Mudbox displacement maps in T2

[mhaze]

Looping and a random node would make bigger pops(and recursion possible) so much easier!  I hate to try and use more than 10/15 copies would take forever.

[pfrancke]

One more thought about vector displacement from me..  Having seen Dune's efforts to create the displacement from scratch just using a photo editing program that can work with exr files, the thought crossed my mind that if a program like zbrush or mudbox creates and exr file with vector displacements, I wonder how effective editing such a file with photoshop type filters might be.  I know the types of things you can do to an exr file is limitted, but if you could use a blur filter for example, it might remove blockiness that a lower resolution sculpt might have produced.  And if you gently add certain colors, it might  produce certain types of effects.  Anyway, I can see that I'm going to have to reread this thread to see what hints Dune might have provided regarding "how to edit" an exr file.

[Dune]

You're correct, Piet. I did some editing of existing exr's. You can't really paint unless you temporarily switch it to 16-bits, but you can use blur and use lasso and fill. It's  very interesting to explore these possibilities.

[j meyer]

Ulco - yes using the transform shader to move it instead of the image location slots
         is what I found to be the better way,too.Even setting the map to center instead
         of bottom left caused some problems.


mhaze - I don't know what you want to create,but you can do a lot of stuff that way,
            you just have to come up with a good distribution.


pfrancke - I would use Projection and actually I did already.That's another thing where the
               modified plane comes in handy.Thus you can use Dynamesh before projection.
              But remember:no holes! or break throughs.
             

[pfrancke]

Thank you for clues!

I'm still a little (or a lot) confused.   Morph Targets require the number of points to remain static, so geometry can't be deleted or added without destroying the Morph Target.  If you do dynamesh, or whatever and then projection and the model changes, how do you get the morph target back to the flat plane, so that the vector displacement is from flat to final?   In your sample workflow, you started with the plane and the Morph Target.  Can you describe a simple workflow where you are trying to get a vector displacement for a model that has different geometry (number of points) than the plane?  (I'm thinking I'm missing a big step - I've only had zbrush for a month and am in the early chapters of figuring it out).

[j meyer]

No problem Piet,it's quite easy.If you have an already existing model you want to use
and maybe a second one (just to bring in Dynamesh here) you just take model no.1 and
append model no.2 as a subtool,than combine subtools,than dynamesh them with an
appropriate resolution to get all the desired detail.
Now take a modified plane like shown here
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16110.msg160304.html#msg160304
append your new mesh as a subtool to the plane and project the sculpt onto the plane.
As for the modified plane: the way to go is make two versions,one flat the other already
stretched/pulled out to the cube like state.In ZB you load the flatversion,store the morph target
and than simply import the 2nd version into it.You should have the 2nd version visible
now (and when you click switch in the morph target subpallette it should show the flat
version again).Subdivide as needed.
Most of the time it's better to project step by step through the subdiv levels,starting with
the lowest of course.
You find more details about Projection and other stuff in the online documention/ZB-wiki pages.
Hope that helps,J.

[TheBadger]

I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question, but...

Has anyone already stated, or discovered and not stated, that a plane must be a square?

Heres what Im curious about:

Suppose you have a a plane that is the exact shape of a moon image map. And then sculpt (which would be really fast) the image map onto the plane (I did this with my broken moon thing: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,14529.15.html )
THe thing about what I did before was I was projecting a part of a moon image map onto a deformed broken sphere *like* object. What I'm curious about now, is if I could do a vector map that will wrap around a Terragen "planet02" Object, the same way a image map does? Then show the displacement the same way we have been doing in this thread?

Also, in terms of my broken moon project, I would think I need to be able to export Terragen's moon planet object to do what Im imagining now. But I think I remember reading that a planet object cannot be exported. Is that correct? Anyway, this last bit is a separate, but somewhat related question.

If there is a way to do what I asked, I know I can get much better results for my broken moon!

[Dune]

@Michael: why not try it. Theoretically I'd say, sculpt a sphere, use a second sphere as base mesh, and map the difference. Then apply this to a planet's surface. Don't know about the projection type though, not Y I suppose... I might give this a go.

[j meyer]

I've tried it with a TG-sphere and it should be possible with spherical projection,
if your VD map generating app is capable of doing 1:2 (2:1?) rectangle maps,that is.
Haven't found a way to do this in ZB,only square maps.And thus you get a square
where only one half (of the square) is the actual map and the other is wasted space.
And so far TG (2.5) can't deal with those.
So,if mudbox can produce 1:2 rectangle maps it should work.

[Dune]

I think it can. I'll try.

[TheBadger]

Hi guys. Thanks.

Im still quite far behind on this (vdisp)
Frankly, I dont even know anything about: "if your VD map generating app is capable of doing 1:2 (2:1?)"
So I cant say anything on that yet.

I am able to reason based on what I do know, that some things should be/are possible. But I don't know how to do them yet.

If in experimenting you learn solid answers please share it!

@Dune
Cool, thanks! I think if it works, it will be another great use for us.

[Dune]

I can't make it work for a sphere. I'll try a plane of 2:1... and project that into a sphere.

[TheBadger]

Do you mean project it in TG?

[Dune]

Yep. But it's not really working as I expected, so I'll drop it. Too much hassle, taking too much time.

[j meyer]

There might be more to it than I initially thought.
Keep in mind while reading,that I had problems with side z projection and Ulco
didn't have these.So you better test for youself to be shure that it's not machine
specific.
To find out what's causing trouble I took a sphere (in XSI) and a checkerboard texture
of 8x16 squares and set it up like one would do for HDR backgrounds or IBL only that
it was projected on the outside of the sphere.(Double checked it with a panorama
HDRI).
Then I had a look at the UVs and it was similar to what I've tried before with Wings
and ZB.
After that I launched TG and took a sphere and loaded my 8x16 texture into the
default shaders colour image slot,set projection to object uvs and rendered.
Then spherical projection and render.
Both looked different compared to each other and compared to the results in XSI.
To be shure I tried the same with a planet of the same size as the sphere.
Same results.Results here showed a 4x8 texture in spherical mode.
Then I tried the image shader,again with object uvs and spherical(don't forget to set
the coordinates to be the same as the planets/spheres) different results compared
to the results attained with the default shader.
Result now showed a 8x16 texture in spherical mode,but still different to what you get
in an app like XSI.
The difference is in the polar regions and seems to be due to the mapping methods.
It's an interesting test and not only in regard to VDisp.
Have no idea yet how to solve that.