there is another one out there somewhere.
shserge: Max and MR are talked about a bit in this thread. May be more (info is kind of scattered around this forum), so you’ll probably have to do a search.
This seems to be a good place to ask Mental Ray questions. I’m learning XSI and I am looking for an alternative to converting the displacement map to RGB. Is there a node that would allow you to mix the greyscale into 3 separate inputs? Is there a file format that Mental Ray accepts as 16 bit greyscale? Also I am learning about the (.MAP) format which allows you to store the image on the drive instead of in ram during renders. I am looking for a good conversion utility or XSI script. The ones I’ve tried so far causes imperfections in the images.
Last but not least I saw someone asking why should I just use normal maps? Well I can give you the answer to that question. When you animate the character it won’t hold up in close ups. Also if your Character has HAIR and is moving the hair will not be placed in the correct position. The hair renderer doesn’t know you have adjusted the normals. Also you could run into issues with any advanced muscle system. Having the object displaced corrects these issues. I’m doing everything I can think of to get the WEIGHT of the scene down. Right now I have to triple the size of my displacment maps and that is too heavy to be practical. Any advice from MR/XSI GURUS would be greatly appreciated. EDDIE 
Thanks for the Help Zeddicus. 
I’m still looking for more, but those are going to be a big help. I’d like to try it with Maya’s default rendering system.
From what I learn from those two tutorials I may be able to figure it out, and write one of my own using the default render in Maya.
Thanks again…
The wierdOne
Has anyone tried this in DazStudio? I’d try it but displacement is disabled in the Mac version.
It’s free if anyone wants to give it a go, the interface is painfully slow though :o(
You can download DazStudio beta here! Have to register first though.
Baz
i still cant get even object into cinema or zbrush. i tried with intermediate step of uvmapper. nothing than crashes … :mad: so, i give up. i was curious to test displacement on cinema, but i hate for sure crashes and freezes, as i am those not used at all. thanks bazc for help anyway. now i have uv-mapper, which is nice
Zeddiculus and moob, thanks for the explanation!
I now testing it with unchecked option “object indipendent”, strength 1
subd displacement medium, in advanced parametrs min subd level 2, max subd level 3
epoly render iteration 2
it’s very slow
on 320x240 it looks good and time is not long, on 640x340 very slow…
may be parameters can be optimized?
and i don’t undestand what exactly i add to rgb values of map when in output i set rgb offset to -0,5? i only think it’s because to do only outward displacement?
Only have to change the rgb offset, image looks black afterwards but its not… values below 50% gray are shifted to negative so you get both positive and negative displacement.
Lowering the max displacement in the render options can speed things up a bit but if you lower it too far it will start to clip your displacement.
Ok, i interesting in what the value goes with dmap from ZBrush?
i’m not sure that if i stay str?ngth to 1 i will have right force of displacement. but it seems to be ok. under max’s mental ray the only problem is a bit unsmootheness of surface.
Someone asked about mental ray + Max settings, so I posted what I used in the head example renders thread (see link in first post of this thread). May not neccesarily be the correct settings, but worked about as well as expected for me.
Kokoro - Sorry I couldn’t help more, I can’t imagine what the problem is 
UVMapper is a great app though, I just hope they eventually create a UVMapper Pro for OSX!
BTW Don’t bother with DazStudio anyone, it can’t manage this much displacement yet!
He said he can’t get the OBJ into ZB or Cinema, and he also tried redownloading the file. Since he is having crash problems with two completely separate programs and is the only one who is, I would say it’s a problem somewhere with his OS or hardware. Maybe a RAM related instability? I know it took me a long time to get that straightened out when I built my system (dual channel RAM was kind of new at the time, plus I like to overclock which can make things worse). Anyways, just thought I’d mention it as a possibility to look at. Nobody likes to hear it, but drivers really do account for many crashes as well, so again somthing else to look at. If all else fails, a full backup, reformat, and reinstall of everything with the latest drivers may be in order (a pain, I know).
Edit: Just noticed he also said he is using older versions of both programs on a Mac? Something else that may be the culprit. You may just need the latest version of Cinema to fix the problem, and same with ZB when 2.0 comes out on the Mac.
Regarding the question about the file formats. The download consists of the zip file DispTestHead_TIFNG.zip inside of which the files DispTestHead_NG_Low.OBJ and DispTestHead_Disp16.tif are contained and need to be unzipped. DispTestHead_Disp16.tif is a 16-bit per channel (48-bit) greyscale bitmap in Tagged Image Format, and DispTestHead_NG_Low.OBJ is the model represented in ASCII format basically, a format which was created by Wavefront, has been around for a long time, and is quite common. A Google search will certainly turn up more detailed information if your curious.
My version (6.6) of trueSpace does not like the map format and I don’t know what to convert it to (jpg, bmp etc) to get the best result.
Can anyone help me with that one?
Thanks in advance.
Dave
Thanks for settings!