Displacement map, help

natsu12

Hey guys, me again and this time I need help with displacement map .
I made this model entirely in Zbrush once I got done with it I exported the model in its lowest subdivision to Maya with a Displacement map I created in Zbrush. Needless to say I just started with displacement mapping so I don't know much at all. Anyway, as you can see in the next image I have placed the map on the model but when I render with V-ray is looks messed up. Is there anyway I can make it look like the model I made in Zbrush?

Obscura

Try uncompressed file format.Or... It looks like the geometry is still lowpoly.You want to use this displacement map to get back the highres model right?Maybe you used the map in wrong channel (used in bump maybe?)

Axi5

Obscura is right about the file format, the stepping you have there is caused by there not being enough greys to to correctly get the smooth shape, so it jumps from one shade of grey to the next creating steps. Try saving a 32bit bmp or targa without alpha and see how it goes?

natsu12

the low geometry is actually 18k polygons. but most of the polygons went to the wings when I made it with z spheres, I haven't retopologized the model yet. this is what I did in Maya: I pressed CTRL+A to get into attribute editor, went down to where it says "bump mapping" Clicked on the checker icon and chose displacement which is right above 2D texture. When I clicked on displacement, connection editor popped up and I connected displacement with bumpvalue after that I clicked on the checker icon again to choose the displacement map from a folder.

I will retopologize the model in Zbrush and then give it a try.

natsu12

Axi5 wrote: »

Obscura is right about the file format, the stepping you have there is caused by there not being enough greys to to correctly get the smooth shape, so it jumps from one shade of grey to the next creating steps. Try saving a 32bit bmp or targa without alpha and see how it goes?

OK, so I went and started Zbrush again to export a 32bit displacement map but the only format I can choose is TIF and in photoshop you can only save the 32bit file as TIF, PSD, PBM and RAW.

Axi5

natsu12 wrote: »

OK, so I went and started Zbrush again to export a 32bit displacement map but the only format I can choose is TIF and in photoshop you can only save the 32bit file as TIF, PSD, PBM and RAW.

I don't know too much about exporting from Zbrush sorry, seems weird that TIFF is the only option and although I've used them before I'm unclear about the bit depth. Although going by your images it's pretty evident that your images are probably 8bit (although apparently TIFF's can be 16bit). when I was creating terrain I switched to targa or bitmap for higher bit depth, I'm stumped that ZBrush doesn't have it

mazz423

OK, so I went and started Zbrush again to export a 32bit displacement map but the only format I can choose is TIF and in photoshop you can only save the 32bit file as TIF, PSD, PBM and RAW.

Okay I'm guessing your displacement map settings look similar to the attached shot? One thing to note, if you click the clone disp button, it'll copy the displacement map to the alpha palette, at which point you can export it as a PSD, TIFF or BMP.

natsu12

First of all I forgot to mention I was using Multi-map exporter...sorry.

@mazz423 I tried that as well but even though I had 32bit marked I only got Depth=16 which I'm guessing is 16bit.

ugh... this is getting on my nerves. Maya should be able to handle TIF format. I've googled this issue and only a few has this problem which I guess means that its rare to have it.

natsu12

Fixed it, I only had to change from grey scale to RGB in photoshop. By doing this TIF worked in Maya. This gives a whole new meaning to being a noob huh... I'm going to try this out and upload my results here.

natsu12

OK, here it is. a hell of a lot better if you ask me. The problem is solved the only thing that is left is to retopologize the model and the displacement map will look FINE as hell. The model itself is 18k polygons but most of those polygons have gone to the wings. Thanks guys for you help !!!