the wrestler (WiP museum_scene)

[pfrancke]

Very Nice sculpting! And thank you for the information about how displacements work.

I have found your displacementLow.exr file and tried to use it, but w/o success. I tried converting it to a 16 bit greyscale tif file in PS, but it still imported black in ZB. With your explanations I did manage to create my own 1024x1024 tif file by doing a bpr and then exporting a depth pass as you explained, so at least I'm getting the process down and learning the techniques.

But I'm bummed out... The render engine I use - Octane, does not support displacement maps. It supports diffuse, normal, bump, and a number of other things, but not displacement. When I apply displacement in ZB, it seems to result in very high poly count and a muddy uncontrolled displacement (at least it did for my with my very bad homegrown, rapidly created displacement map I used).

Regardless, thank you very much, your explanations have allowed me to understand more and to attempt to go further!. I am thinking that for my case, I need to focus perhaps on learning brushes and paneling techniques and apply details in that fashion...

[michalis]

1. A tif or PSD 16 bit is supported by zbrush. (it must be a B&W file, exr is a full color)
2. Octane, I don't know much about it, except it is a wonderful render engine. Beautiful results. I know about octane for blender, it supports bumps. A disp map is a bump map!. Real displacement takes place in blender though and the information is sent to the render engine.
3. My english don't help much but try to have a more careful look on what I posted. Avoid to apply disp in zbrush if export is what you have in mind.
But, are you talking about the stand alone octane?
In this case, subdivide the mesh 2-3 times, apply displacements. Not great, but you will also use the disp map in octane as bump.

[pfrancke]

thank you - yes I use stand alone Octane. You raise a good point about using displacement map as bump input. I need to try that.

At some point in time, the Blender plugin for Octane will be more friendly to the stand alone materials. I bought the Blender Plugin, (while it is at the "beta version" price) but at the moment am not competent enough to develop good materials so I'm still using stand alone Octane. I fear that I will be drawn deeper and deeper into the blender world.

[michalis]

OK the blender plugin then.
Do you know how to subdivide and displace in blender? Sending all the subd information to the renderer but not in the viewport?
How to fine tune displacement in blender?

[Freewaldo]

Sharp work man, this is a marvel ...

[pfrancke]

OK the blender plugin then.
Do you know how to subdivide and displace in blender? Sending all the subd information to the renderer but not in the viewport?
How to fine tune displacement in blender?

This will be my goal for tonight and this weekend then - figuring these things out. Subdividng for the renderer I think I understand, but getting a grip on using/tuning displacements will be the challange. I got GoB/GoZ thing to work. And am curious if Octane plugin render will honor the displacement.

I am fearful that I will ultimately need to turn the displacements into real geometry, but that is perhaps better to do in blender than in zbrush as blender is 64 bit and can probably handle larger objects/meshes.

[michalis]

Yes, correct. Blender will handle it.
In a very weird UI though.
add a subsurf modifier first (it goes up to six subd levels, if you need more, add a second on the stack)
(There are buttons on the modifier, the camera is for the renderer, the eye is for the viewport preview. Try a few only subdivisions first to maintain performance, go for hi resolution when ready to final render. You can still ask for ful res on the viewport but things gonna be very slow)
last, add a displacement modifier.
Don't panic! Important.
Go to texture properties panel, select displacement from the drop down menu (don't panic)
image or movie
Linear (not rgb please)
(don't panic!)
back to the modifiers panel / displacement, ask for UV method.
Fine tune the two bottom sliders. The strength at 0.1 to start with. The Midlevel is exactly what the Mid on the ZBrush disp panel means.

So, good luck on all these.

We never forget: ZBrush UVs need vertical flip before exporting the obj. Right?

During these procedures, in blender, don't panic! You may think that everything blows up. Just tune the whole damn thing.

[pfrancke]

michalis, thank you for these directions. I have had success with them and have learned much. Nothing presentable yet. One item that was key was to export such that the groups are grouped. And I must be careful to watch object sizes and memory when subdividing. The warnings not to panic were good to have, but in fact when I saw the initial wild displacements my brain said "YES" - this is working. And I must learn how to work with the materials (at the moment the octane plugin can't import the live materials or macro files, so they must be recreated scratch). And must always keeps eyes open to make sure that you are working on what you think you are working on - but my comfort level is increasing!

[MealeaYing]

Mare del bell amor.
És tot grec per a mi.

That tutorial is excellent!
Michalis have you used the Morph Target Pallet for extracting? You can use the Morph Brush as well if you do, it's seriously cool.

What I have been doing is making a base mesh and instead of using Extract I use Morph Targets and Inflate in the Deformation pallet to create new tools and append them, then I use UNDO on the base mesh and make a lot of new selections and do it again and again. Its nearly unlimited and very very controllable. This way you can still have a very low rez base mesh and a LOT of subtools that have reasonable resolutions as well.

My only problem is the one I have had all along, getting any of this to look good in something else, and for that I think I am losing interest, it is possible to bang your head on something for only so long before it becomes less important.
I downloaded the Octane demo and it looks a lot like Blender and is just as confusing!

[michalis]

@Mealea thanks, (spanish writing, I consider it as positive)
Morph target, no, never used it this way. I'll try it.
The above tutorial (if we can call it this way) is an addition to your wonderful tuts.
The basic point is, how to avoid non distractive applies on a mesh that is for exporting.
I will insist on separated overlapping meshes techniques. It is much simpler and easier to UV unwrap them, to handle them.
On my recent tutorial I was using selected loops for the job.
Now, a more spontaneous way. Just subdivide the mesh, use the masking brush to paint on it, extrude it.
Use the z remesher on this, to have a clean topology mesh and UV (GUV?) unwrap it. Ask for UV based grouping to handle them (advanced UV unwrapping)
Similar results, but it doesn't follow the base topology. With the exception that it still overlaps the basic mesh. Just saying.
A 5 mins test. There may be some interest on the shader, I also added the AO map as diffuse.

[RawSunlight]

Maybe the AO, but the detail is really standing out... one of your best disp experiments, gorgeous!

[Patpotlood]

very nice detailing.
is this rendered in blender?

grtz p

[pfrancke]

stunning beautiful. I love the clean lines and super sharp detail. I'd love to see this object being created!

[michalis]

Thanks Rawsunlight, patpotlood, pfrancke
No, it is a simple fast BPR. An AO map really helps.
If I export in blender/ cycles it will look the same. Precisely the same details, or should I say better?. This is the goal.

[Roland Kaiser]

Hi Michalis thanks to your comments to my work. Your work is just amazing. I really really love your stuff. Great work, man
Greets Roland