Making Tileable Displacement in ZBrush

In this tutorial I would like to show you how easly and quickly create tileable displacement in ZBrush.

It is very simple and very fast method. After creation you can use this map in any software you wish – which of course has ability to use displacement or height maps. For example, I used it to create basic shapes for Substance Designer, like tree branches, roots, rocks, and included them in materials I made.

At the begining you need to setup your Document Resolution to correspond with your desired resolution. I used 2048 by 2048. Just go to the Document panel and uncheck “Pro”. Type 2048 by 2048 and click “Resize”.

Then when your document has 1:1 aspect ratio, create basic 2D Plane and Make PolyMesh 3D.

Go to Subtool and Duplicate the Plane. Move it a little bit to the front and increase its size to be bigger than plane in the back.

In the Subtool select the smaller Plane and rotate view that the plane are facing the camera. Then “Frame” the view to fit the smaller frame – you can just simply press “F”.

Select now the larger plane – some part of it should now be “outside” the document. It is important because it will allow you to have clean and smooth transition when you place your map side by side. Then add some more polygons to the larger plane by clicking “Divide” in Geometry panel.

Select the tool you wish to use – Standard Brush, Clay Buildup, or anything you wish. Go to the Brush panel, Open Curve and set WrapMode to 1. You can now start to sculpt your texture, as if you always do. As you can see if you get too far to the edge, the brush start sculpting on the opposite side.

You can also click Camera Lock to prevents accidental Camera Rotations.

Now if your texture is finished, go to the Alpha and in Transfer click GrabDoc. Your sculpted surface will be now transfered to the alpha with standard displacement values – white is higher, and black is lower.

Only thing left to do is now to export created alpha map and use in as displacement in other sotfware. Just go to the Alpha panel and click Export.

Below you can see the result and the comprasion betwen the sculpted object and the tileable displacement in zbrush made from it.