Questions and Troubleshooting for ZMapper

[system]

1. When using zmapper to generate normal map, using any presets, I’m getting a very strange effect on the generated normal map, huge bolts of color shooting across the image.
2. Using PC
3. Windows Vista home
4. Maya 8.5

shown here is the low poly, and the fully sculpted mesh, then the low poly from both sides with the normal map applied. You can see the incorrect mapping on the helmet itself and on the layout above.

Help! Don’t want to re-scuplt this

ADAM

edit: I turned on UV check and it is in fact bad UV’s that are causing the problem: new problem!

• how do I import fixed uvs? I’ve tried morph target but it keeps crashing…

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[aurick]

What’s most likely happening is that you have at least one UV that is on the edge of the UV space or actually in the adjoining space. When you lay your UV’s out you should always leave a bit of room around the edges of the UV space.

[system]

yes, I assumed that at first, but I went back in and checked my uvs. They were all within the 0,1 border. I did however, just recently go back into the program and do a texture>UV Check and it shows jacked up UVs in red in the exact places that I am having the anomolies.

It appears that when I subdivided my geometry, some vertices got shot across the page and is causing the error. I’m now in the process of re-importing some corrected UVs, but not having much luck getting morph target to work.

[bin23]

Win xp pro sp 2
Zbrush 3.1
Zmapper rev E

Steps :

1. Using the Bumpviewmaterial to preview, I create a bump map.
2. I next, create an alpha from my bump map texture.
3. Then, I create a fresh texture at the same resolution and change my material to basicshader.
4. I can still see the bumpmap at work; I adjust my displacement settings to taste, enter zmapper and create a normal map.

The problem is that I am unable to bake the bump texture into the normal map.The normal map does not contain any more detail.

Help

and

Thanks

Bin

[aurick]

Win xp pro sp 2
Zbrush 3.1
Zmapper rev E

Steps :

1. Using the Bumpviewmaterial to preview, I create a bump map.
2. I next, create an alpha from my bump map texture.
3. Then, I create a fresh texture at the same resolution and change my material to basicshader.
4. I can still see the bumpmap at work; I adjust my displacement settings to taste, enter zmapper and create a normal map.

The problem is that I am unable to bake the bump texture into the normal map.The normal map does not contain any more detail.

Help

and

Thanks

Bin

That feature does not currently work in ZBrush 3. It’s on the list.

[bin23]

That feature does not currently work in ZBrush 3. It’s on the list.
Thanks aurick,
I don’t suppose one could authenticate and run both version ( 2 and 3) on one computer at the same time?

Bin

[aurick]

Thanks aurick,
I don’t suppose one could authenticate and run both version ( 2 and 3) on one computer at the same time?

Bin

Actually, you can. Provided you’re not literally running them at the same time. Simply install them to different folders on the same computer, and activate each separately. Z3 uses the serial number from Cleverbridge. Z2 requires the POP code from Element 5.

However, the challenge you’re going to encounter is that Z2 can’t open model’s created by Z3. So although you can get the details and stuff via Z3, you won’t be able to take that back into Z2 to use ZMapper on the model. You can go Z2 to Z3, but not the other way around.

[bin23]

Thanks again aurick.

Bin

[Mr_micro26]

hi,
i have a question about zmapper.
say i have a tool with mulptiple subd levels and i import a new “cage” mesh in level 1 and then bake a normal map inside zmapper.
The normal map created would be made out of a “distorted” high resolution mesh because i switched it before and changed it all the way up to the highest level.

Is there a way to make a normal map inside zmapper with the imported mesh and use the “smoothed” (level 1) mesh ?

[aurick]

hi,
i have a question about zmapper.
say i have a tool with mulptiple subd levels and i import a new “cage” mesh in level 1 and then bake a normal map inside zmapper.
The normal map created would be made out of a “distorted” high resolution mesh because i switched it before and changed it all the way up to the highest level.

Is there a way to make a normal map inside zmapper with the imported mesh and use the “smoothed” (level 1) mesh ?

Store a morph target at the highest level. Import your new mesh at level 1. Return to the highest level and switch to the stored morph target. Return to level 1, which will now be a smoothed version of the mesh again.

[Mr_micro26]

yep it worked, thank you aurick

[system]

I spot seams from tangent space maps, even in ZMapper. You do have to look carefully, but they are there. The bottom line is that tangent space maps are based on a specific set of mathematic calculations. But the nature of these calculations means that you will always have seams from the UV’s. There’s no way to eliminate this completely because of the math itself.

Seams inside the normal map textures are … erm… a normal thing to have. The visual seams on UV boundaries in the render output can be fully avoided in theory, but rarely in practice as there are multiple preconditions. And that’s esp. true for tangent space normal maps.

[Karrma]

Do the same preset work for Maya 2008 or is there a plug-in? I apologize if the asking a question in the previous pages it just a lot to read.

[system]

I am running ZBrush 3 via Parallels on a MacPro with 4GB of RAM. THe video card is NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT.

When I try and launch ZMapper I get the “no GL_EXT_texture_env_combine support”. Then I get put into an endless loop of hitting okay.

In reading through some of the old posts I noticed that you recommend they download a new driver for video card. I tried this on the Windows partition and it said it was updated. Should I try on Mac as well? Does the proper driver need to be on the windows side that is running ZBrush or the mac side that actually contains the video card?

Any other suggestions?
Thanks!

[aurick]

The problem is actually Parallels; not the video card or drivers. As far as I know, Boot Camp is currently the only one under which OpenGL is supported.

[system]

G’day it’s been years scince i’ve been on a computer and I’ve been using 3.1 and I can’t fine the ZMapper button. I know it sounds dumb but I kneed help :rolleyes:

[aurick]

G’day it’s been years scince i’ve been on a computer and I’ve been using 3.1 and I can’t fine the ZMapper button. I know it sounds dumb but I kneed help :rolleyes:

It’s in the Zplugin palette.

[system]

thanks a bundle you’re a life saver

[andycce]

Hi,
I’ve looked for an answer to my problem, but nothing looks like this.

I have an object that I’m trying to create a normal map for.

I created the UV’s externally in UVLayout, and there are two distinct UV regions.

I used UV-Polygroups to separate and hide the geometry. I created a 2048 texture for this region and used Zmapper to generate the normal map, and I just get these odd triangular deformations. I’ve included screenshots of the sculpt and the result from Zmapper

I know my UVs are still good, and I was able to generate proper multi-displacements

I’m on a PC

Can anyone clue me in?

Thanks in advance.

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[system]

Hi, all

i’m facing a serious problem over here
here’s what i did
made the basze mesh in max
exported it to zbrush, made the details
extracted nrmal map through zmapper
tangent space ofcourse
exported the mesh back to max 2008 and applied the normal map

and this is where i get these lines sort of things,
the funny thing is when i apply the same nrmal map in directx shader “metalbump” i get perfect results.(realtime)

so why is max ruining everything at rendering time?

Regards,

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