It surprises me that Shapeways doesn't appear to allow coloured VRML prints given that their Z-Corp sandstone printers should support them. ZBrush exports them natively with the polypaint data embedded in the model - no need for UVs and texture size limitations.
EDIT: Lol, nevermind. Just when I get the most frustrated, I find a tutorial that helps me figure it out. Big image tutorial warning: http://yfrog.com/z/5jtutpsdj I've got my map now :D
data is any buffer that is picked up off of the wire. whether it be r,g,b,a, or z, or any other. the analysis of that data lies in the domain of computer vision algorithms. that algorithmic analysis in turn created more data. i hope that is clarified.
Tre Z, thank you. I'm pretty happy with it. A friend of mine has told me to up the saturation a bit and do another highlight pass. So I may revisit and do that, and potentially add a couple scratches to the bronze areas.
Dont know maxscript but I think you need to specifiy what attribute you want to access so like x,y,z etc. (I should really learn max so I can do maxscript stuff)
Hard Surface Height requires NDO layers to convert. Height in this mode is dependent upon the z-factor in each NDO layer, as this determines the height of the conversion it generates. Without NDO layers you'll need to use the standard height conversion instead.
Pretty sure I got that part, but I'll double check. EDIT: Yup, set to Normal compression and LOD group is WorldNormalMap. It's like something's scrambling the X and Y directions in various spots, and tossed out the Z depth for good measure...
Thanks I know I'm off to a good start just need to keep working at it, I need to learn Z brush so I can detail up some of these models. So far all of them are done poly by poly.
I'm willing to bet a x800 outperforms that x2300 by a decent margin, those low end cards are always totally shit, but yeah cpu/memory wise i'm sure it would be a good upgrade and probablly workable for a couple levels in mud/z =)
I too have been looking for a new phone, still undecided yet, but that HTC Desire Z is looking real nice. Anyone know the best UK provider for data allowance? O2 seems to have scraped their unlimited internet service. :(