Does anyone know if Zbrush can do vector diplacements or Arbitrary Displacement, and if doesn’t what is the floating data for?.
Thax
it can’t do a vector displacement, but it can do a 32bit displacement (versus 8bit).
The 32-bit displacement maps have 16-bits of displacement information. The other 8-bit channel, in simplest terms contains the data that controls the strength of the map. That way multiple maps on a single model can all be applied with the same strength. The rendering engine then looks at the extra channel in the map to determine how to factor the map to get a consistent render across all the model’s maps.
32-bit maps are generated by using the Multi Displacement 3 plugin. You can learn more about it from the links in my signature.
at the end of the day we have two options 8bit and 16bit tiff formats, gray scale or high map information but is base on projection from the higher level to the lower level as scalar type.
Now does that mean that you can get bend displaments anywhere from 0 to 180 or all the displacements are linear from the high res model to the low res base on the high res normals?
Thank you
As I understand it, vector displacement encodes the displacement information in the three RGB channels to provide displacement in three directions. So one channel (say Red) would be used to displace along the normals and then the other channels would provide the displacement relative to each normal in X & Y. This means overhangs are possible.
Grayscale displacement, as provided in ZBrush and most 3D apps, only displaces along the normals, so no overhang. Increased bit depth provides more nuanced displacement as more grayscale variations are possible. (The three channel RGB option provides in the Displacement Exporter is still grayscale.)
Thank you everybody, 
I was just wondering because Zbrush had been around for almost a decade but the extraction of Displacement still seems very primitive.
I am asumming this is why in production a lot of people still get there displacements out Mudbox or Cyslice, and not out Zbrush, I wouldn’t be surprise if it had to do with pixel depth vs true vertex space location