Where Do I Bake a Vector Displacement Map?

ironbearxl

I tried baking Vector Displacement maps from both Mudbox 2018.1 and Zbrush 4r8p2, but nothing seems to work. How do I bake a Vector Displacement map that will work correctly in Toolbag 3?

EarthQuake

Vector maps are difficult because there are many different ways to bake them. Zbrush has a vector displacement debug tool which you can read about here: http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/exporting-your-model/vector-displacement-maps/

Basically, it's a mesh and vector displacement map that you can load into Toolbag, which will tell you which settings you need to use when baking in zBrush.

ironbearxl

@EarthQuake That is awesome, never knew about the diagnostic tool, thanks EQ!

oglu

even if we sculpt in zbrush we bake vector maps in mudbox...

another caveman

As of today, is there any other baker than Mudbox that could let me bake Vector Displacement Maps, without starting from a plane?

I read here xNormal should do it with some Direction maps settings, but I couldn't get it to work : https://polycount.com/discussion/131363/vector-displacement-map-out-of-xnormal

The grayscale VDM map I obtain is just a height map and not a VDM one.

Thanks

edit: just found out about: https://polycount.com/discussion/161502/how-do-you-generate-a-vector-displacement-map-without-mudbox-or-zbrush but this thread doesn't solve the issue as @kodde has also started from a plane in his xnormal tests I think.