Vector displacement in Modo / by Xuan Prada

Another quick entry with my tips&tricks for Modo.
This time I’m going to write about setting up Mudbox’s vector displacements in Modo.

  • Check your displacement in Mudbox and clean your layer stack as much as you can. This will make faster the extraction process.
  • The extraction process is very simple. Just select your low and high resolution meshes.
  • Set the vector space to Absolute if you asset is a static element, like props or environments.
  • Set the vector space to Relative if your asset will be deformed. Like characters.
  • Always use 32 bit images.
  • As I said export the maps using EXR 32 bits.
  • Before moving to Modo or any other 3D package, check your maps in Nuke.
  • Once in Modo, select your asset and go to the geometry options.
  • Check Linear UVs and set the render subdivision level.
  • Assign a new shader to your asset.
  • Add a new texture layer with your vector displacement map.
  • Set it up ass Displacement Effect.
  • Set the low and high value to 0 and 100.
  • You will see a displacement preview in viewport.
  • Set the gamma to 1.0 Remember that 32bit images shouldn’t be gamma corrected using Linear Workflow.
  • In the shader options set the Displacement Distance to 1m this should give you the same result than Mudbox.
  • In the render options you can control the displacement rate, which is your displacement quality more or less.
  • 1.0 is fine, play with that. Lower values will give you sharper results but will need more time to render.
  • Finally render a quick test to see if everything looks as expected.