ZBrushCentral

Creating HDRI images....

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi everyone,
HYA ZBER!!!

I want to make my own HDRI images, I want to make them in ZBrush and I want to use them in KeyShot and ZBrush, is this even vaguely possible?
By HDRI I mean those 360° panoramic things that ZBrush and KeyShot use to render as backgrounds.
Other peoples photos and stuff don’t thrill me, I wanna make my own.
Actually some of them do thrill me, but still I want to do this myself, its not the same to use someone elses stuff.
I mean, someday, when I rebuild Barcelona from scratch and give it to the Catalonians maybe then I will want to use HDRI images from there, but as it stands now, I not only didn’t build it I have never even been there.
As usual I digress!

Can it be done?
Can it be done in ZBrush?
If so, HOW?!?!
I must know!
TELL ME!
Thanks!

Cheers!
Mealea

PS: ZBer! Email me, I can’t send you a PM, its broken or turned off or some sort of thing.

#2

Interesting idea. It’s not possible directly but it might be possible with a plugin. I’ll look into it when I have time but I’m too busy just at the moment.

The problem really is making sure that the image wraps in the right way, so that you get a continuous background. With the right sort of UVs you could use a sphere and paint on it. Then the texture map could be converted to a rectangular panorama.

#3

I know you are busy, and try to ignore me while I lurk conspicuously over your shoulder!
Think of it this way, as long as I am lurking you will always have coffee instantly available. GRIN!!!

Im surprised that this is not something that people have been demanding for ages, it seems like such an obvious thing you know?
Make a scene, render it and POOF Instant HDRI image!
Sounds simple, but I suppose if it was it would already be around huh?

Take your time Marcus, if you manage it GREAT, but if not its hard to miss something that doesnt exist.

#4

I may have found a couple of methods of doing this in Blender of all things.
The irony here is that I would be making things in ZBrush, piping them over to Blender to render an HDR image and then bringing the HDR image into KeyShot to render ZBrush objects in.
If I figure this out I will make a tutorial about it, this could be a very nice trick.

A better trick would be to have this native in ZBrush and in KeyShot, a keyshot rendered HDR image could be very nice indeed:
You could build your world in ZBrush and render it in KeyShot, then put more ZBrush stuff into the render and render it again and again getting more and more complex. It would render fast as well, you wouldn’t have to keep slamming the same objects over the bridge.

#5

HOLY CRAP!
ITS…
Wait for it, this is Blender afterall…

…EASY!

So.
hehehe…
I love ZBrush… Only ZBrush would make me want to do something like this.

Ok.
I cant believe this worked!

Here goes:


  1. Make an outrageously cool object(s) in ZBrush, one that looks like you could stand in the middle of it.
  2. Export it to Blender in what ever way you like, as an Obj file or via GoB if you have it.
  3. In Blender set your rendering engine to Cycles.
  4. Select your camera and in the panel to the far right in that row of obnoxiously tiny icons click on the camera icon (not the first one that looks like an instamatic, the one to the right that looks like a movie camera), this brings up your cameras preferences.
  5. Right at the top of that turn on Panoramic.
  6. Directly below that set the dropdown menu to Equirectangular, don’t try to pronounce that, and don’t eat it, its toxic.
  7. Now hover your mouse over what we would call the Canvas but Blendoids call “Die Tiefseehöllenloch, in dem wir tanzen mit Kettenrädern”.
  8. Hit the letter N on your keyboard. A bunch of crap will appear out of nowhere, in that crap find Lock Camera To View and turn it on.
  9. Hit N to make the crap go away.
  10. Hit 0 (Zero) on your number pad, if you don’t have a number pad tell your gods to smite me. This make your view be from the camera.
  11. Use the normal methods of pointing your view at something like the horizon, it seems that this is important. Also try to be in the middle of your scene, this helps a lot too.
  12. Hit F12 on your keyboard, this will render your view.
  13. Once thats done hit F3 to save your render, I used .EXR because I don’t know what .EXR is and it worked just fine, copy me, it worked.

Ok, a couple of things, one is that I am skipping all the stuff where you make you stuff look good with lighting and all that.
I am also using the default render settings, this is foolishly set at 50% of its actual size, but its too hard to describe where that stuff is in text (actually its in that OTHER camera icon, the instamatic looking one), so Im leaving it up to you, if needed I can provide screen shots.

Ok back at it:


  1. Launch KeyShot
  2. Get rid of that pesky thing that pops up.
  3. On the left switch to Environments .
  4. Click the little folder with the down arrow, a menu should pop up.
  5. Hit Import.
  6. Select your render from wherever the hell Blender put it.
  7. It should appear in the list of Environments, double click it and gasp with delight!

Right off you might notice that its a little small for what you are doing, thats stuff that can be changed in Blenders render settings, again that is the settings thing under the instamatic camera icon… I think aspect ratio is important here but I don’t know, I have done this exactly once and it worked.

As with any of my tutorials if its wrong its my fault.
Let me know please if something doesn’t work or needs to be changed.

Cheers!
Mealea

ZBER!!!
SEND ME AN EMAIL!!!

#6

Good stuff - and you’ve saved me a job! :wink:

#7

HAHAHAH!!!
But NOOOOOO!!!
Wouldnt it be great in ZBrush?
Imagine Francescos 2.5D stuff being full 360°x360° HDRI environments!
It would be awesome wouldn’t it?