Heightmap in maya7 from hi res geo?

malcolm

Anyone created a heightmap sucessfully in maya7 from hi res geo? I've tried many times and the result is all the same. The normal map looks fine and the help file clearly states just turn on heightmap to get a result. The heightmap created is banded and has noise in it and is unusable. It's almost like the heightmap does not have enough bit depth to smooth rounded surfaces properly. The corruption is not apparent until you actually apply the heightmap to the model and view it in the gl window.

Zergxes

I did it once in Maya 6, found a plugin from highend3d.com that worked great (its the demo with the female torso). The Wildcat 6110 card i was on wouldnt let me view it real time but it rendered fine. People rave about ATI's normal mapper and there is a new plugin for zbrush that cranks out normal maps. Luck.

Lee3dee

would it be possible to post the steps you are taking? I work in Maya 6.5, so I can try it on an older version see if i get the same results.

malcolm

You can only do it in Maya7, it is a new feature of the surface sampler tool. I've seen that raydisplace plugin you are talking about but I'm interested in why the brand new feature of Maya7 is completely corrupted.

Eric Chadwick

Might this be your problem?
http://www.cgchat.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=227982

malcolm

Nope, sorry Eric that is not the problem I am having. The problem I've run into is the actual .tga file generated from the hi res geo is colour banded and has noise it which makes the heightmap unusable.

Eric Chadwick

I'm not a Maya guy, but sounds like one of two things... the renderer (or viewport it renders from) is using a lower bit depth, or the output format is not a sufficient bit depth. For the latter, maybe try 16bpc instead of 8bpc?

Also you might look into whether the renderer will let you turn off true-color dithering, I know Max has a setting for this, which I turn off when making heightmaps because it just adds noisiness.

malcolm

If you zoom in really close in photoshop you can see the banding so it is definately an image problem not a gl viewport issue. Yeah I thought that perhaps the .tga was getting written at 8bit but I tried exporting as .tif .dtx and many other formats with the same shit result. Normal maps are a breeze in this tool though! Two clicks and you're done!

Eric Chadwick

No, sorry I meant that the normal map renderer might be using the GPU to render. If so it could be the card's fault, and you might be able to adjust the card's settings to get something better.

Also, some banding will occur with 8bit heightmaps, nothing you can do about it except work in a higher bit depth.

malcolm

There is not setting to turn up the bit depth when the heightmap is generated. And the two completely three completely different video cards have produced the same corrupted heightmap.

Eric Chadwick

Sorry, all fresh out of ideas, not being a Maya user myself. I'd say ditch it and maybe use drone.org's tool instead.

malcolm

Good god, I just read my own post and it sounds totally fucked up, har!