How to Create Detailed Terrain in ZBrush using DEM Data

[@KnobbyNobbes]

Absolutely love when super important steps are skipped and no replies are given. :D

[@captainblade115]

Dude tell me about it holy shit

[@avtpro]

Great way to do this. Thanks.

[@phalhappy8612]

can you help show how to stitch two different DEM?

[@TobiasSteiner]

How did you get the greyscale height map from the site? The downloaded content does not contain that so there is a process you're not showing here to get the final TIFF format. Thanks for your help.

[@JamesArndt]

Terrain Party will give you heightmaps in PNG format. It's not as high definition as the USGS data though. terrain.party

[@nineamulets7689]

Hello, great tutorial but I'm having trouble. Not sure where it did go wrong but I'm getting a surface that is not smooth. It looks like each pixel is a square (quite big too) that shots from the bottom up a different levels. Not at all what is seen. I've tried several times with the same result

[@JamesArndt]

Somewhere a step is missing. The USGS web site where you download the DEM files only offers .IMG format. This format doesn't open up in Photoshop. Not sure how the conversion is done? Is .IMG format natively supported in Zbrush?

[@younesseelmouhili6902]

you can dawnload an imagery with an extenction .DEM or you can concert the format at ArcGIS

[@no044]

Hey Micheal, thanks for the nice tutorial, I cant figure out how to convert the .img files into sth workable though, tried different sites,plugins,forums but nothing seems to work really, could you provide us with some info on this matter?

[@terrablader]

would use displace tool work the same?

[@mariolegend]

what if I don't have mia_material_x ? Running on Maya 2017 since they took out mental ray.

[@swartz3d]

You've probably figured out that Arnold is the new default in Maya 2017+. I recommend looking into GPU rendering such as OctaneRender, Redshift, etc. VRay is also an excellent render engine with "progressive rendering" capabilities that give you fast previews. Personally, I'm shifting my render projects to GPU-based solutions going forward.