[Thomas]

Third part: Carrara and the displacement shader.

When Carrara is open, go in File>Open and choose the OBJ file format, and select your file in the system dialog box. Check the Vertex primitive radio button to create native model for the vertex modeller (keep in mind that you always have to check this option on import, which should be a default option)

Below is the model you may have in Carrara after closing the import dialog window. Double click on your model, to edit it in the vertex modelling room.

In the vertex modelling room, select your object (CTRL/Command+A) (or a simple polygon) and in the property panel, in the Model tab, change the smoothing properties: 1 - Check the Smooth radio button 2 - Change the modelling value to 1 (or you can leave it to 0) 3 - Change the rendering value to 3 (we will go back to this setting later) When done, go to the shading room, to edit this model shader.

The most important thing to do here, is to uncheck the auto update of the shader (1) (and eventually the checkboard), because the displacement shader is a processor ogre! The rendering smoothing level has been set to 3 in the modelling room and when you change a displacement setting, the render will be with a level 3 smoothing. Then, it's better to hit yourself the render button than being stop by the Carrara rendering. Switch to the displacement tab (2), this tutorial won't be based on the common shader parameters.

In the displacement shader tab, change the displacement level from "None" to "Texture Map" (1) and in the system window which popup, choose your displacement map, generated by Zbrush (not the normal map if you created one). On the map properties, swap the displacement texture vertically (2) because Zbrush swap it from the original orientation.

Select the Top displacement shader level to go back to the displacement options. 1 - Activate the displacement if it was activated before 2 - Increase the Amplitude value. From Zbrush to Carrara, a value between 2.5 and 4 is enough 3 - Click on the Render button in the preview window to have a render preview of your displaced model. Amazing, no?! 4 - Don't click the subdivision checkbox and let it inactivate. These parameters are for another kind of displacement, from object which haven't dynamical smoothing.

Go back to the modelling room and in the Subdivision section, increase the rendering to 5, to have the most accurate results. Take care, increasing this value will increase the render time! In fact, Carrara takes a long time to compute the first frame, but for an animation, this compute time is a lot shorter on the next renders.

To create more details to your model, you can also copy the displacement map in the bump channel of your shader. It can also make you avoid using a too high value for the smoothing. If you have Deeper from Inagoni, you can also use a normal map in order to a bump, the result will be a lot better!

You can now render your model. Below is an animation, showing the same displacement map, from the original model made in Hexagon, to the model modified in Zbrush (the animation was made with a Morph Target). In fact, the most accurate render is from the modified model by Zbrush, the original one have some strange distortion on the corner of the mouth.

Now, it's time for you to create your own model, with the help of Zbrush and Carrara!