Just a test to highlight how
Zbrush works on other things than just Characters. Its great for stones, bricks, trees, detailing sheet metal and many other
items.
Give it a try. You can make all these details tile able inside Z2 for wall texture maps. Or just create normal maps as usual.
Dave 
MMMmmm That looks really nice!
MAN, Z2 is full of suprizes…I need more free time…I am starting to get depressed.
Thanks for the inspiration though Dave. 
So how does that look when its applied back onto the original maya model as a displacement map so it can be used outside of zbrush.
wow…wow…hey I said that twice.
WOW! 
as GiantSun … 
Unless you need all of the geometry to be up close to the camera during rendering, a bump map might work just as good as the displacement map. Utilizing Z2’s multiple features, you can really open up your options as far as what you have to do during render time. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t use displacements all that much. Especially for background elements. A normal map/bump map would suffice in many situations, and in fact you could probably get away with just a color map too.
With Z2 you can do LOD models with zero or very little hassle. Especially if you are wanting to use low poly models, such as in games.
I was thinking about this a few months ago, before I knew how Z2 would work. Although my technique for achieving this in 1.55b is obsolete, it still might prove as an idea generator. You can see a brief tutorial on how I was working on LOD elements in 1.55b right here:
I personally like AUVtiles. And I’m probably going to be using them for a long, long time!
It would be nice to see a comparison of the different types of ‘bump’ mapping effects. I know there are examples online but that model would serve to be a good example to cover the range. It has a nice mix of shallow and deep cracks.
I’m still waiting for my copy of zbrush 
so i can’t experiement but none the less i can’t wait 
For easy,
Rendered in Maya as a bump. For this I
just used the greyscale displacement map
strait out of Zbrush2. For those who are
not awear Bump and Displacement maps look exactly the same! We use diffrent names in CG for
the two types to distinguish how they are
to be treated at render time( when you hit the render button ). When you render you can tell the renderer to “displace” extra polys or just tweak the
normals of the poly object based on the map (Bump Map ).
Dave
Well they might operate the same in hypershade, but they are not the same as far as rendering time… at least not on my system. Displaced geometry takes a lot longer to generate before rendering than bump map geometry. Maybe I’m doing something wrong?
Wouldn’t a normal map provide a better bump than the displacement map? Or is there really that much of a difference between them? I wanted to check out Olivier’s normal map, and displacement map utilities, but being that I have Maya for the Mac I couldn’t use them. I’ll have to do some testing though to see if I can figure out how to use the normal map as a bump map. I believe you just apply it to a shader like you would a bump map, but I could be wrong.
Thanks for sharing the screenshots. Looks pretty good to me!
Thanks for taking the time to do that skycastle, much appreciated! Looks very effective on the low poly model.
Interesting read wchamlet.
One other question. I wonder is it worth adding a normal map over a bump map to increase definition in finer detail, or is a bump map suffienct in providing detail.
Normal maps and displacement maps do not work the same. The normal map is an effect at render time, much like a bump map.
I guess I should clarify my question a bit. I know that normal maps provide a better bump map than the usual gray scale image bump map. I assume this is because of the RGB values displace the “bump” according to the normals instead of using a gray scale which doesn’t follow the normals as accurately.
I also know that the displacement map can also be used as a bump map, instead of using the map to displace the actual geometry. My question should have been, “Does a normal map provide a better, or more accurate bump map when compared to a displacement map (grayscale) used as a BUMP map?”
Hope that clears up some confusion.
Edit:
I added BUMP to the question. I idiotically stated “displacement” instead of BUMP. I think I pretty much stuck my foot in my mouth this time around! LOL
wonder if Doom 3 is going to let us do such displacement on static meshes…
I sure hope so! would make video game mapping alot more interesting…
I think what Skycastle was stating was that bump/displacement maps look the same insofar as their grayscale values are concerned. Of course they look different at rendertime, as one actually uses the grayscale values to “displace” the mesh, the other just does a nifty visual trick with the normals, i.e. bump. Normal mapping is like bump on steroids. It still wont displace, and thus not take as long to render, but damn it looks hella nice. Im not certain as to how the lowrez to highrez transition occurs. I am guessing that it would be something like a blend of the rgb values for certain poly normals on the high rez mesh to certain nomrmals on polys of the low rez mesh.
I think everyone here knows the difference between a normal map and bump map. I’m wondering if a normal map provides better detail than a bump map and if so would it be any use to apply that over a bump map to provide increased detail. Looking at the maya rendering there are some details that have not really come out (looks a little blury in other words)…Or is that because of lighting in maya.
Anyway i got my code to download zbrush 2 (finally ) so i can experiment for myself.
As far as I’m aware, Normal maps are a hybrid of Bump and Displacement maps.
Bump map(greyscale)…gives the effect of displacement but is only a “2d” effect to give the impression from the camera angle. It cannot change the mesh and so the “silhoette” of the object won’t change.
Displacement map (greyscale)…actually deforms the mesh at rendertime.
Normal map (multicoloured)…It creates an effect similar to bump maps except it also has information to change in the Z axis from the mesh. Red=info to change in the x axis, Green= info to change in the y axis, Blue= info to change in z axis.
In effect perhaps this means that Normal maps will eventually take over from Displacement maps…when it’s more supported by 3d programs.
This is all my impression, so anyone correct me if it’s wrong.
Yeah, but normal maps do not alter the silhoette. In other words, you get all of the “details” within the lowpoly model, but on the edges of the low poly model, you will still see the lowpoly silhoette. But for geometry like Dave posted, it wouldn’t really matter.
This is the Z2 Normal Map displayed
in the Crytek PolyBump viewer.
Dave 
Dave have you changed something on the normal map setup ? I tried with Crytek tool but can’t to obtain the same result…
another question have you tried Kaldera plug named Mankua ?
No I did not do anything strange?
I baked a tangent space map out of Z2
then exported from Photoshop as a .dds ( I think ). I had to hack my .mtl file
for the .obj. And I also had to triangulate
my model… I think that was it.
Dave