ZBrushCentral

the wrestler (WiP museum_scene)

ZBrush Artworks
#601

Oh wow…
Thank you Michalis!
These are crazy, that last ones colors actually hurt!

I am starting to see something here, it looks to me like the UV map is creating areas and trying to squeeze or stretch the image that does the displacement to fit, is that the case? If so can that be changed so that no stretching is allowed and the original shapes in the object are preserved?
For example picture a row of hydraulic rams sitting next to each other, like a couple of dozen of them that you want to add to a surface, can you keep them from being bent? Hydraulic rams usually do not work if they are bent.
Something I would like to be able to do in ZBrush or in Blender is to make an over all shape and add using an image a gigantic amount of detail using an image but not having it be distorted.
This stuff confuses the hell out of me and its hard to describe but that’s normal I suppose.
I think I have an idea…
Maybe…

#602

I know what you mean mealea. It is possible. Stretching is because texture (displ maps) follows topology, it is aligned to the quads. As these quads become stretched as you deform, texture follows. The good news is, as these are aligned to geometry, no need for dense meshes.
Of course, I can avoid stretching as I model. I can also brake this alignment and have a textured not following stretching of topology. In this case we gonna need some millions of subdivided cage, avoiding artifacts. (you know, the usual issue under zbrush or other multires sculpting app (blender among them). It will be fine after baked as normal maps, on the low poly cage, exporting in Unity for instance.
Anyway, here’s a similar technic, completely made in zbrush.
Zsketch, low poly ~20k, some more loops to help it, UVs (group based UVs), tiles of UVs 2x-3x. Displacement.
So, another doodle-test, 10 mins max.

robot.jpg
robot.jpg1280×868 181 KB

#603

Tiles under UB panel work for all UVmodes. It will not work under applying displacement though. It is a ZBbug alright. Because when exporting, UVs are as they should.
Here, how it looks after importing into blender/cycles render.
Mealea you were right, ZB produces very interesting loops on low poly base meshes. So, I linked the two apps again.
Everything in zbrush, did some tweaks in blender UV editor, cycles render.
RzbLoopsCyclesL.jpg

#604

Ok, Now I get your advice on my thread about uv’s, A great example of a mechanized Budda floating in Space… Deke :slight_smile:

#605

to me it looks like an ancient venus sculpt…modernized… nice to see displacement method on really organic shapes

#606

A last test,
all in zbrush, I exported it as obj, re-imported it and applying real displacement works fine. LOL
Now, applied displ (on ~2M subdivisions) and added a second pass of the same displ map (this time, tiles at 5x). This adds an effect of much more details.
zbtest2displMaps.jpg

#607

looking great. i stumbled across that technique myself just the other day. not sure i really understand things fully but it’s a technique to put in the arsenal for sure. how is applying displacement under the displacement panel different than say masking by alpha with a displacement map and doing a deformation inflate or size. or is there a difference?

#608

Not that different. It’s an automated method, it also can be used as a preview before exporting to another app.
As these are UV mapped models, it’s easy to export.
But, applying it as a mask is also interesting, as we can work on specific areas (using inflat brush, for for instance)
Just import another displacement map and work on specific areas.
Such methods are quite different from using just an alpha based brush. UV maps (under certain unwrapping methods) provide aligned geometrical patterns to topology.
Difficult to explain further (my bad english) but if you try you can see my point.
This method is also good because it “links” zbrush to other apps like max, blender etc.

#609

And
A complete nonsense.
po.jpg

#610

Love it! :smiley:

Cheers, David

#611

very good Michalis
I am following your tutorial blender
I feel very good, my English is not very good
but the tutorial is very well explained
going to do another?
thank you very much:D

#612

Thanks chalkman , PFC666
You mean the tutorial posted on blenderartists? Because the video tut isn’t mine.
I added a few more tricks already.
Basically, the trick is to use loops, to have more interesting, more organic results.
Zbrush is good on this, playing with zsketch and loops tools for instance. Then, group UVs and apply a 16bit displacement map.
A displ map that you can bake/depth rendering from a panel you can easily construct in zbrush.
This is a very fast modeling and can be baked to maps for exporting.
The difficulty is on how to model these panels, it depends on your needs.
Blender, on the other hand, gives much more control on UV editing. Less randomness.
You can combine these two apps easily.

#613

…and mixed progs! :wink:

#614

Thanks Pilou
Here, it took me 5 mins to “sculpt” this one.
A cube / dynamesh at ~10k / painted masks / ctrl+W and 2-3 loops / groupsUVs / applied a displ map under displ panel / subdivided ~1.5M / applied displacement / some fast deformations / second displ as bumps only.
More than 5 mins to setup a shader and lighting / BPR.
It still is a 10k base, just ask to bake normal maps and export
cubeDef.jpg

#615

Another new, at least for me.
A 10 mins fast doodle, a blender sculpt (dyntopo-similar to sculptris) ~100k only.
Imported to zbrush, polypainted fast and exported via 3dprint utility / VRML to blender, rendered in cycles.
A statuette (Daumier like). Less is more. :lol:
polypaint.jpg

#616

Simple and wonderful … the gesture says it all! :smiley:

All the best, David

#617

…this site ? :wink:

#618

Very good contribution
to start the year
thank you very much:D

#619

@Pilou
Maybe this one is better? http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/honore-daumier/bust-of-francois-pierre-guillaume-guizot-1833
Thanks PFC666

#620

…for the sculptures! :wink: