ZBrush® Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting, Second Edition

Applying Bump Maps in Maya

In most cases, you will want fine details on your mesh such as pores and small wrinkles. You can add these into the geometry itself, and ultimately the displacement map, but that’s not always the most efficient approach. With some preplanning, the finer details can be added in a bump map and rendered over the displacement in mental ray. This takes a huge load off the renderer since you don’t have to subdivide nearly as high to get lower-frequency forms to appear. A good rule of thumb is if your detail will change the silhouette of the model, displace it. If it is not visible in the profile, add it as a bump map detail instead. ZBrush has a great tool for making bump maps in the Bump Viewer material. For more information ...