Steps to reproduce the problem.
- create a plane3d in zbrush
- make polymesh3d, teccilate, then sculpt
- then go to plug-in/Multi Map Export.
- turn everything off except Normal map
- go to the options tab under this plugin and go to the Normal map tab
- Turn tangent and flip G on then hit "create all maps"
What I want to do is bake a tilling texture using Multi Map Export. Is it possible to deform/sculpt a plane3d in zbrush, then output that information using the texture options in Multi Map Export?
I know it works for characters and props but i seem to be having issues with a tiling texture approach. Any help, tips, and/or instructions are much appreciated.
Thanks.
Replies
Edit: I just tried again, but this time using UV Master to generate new UVs for the Plane. Both Multi-map and the (normal) Normal Map now generates correctly.
If you have time, could you possibly walk through the process step by step of what you did?
Cheers though :P
AUV Tiles works as well for UVs, so I'm guessing other UV options might also do the trick. Not sure why this is though as the default UVs in 3.5 seem to work, and I can't see anything wrong with the UVs when exporting a default plane from z4.
cryrid, the Pic example is spot on. Thanks for that.
Along the same hacky lines : You can always try Crazybump for the AO (running it on the fake normalmap screengrab). It can give surprisingly good results.
That was actually the very first thing I tried since it was the method used in Pixo's tiled brick tutorial, but I figured I should try to find out why it was spitting out blank normal maps all of a sudden.
Mat gives accurate results
Bake creates a deformed outline around the sculpt and is softer than the Mat.
Is there any way around this by any chance?
If I had to guess, I'd say it's because zbrush uses whatever level of subdivision for the bake that you tell it to, unlike a standard 3d application which let you specify a different mesh for the high/low versions. This isn't a problem if you plan on using the lowest level of subdivision for the final mesh, but it becomes a problem because you probably want the final mesh to be a flat plane. That plane you're using has quite a few verts by default (33x33), which is more than enough for some to get displaced/altered during a sculpt (ses pic#5 in my screenshots). Because it is no longer a flat plane when you want to bake, zbrush probably has to consider this depth and angles (especially to get the right tangents?)
That's just my guess though. You can probably test this by comparing the matcap result to an external bake (using a flat plane for the low-poly), or even using a custom plane in zbrush that only has 4 verts (so that sculpting shouldn't have much of an effect on it).
Before turning the plane into a polymesh3d, go to initialize and drop the subdivision to 2x2. You'll have to subdivide it more to sculpt (just turn smoothing off), but level1 should remain a flat plane when you go to bake.
But, this is thousands of times better than what I was getting earlier. Thank you Sir.