Troubles with Exported Displacement Map from ZB - Revisted

[system]

Hello all,

I recently posted about this problem I’m having in ZB 3.1, but realized there was still a lot of questions left and that I didn’t have enough detail as I should. After calling the helpful folks at ZBrush, they suggested that I should post again, supplying screen shots of what I’m doing and also to experiment.

Here’s a brief summary of what I’m trying to do and the problems that are occuring:

• I'm trying to create a displacement for a Poser character, by following a tutorial posted at the following link: [http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2700922](http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2700922). This tutorial explains in detail the steps that I follow and the settings I use.
• After following the steps in that tutorial, and exporting the displacement, it looks as though big chunks have been taken out of it.
• I've tried tinkering with the DExport options, and it still does this.
• In the pictures featured in this thread you'll probably see the following: What it looks like rendered on the head I'm working on in Poser 7; an experiment by trying it on another head with that what I've painted on it appears to look normal; and the copy of the map itself, as it shows that it is broken even on another head.

I hope the discription of this is helpful in figuring out the problem. Does anyone know what could be happening and why? Thanks in advance for any help given!

–R.

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[aurick]

I think you’re having trouble due to Poser’s infamous overlapping polygons.

Looking at your ZBrush screen shot, I see your model has his eyelashes. On just about every Poser model I’ve seen, those are on a different UV map. But Poser places them in the same UV space.

So what could be happening is that when you create your map the eyelashes are getting layered on top of the head, resulting in the blocks you’re seeing. Normally ZBrush crashes when told to write two displacement values to the same pixel, but sometimes it doesn’t and you’ll get the results shown.

Before creating your displacement map, try hiding the eyelashes and any other geometry that would go on a different texture map. That may well resolve your problem.

[system]

Wow, that could be. And that would make a lot of sense. I don’t know of any other figures to try other than Poser related figures to see if that is the case.

The only question now is, how to hide the eyelashes. As they’re a part of the head geometry and not seperate. Would you happen to know offhand how to do that, or can ZBrush do it? I guess I’ll have to do a search here to see if I can find out how. If not, post and ask, and see if someone knows how to hide the eyelashes. I’m hoping that it remedies the problem.

Thanks for your help!

–R.

I think you’re having trouble due to Poser’s infamous overlapping polygons.

Looking at your ZBrush screen shot, I see your model has his eyelashes. On just about every Poser model I’ve seen, those are on a different UV map. But Poser places them in the same UV space.

So what could be happening is that when you create your map the eyelashes are getting layered on top of the head, resulting in the blocks you’re seeing. Normally ZBrush crashes when told to write two displacement values to the same pixel, but sometimes it doesn’t and you’ll get the results shown.

Before creating your displacement map, try hiding the eyelashes and any other geometry that would go on a different texture map. That may well resolve your problem.

[aurick]

If the eyelashes are a different polygroup, you can simply Ctrl+Shift+Click on one of their points to hide everything else. Then Ctrl+Shift+Drag on a bit of canvas to reverse visibilty.

If they’re part of the same polygroup, you’ll need to hide the polygons through drag selection. Hold Ctrl+Shift and drag a rectangle to select all polys within that rectangle. (Or lasso area if you turn Lasso on – it’s on the right shelf.) If you release Shift while dragging, the selection area will turn red instead so that you hide those polygons.

Once a mesh is partially hidden, anything within the green selection area will be whittled off the visible mesh. This lets you fine tune the selection. Also, if a polygon is fully within the selection area, then the selection tool will ONLY look at polys that are fully in the area. If no poly is fully within the selection area, then it will affect all polygons that have so much as a single point within the selection.