ZBrush Character Creation - Advanced Digital Sculpting 2nd Edition

338 chapter 9 ■ Normal Maps, Displacement Maps, Maya, and Decimation Master

2. Open the ZPlugin → Multi Map Exporter menu.


3. Enable Displacement, Normal, Ambient Occlusion, Cavity, and Export Mesh.


4. Set Map Size to 4096 to generate 4K maps (Figure 9.79).
   5. Open the Export Options submenu and expand the Displacement Map options. Set
   SubDiv Level to 1, turn 3 Channels on, and click the Get Scale button to establish
   object scale. This will help generate a more accurate 16-bit map since object scale
   isn’t baked into the map itself.
   The Get Scale button estimates a suitable value for the Scale slider to produce a
   16-bit displacement map that is similar to an optimized version for the selected subtool.
   Different subtools can give widely varying results, so it is important to assess which Scale
   value will produce the best results for your needs. In general, use the lower range of val-
   ues to avoid clipping.
   Use the Intensity or Alpha Depth option when applying 16-bit maps. This value
   is set when you click the Get Scale button. User input values are added to the filenames
   when you turn on the 16 Bit Scale option, but the value has no effect on displacement
   map creation.
   6. Open the Normal Map, Ambient Occlusion Map, and Cavity Map menus. Set your
   settings to match Figure 9.80.
   7. Under the Mesh Export menu, set SubDiv Level to 1. Now click the Create All Maps
   button at the top of the menu to generate maps from the settings you just entered. Multi
   Map Exporter will ask for a location to store the files. Browse to a suitable folder and
   click Save. The maps will begin to generate.
   8. The maps will complete and the mesh will export as an OBJ file. Figure 9.81 shows the
   resulting maps in my folder. The scale is indicated in the displacement map filename;
   this value helps you determine the Alpha Gain value when rendering.

Figure 9.81 The resulting maps and mesh file

That completes our discussion of Multi Map Exporter. The plug-in is as simple to use

as it is powerful. Any map you could want to create with ZBrush can be automated using

the process you just learned. We will now look at another way of getting your work out of

ZBrush: decimating meshes.

Exporting with Decimation Master

Decimation Master is a ZBrush plug-in that allows you to reduce the overall polygon count

(and thus the file size!) of a fully sculpted high-res mesh without sacrificing details. It accom-

plishes this through a process known as decimation.

Figure 9.79
Enable the fol-
lowing options
on the Multi
Map Exporter
menu.

Figure 9.80
Match your set-
tings to the ones
in this image.