Zbrush 32bpc/rgb Displacement Images

[jpwestmas]

Hi there, I'll go into more depth about this later I'm sure but I'd like to get some hints about what I might be doing wrong here. I'm not new to 16-bit displacements and have gotten those working ok (no artifacting) inside of the Maya Vray system.

Trouble starts when I attempt to use an rgb 32-bit displacement exr. Maya will not read a greyscale 32-bit image from Zbrush, so I had to convert it to a 32bpc/ rgb exr image in photoshop. I was able to get something that looked very much like my zbrush sculpt, only I get this posterizing (wavy bump pattern) in the displacement, see the attached picts.

I've also included most of my settings and I don't think they are 100% on the money. Note that this is not a Vector Displacement map, it is only a normal displacement greyscale image that was created in zbrush in 32bits. Are these not supported in vray? I'm pretty sure I added all the necessary Vray attributes to the object and image. If I'm missing anything please tell me thanks!

[vlado]

Is it possible that the 32-bit precision was lost somewhere along the way and you ended up with a 16-bit file instead?

Best regards,
Vlado

[jpwestmas]

not likely, it says 32 bits when I load it back into photoshop. Where do I check in maya I wonder, I haven't been in maya for a while.

[vlado]

not likely, it says 32 bits when I load it back into photoshop.

It doesn't mean there wasn't an internal conversion somewhere along the way.

Also, have you tried rendering with the original ZBrush file? V-Ray should read it fine, I think, even if Maya doesn't. Also, which V-Ray version is this? Some older versions used to convert 32-bit .exr files to 16-bit on reading by mistake.

Best regards,
Vlado

[jpwestmas]

it's Maya Vray 2012 Windows7 64-bit. Version 2.20.01. That's the only version I see for Maya 2012. I'll see what happens when just importing the raw 32 bit displacement from Zbrush. Maybe my settings were just wrong before when I couldn't get it to work.

Thanks Vlado.

[jpwestmas]

aha! That's exactly what was wrong, me being fooled by maya's error messages! Artifacts are gone now, do not convert 32-bit tiffs to .exr guys.

Thanks for the help Vlado.