Render using Ptex displacement.
What if you are working with Ptex but need to do some kind of Zbrush displacement work?
How can you render that?
As you probably now, Zbrush doesn't support Ptex. I'm not a super fan of Ptex (but I will be soon) but sometimes I do not have time or simply I don't want to make proper UV mapping. Then, if Zbrush doesn't export Ptex and my assets don't have any sort of UV coordinates, can't I use Ptex at all for my displacement information?
Yes, you can use Ptex.
Base geometry render. No displacement.
- In this image below, I have a detailed 3D scan which has been processed in Meshlab to reduce the crazy amount of polygons.
- Now I have imported the model via obj in Zbrush. Only 500.000 polys but it looks great though.
- We are going to be using Zbrush to create a very quick retopology for this demo. We could use Maya or Modo to create a production ready model.
- Using the Zremesher tool which is great for some type of retopology tasks, we get this low res model. Good enough for our purpose here.
- Next step would be exporting both model, high and low resolution as .obj
- We are going to use these models in Mudbox to create our Ptex based displacement. Yes, Mudbox does support Ptex.
- Once imported keep both of them visible.
- Export displacement maps. Have a look in the image below at the options you need to tweak.
- Basically you need to activate Ptex displacement, 32bits, the texel resolution, etc)
- To setup your displacement setup in Maya and Vray just follow the 32 bits displacement rule.
- And that's it. You should be able to render your Zbrush details using Ptex now.