No more multi-tile displacement in ZB 3.5?

[El Burritoh]

ZB used to have a plugin called MultiDisplacement that would let you export multiple displacement maps corresponding to multiple UV patches outside 0-1 space.

But so far I'm finding that this plugin was discontinued and its functionality built into ZB 3.5. But I can't find any information or options for exporting multiple displacement maps.

Does anyone here have any insight into this? Mudbox does this well and I can't believe it is such a pain in ZB.


EDIT:
Well, I found a way to do it but it's not automated.

1. Under Polygroups, select UV Groups
2. Turn on wireframe
3. CTL-Shift click a patch to isolate it
4. Generate Displacement map and export it (it will create one for the visible patch only)
5. Unhide all and repeat for each patch manually.

Sloppy, but functional.

[companioncube]

thats the way i've been doing it, gets a bit tedious. i was hoping they would bring out another multi displacement plugin but no such luck yet

[El Burritoh]

Good to know.

I had some trouble today when setting up all my displacement maps in XSI/Mental Ray. The UV seams were very obvious and we were unable to trace the problem to a shader tree problem, which leads us to think it had to do with how Zbrush kicked out its displacement maps. I created sixteen 4k Tiff files (16-bit) and I'm not sure where in the ZB settings I messed up.

What settings do you use to make sure you don't get seams?

(Hmmm...just remembered I had Smooth UV turned on...XSI doesn't support smoothed UVs...)

[companioncube]

i use 3ds max so might be a bit different for softimage.

i just use the recommended settings by pixologic for 3.5 r3

https://support.pixologic.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=42

"When using Adaptive mode to create displacement or normal maps in 3.5, please first set the Tool : SubTool : PA Blur value to 8. This setting works in tandem with Adaptive mode to create the best quality maps.

When creating a 32-bit displacement map, please first assign any alpha to the Tool : Displacement Map thumbnail to enable the Mid slider. Once enabled, set this slider to 0. This will ensure that your 32-bit displacement map is created with the correct grayscale values.

When creating a displacement map for a model that has hard edges (such as a cube), do the following after sculpting your details: Go to level 1, restore your base mesh as usual but then Shift+Click on the Tool : Geometry : Crease button. Now create your displacement map. This will ensure that the hard edges are calculated correctly without any gradiation in the displacement map."

Also in Max i always work with a linear workflow (Gamma 2.2) and have my Input Gamma for Bitmap files set to 2.2 so when i'm bringing Displacement/Normal maps in i have to make sure i use the Gamma Override options and set it to a Gamma 1.0 otherwise the Displacement/Normal maps will not work properly.