Displ. map lighter at sharper corners

[office]

Hi,

I've been doing some sculpting with Mudbox and I'm having problems with exporting the displacement map. Where there is a stronger change in the curvature of the object, the Mudbox puts lighter colors in the displacement map. Why is that? The base mesh and the highest level mesh are almost identical in these zones so I don't expect there a change in the color. Because of this, my model becomes pointy where there are sharper corners.

Please see attached some screenshots:

[absoluteKelvin]

did you try to re-export the lowest subdivision back to 3dsmax and apply the displacement, that might solve the issue.

[office]

I just tried and the results are the same. 😞 I don't understand why Mudbox puts these lighter colors at the sharper corners. The topology in the lowest and highest level mesh is the same there so there should be no change in color. I haven't sculpted the sharper corners in mudbox. I expect only the fine details I sculpted to be included in the displacement map.

Here's how the exported displ. map looks when It's made out of the lowest level mesh as you suggested. It's still showing lighter colors in the parts that have the same topology in the lowest and highest level:

[office]

I now tried with Zbrush and it does this thing too. 😕 It seems that I'm missing something maybe? Sorry, it's my first time doing sculpting so I'm not so knowledgable. Here's how it looks exported from Zbrush:

[absoluteKelvin]

turn off smooth target uvs and try again.

[office]

Thanks for the suggestion but it still looks the same. Here's my Mudbox file - http://we.tl/w1BZdrpZ1l Can you try yourself and see what is the problem? Thank you very much for the help so far. I'm really new with the whole sculpting thing so maybe there's something I'm not doing right.

And one more thing. If I want to use the level 1 mesh, not level 0 I need to do "recreate level uvs". When I do this, shouldn't the UVs relax a bit at the open edges? At least in Max they do. In Mudbox the polygons and edges stay in the same place and just  get divided by more squares. Could this have something to do with it?

[absoluteKelvin]

i ran a quick test in 3dsmax 2014 since i dont have 2016. if you using displace modifier you need to set the Strength to 0.514 or 0.515 since you are using 16bit displacement map, that number taken from the number in the filename, if you look at the displacement map theres a bunch of numbers at the end, thats the amount. Im not sure which renderer your are using but if you are using 16bit displacement maps you need a set the proper amount of strength. whereas if you use 32bit you dont have to worry about tweaking the strength. you would only have to change the amount if you scaled your object.

hope that helps

edit: if you want to use lv1 you would have duplicate the mesh and resubdivide with smooth uv turned on in the subdivision options in mudbox

[office]

Thanks, this seems to make sense. I will try it out and let you know the results.

I didn't know about the trick with duplicating the mesh and subdividing it with "smooth uv" on when using higher level meshes. I've been just transfering the old uvs onto the higher levels with "recreate level uvs" and they looked jagged as if the object was low-poly.

[santd]

Hello @office,

Thank you for posting to the Area forums. Thank you @absoluteKelvin for providing your input I agree that should resolve the issue.

If that doesn't resolve the issue though, let us know and I will see if I can offer further input.

Cheers,