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Using a UV map for 3D texture

ZBrush Artworks
#1

I have what may be a dumb idea. I have played a little bit with turning textures into alphas and “stamping” that alpha onto a flat mesh to get sort of a bas relief look. The final product winds up with a bit of a spiky look if the brush intensity is set to high, but I’ve been happy enough with the results.

My possibly dumb/great idea is that I’m curious as to whether or not i can transfer a UV map’s light and dark values to the mesh, just like I’m doing with the texture-to-alpha method, except this would be wrapped around the entire mesh’s surface instead of on a flat plane. Is this possible? Say for example I downloaded an rock OBJ with a UV map. It is a low resolution model that I import a UV map onto. Would I be able to divide the mesh to a higher resolution capable of capturing more detail, import the accompanying UV, then somehow bake detail from the light and dark of the UV into the high res mesh to to get a 360 degree physical impression?

Again, it might be a really dumb idea, or it might be something that there is actually a really easy answer to. I have no idea

#2

that’s exactly what we do. you just have to have UVs and a map then use the displacement menu

#3

There’s more about the options here: http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/tool/polymesh/displacement-map/

Basically you need to have:

  1. A texture map applied to the model. It can be all white but there must be one assigned in the Tool>Texture Map sub-palette.
  2. The Intensity slider set to greater than 0
  3. Mode will show you a preview of the displacement before applying it (though you’ll need to experiment with intensity).
  4. Apply DispMap will actually displace the geometry.
#4

This is what I need to learn how to do.
Is there a video tutorial on this?

#5

Hi Rick,

Not that I know of. It’s not a method that is used very often. But it’s not difficult:

  1. Your model must have UVs because these are needed to map the displacement to the model.
  2. Import the map you want to use into the Alpha palette. It needs to be 16 bit grayscale. (8 bit will give poor results.)
  3. Make sure the color selector is set to white and press Tool>Texture Map>New Txtr. This just creates a white texture map and displays it on your model. The displacement won’t work without it.
  4. In the Tool>Displacement Map sub-palette, click on the thumbnail and then select the alpha you imported from the pop-up.
  5. Turn on Tool>Displacement Map>Mode and set the Tool>Displacement Map>Intensity to above 0. Try very small values to start with.
  6. If the displacement looks wrong you may need to flip the map vertically. In the Alpha palette, select the map and press the Flip V button. Then in the Tool>Displacement Map sub-palette, click on the thumbnail and re-select the map.
  7. You will probably need to sub-divide your model to get the detail you want. Ctrl+D to divide until the detail looks sharp.
  8. When you’re happy with how it looks, press the Tool>Displacement Map>Apply DispMap to create actual geometry from the map.

HTH,

#6

Awesome, thanks for the help. As a novice, I had seen Displacement maps before, but I had no idea what they did.