Believe it is time for a name change?
Rick have you tried exporting the mesh from Z-brush at a slightly higher level,say 2 0r maybe even 3 steps? Obviously render times will increase but at least you’ll keep all your detail .
Pete B
Forget render times, Pete – have you tried to rig and animate a mesh with that many polygons? (that is the goal) Remember, they quadruple with every subdivision!
here is my halloween post a litle ghoul but its nothinc compared whit the work of MM im practicing a lot to get into that level !! i have realy big problems whit the normal maps in lightwave if someone know the correct way of zbrush to lightwave please help me !! enjoy my ghoul
I just thought last night that you’re using lightwave to render displacements? I’m not totally positive about this…but I’m pretty sure lightwaves native renderer doesn’t support ‘micro-pixel’ displacement. That’s probably why your last two previous attempts only had a touch of displacement, but not all the fine details. If you want something that renders displacements very easy and is built around lightwave (it use to be a plugin for that, then became a standalone app), and is quite inexpspesive and easy to use, perhaps you should try out messiah. I think the website is http://www.projectmessiah.com
Otherwise, if you have maya, I’d drive all the way up to burbank just to help you out and see what one of your animations looks like. BUt I assume you have all kinds of people there who could do the same…
goodluck
-tiktok
dont increase the polygon count through zbrush, keep at a subdivide level where it keeps the basic shape and use your alpha maps
Hi Monster Maker,
Its fantastic that you, (as one of the finest sculptors on the planet) are able to transfer your skills into this medium and keep all your style and energy.
A few years ago, I thought computers and cgi had killed real sfx, and the sculpture and craftsmanship that I loved. Now I realise it is just the next step.
Your work looks as good as ever.
Zbrush is great isnt it!
Very nice and just in time for the season …
Mr Baker,
i’m pleased to see a Mith like you here.
i start when i was a teenager to sculpt clay and play with latex after i see some old good movies like wolfman and frankestein, but, for a werewolfs’ fan like me An american werewolf in london is a legend and ispiration for a long time.
finally i can exchange with you the favor, waht i leanr from a photo of your work, working in progress dvd, and more, all what you give me during these years, i give you some info about lw and zbrush, and if you have any other question about lw, i’m very happy to help you, don’t forget to send me private message or email [email protected].
For lightwave (i understand correctly that you use it on mac, right?) you can use a free plugin for displacement that work better than original newtek, it’s called normal displacement and you can find http://lynx.aspect-design.de/plugins/normal_displace_info.htm
it’s faster and more powerful than original plugin, after download, you can see on list of displacement plugin like NormalDisplacement without space between word, the plugin that you can see like Normal Displacement is old newtek plugin.
here http://amber.rc.arizona.edu/lw/normalmaps.html
you can find a normal plugin for mac and win, that help you to have better dectail on lower mesh, pay attention to obj and scene size, be cuase it’s very sensible to size, very large obj cause bad shadow on surface. but generally if you work on lw in correct world size, all work fine from ik to dynamic simulation to light, to every other part.
an humanoid creatures that are tall 2 meters work well, an humanoid that are 50 meters tall could cause you some headheace on setup.
i hope that help you in your digital adventure.
Hi everyone, thanks for your comments, here is a little quicktime of this guy in motion,
http://www.momoshare.com/file.php?file=44854cf1dfbd96e99a3e6ae349773b7e, hope this works.
This guy was originally modeled and textured in ZBrush I made the morph targets in Modo and animated him in LightWave.
madrenderman: thanks for the info I will try it out and probably contact you with a lot of questions.
realityengin andCtrl-Z thanks for the web site info I’ll be finished filming in about a week expect me to contact you then.
Anyways Remember I’m new at this. Would really like to get this displacement map deal worked out and frankly I’m just not getting the whole rigging part of this> I know that this is a zbrush site but if there are any LightWave users out there who know where I could learn more about rigging in LW I would really appreciate it.
Again Happy Halloween
mm
Ok to view video go to the above site and you will see the homepage screen and push the continue button, as shown below, and it will load the quicktime
Attachments
It’s alive!
Brilliant!
Highest respects.
[i]Great job Monstermaker !
PS: I can’t view the vidéo. That steers me towards the momoshare’s home page ! 
Edit: I can view now the video. It’s a really freaky moment.[/i] 
thats a pretty friggin decent animation. pretty quick production time… he goes from an evil grin to narcoleptic sleepyness.
As far as design, ill be waiting man… i got some ideas and a quick mockup done. Got some other ideas you might be interested in… who knows.
MM, I was looking around for tuts on Maya Displacement and I found this posing for LW! I hope it helps!
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=21078
Good to see your work here! I really like the detail for the scientists head!
Shoot! I could do that! 
Nice, haha, I’m already scared of what’s next…
small_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamond
LemonNado
Please take this for what it’s worth, because I know nothing about animation/rigging, but I’ve looked at a number of demos and videos of the various packages out there and I think that Messiah:Animate is the slickest and easiest I’ve seen.
They have a number of demo movies on their website and a demo program as well. I don’t know if they have a mac version or not.
Dear MonsterMaker
when you want, i’m here 
ready to answer to all questions.
good resource for lw rigging are a couple of book of a great artist called Johnny gorden, ones for character modelling, ones for rig and animation with lightwave.
you can find on amazon at this address,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556222548/qid=1129971877/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0599165-1022438?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
in that
book you can find simple and clear text to understand the basic of animation rig for LightWave and solve many mistake and misanderstanding of Lightwave.
anyway for every question i’m here.
for the near future, i will post a tutorial about lightwave - zbrush - lightwave to optimize and show a full workflow where i show all pass to report all dectail from zbrush to lightwave render, i hope to work on it in during the week end, and will finish it, but today i must finish other work for new week before to finish it.
have a nice day.
p.s. i miss to tell that animation and character are very nice, and … yes
it’s alive !!! it’s alive !!!
for what i have seen so far this looks like a high-quality thread…
and so i know i shouldn’t be here, so forgive me… :rolleyes:
however, hope you like it. 100% zbr
i also made a similar version for MattHHH Halloween thread…
beautyfull render, Pinkarman.
thats actually very cool pinkar
i’d like to see that coming from a more “smokey” looking fog
with maybe more red or more “specular” in the under light
the teeth look a little wide for the eye sockets, however if that is what you are going for maybe a little accented brow (above the eyes) for that more primal skull look is pretty spooky.
either way, you don’t have to down talk your own work, although you have room to develop it more, it is actually very good!
keep it up