Zbrush 4.0 3ds Max 2012 pipeline

system · August 14, 2011, 3:01am

Hi folks. First of all I’ve been searching for an answer quite a long time now and found a lot of solutions but none of them seems to work.
My university has a licence of Zbrush 4.0 and 3ds Max for me to use and I seem to be able to do some decent stuff, however what I don’t understand is how to make my Max renders as close to the Zbrsuh viewport as possible when it comes to maps.

I know how to sculpt, layout uv’s, create maps etc. but I don’t know which settings to use in Max when rendering with Mental Ray.

So what I have is a detailed and finished ztool with uv’s ready for export. I want to export a displacement-, normal- and a bumpmap that I want to apply to a sss or a AD material in 3ds Max. What settings has to be set in Zbrush and what are to be set in Max? Also My character is going to be rigged so it’s somewhat lowpoly, so I really need a displacement map.

I learned some tricks when it comes to Zbrush-to-max, like that I have to flip the maps, add a -0,5 offset etc. and I read the tutorial from 2006 a thousands time, but the settings don’t work in 3ds Max 2012.
Please help me, this is really frustrating.

Thanks.

Fingus · August 14, 2011, 10:35am

Specifically what are the things that stump you? Because it would be quite a lot of effort to type out an entire workflow for setting up a render.

system · August 15, 2011, 5:37am

Ok. Where should I put my normal and displacement maps when using AD or sss materials in Max and what settings to use.
I just can’t seem to give my character the same volume he has in Zbrush.

I’m not asking how to work between these two application I just want to know what to do with my maps when they are brought into Max.

system · August 27, 2011, 11:16am

Doesn’t anybody know? How are all these characters created when nobody knows how?

And Fingus, why would I want to be more specific if you choose to ignore my post anyway?

Trist · September 2, 2011, 8:03am

AlZubair, Im no expert in this area either but I have found that I get some decent displacement results by (firstly) having your displacement map loaded in Zbrush, then use the GoZ function to export your model and dm to Max.

This will (usually) give you the correct height and depth range under
mental ray Connection>Extended Shaders>Displacement. so you don’t have to play around trying to get the right extrusion strength.

If you want displacement with SSS just copy the data from the displacement slot and paste into the corresponding slot in a mr SSS Fast Skin + Displacement. This should set you in the right direction.

To tell you the truth, I have also found very little help getting effective displacement in Max from ZB, especially in conjunction with SSS. This is why I have been doing my research on Vector Displacement, but this is not currently supported by ZB (Im hoping Pixologic will bring this in with Z4R2).

As far as normal maps go, I have not been satisfied with what ZB can generate in this area, so I turned to xNormal. Check it out (its free software).

Anyway, when I do figure out the best workflow for all of the above I will certainly write a tutorial for others. Until then, good luck and let me know how you go.