Prepping your mesh for Zbrush - workflow question

Spudnik

Hey guys and girls,
I have a question concerning workflow: I'm a Maya user who's recently had a little fling with Max and after watching BoBo's Darksiders weapon tutorial (quite awesome, thanks for that!) I've gotten quite excited by the NURMS functionality in Max. One of my biggest problems with modelling in Maya was that the transition to Zbrush was awkward with all your hard edges becoming relatively soft and pudgy, even with the divide without smoothing first, then smooth trick in Zbrush.

So my question is, would it make sense to model something in Maya (I'm still substantially faster there), bring it into max and set it up with the NURMS and smoothing groups and then bring it into Zbrush? It seems like there's more time investment upfront but I feel like it could save me a lot of grief and time in Zbrush.

Or am I over-thinking this and is there a way to get similar results from Maya without Max?

Spudnik

Anybody got any input on this ?

Ark

NURMS is basically the same as the smooth/smooth preview function in Maya. I haven't seen the tutorial myself, so unless he uses some specific option within that modifier in Max, then it should be the same in Maya.

NoisyMonk

I'm unfamiliar with Maya and that tutorial. So, grain of salt and all that.

Are you talking about NURMS or NURBS? As Ark mentioned, NURMS are essentially Turbosmooth in Max (I'm 99% certain Maya has an equivalent to turbosmooth).

NURBS on the other hand are all about Splines defining edges and flow of a surface. I assume this is probably what you're wondering about. A quick google tells me that Maya has some NURBS capability - have you checked that out yet?

Overall, I'd say you'd be over-complicating things, and probably waste time going from Maya to Max to ZBrush. The likely problem you're having with "soft and pudgy" edges in ZBrush is probably due to insufficient edge control on your low poly mesh.

Hope this helps.

Spudnik

I meant NURMS, which, like you said is very much like the turbosmooth in that they can both smooth by shading groups but NURMS gives you a much cleaner mesh to work on, like this:




In this picture, I just unchecked the 'NURMS option'. Clean mesh.



Maya's smooth preview (and "smooth" option) both only keep hard edges if you add a ton of edgeloops which makes polygons uneven size and complicates the mesh unnecessarily. Is there something similar to NURMS in Maya that I don't know about ?

Ark

Use the crease tool and then smooth, should give you comparable results.

theslingshot

Your mesh is not cleaner with NURMS you just don't see the topology behind it, you only get the base mesh's rounded wireframe.Just take your mesh with NURMS and convert into edit poly. You will have the same result as turbosmooth..


For the Maya part, I know nothing about that...sry

Spudnik

Result for those curious. Mesh looks sweet, thanks a bunch Ark, but the shading is not nearly as pretty as in max ^^



EDIT:
@slingshot:
Yeah, I understand that "behind the scenes" NURMS is actually doing the same thing as turbosmooth, but you can't deny that what it gives you in the viewport to work on is way more user friendly than what turbosmooth gives you. And yes, I want all that extra geo that the NURMS and/or turbosmooth give me when I get into Zbrush so that when I subdivide the geometry it'll keep its hard edges, while still having a relatively even mesh. I couldn't achieve that before just from Maya (haven't tried with the crease tool yet) so everytime I'd subdivide in Zbush, I'd lose some of that crispness (sp?).

Off to test then, huzzah!

Eoq

Spudnik

Thanks Eoq, that made my day, giggling like a schoolgirl over here

I haven't played around too much with dynamesh but doesn't it destroy all my nice topology from Maya. Or does that not matter?

Eoq

Hahahahah I was rofling so hard before I posted it, oh gawd hahahaha ;D I nowadays do everything inside Zbrush using dynamesh and the awesome tools inside the program. Not caring that much about the topology actually : )

Spudnik

Well this one is for the Dota 2 competition (and I've always wondered about this anyways, this was just the impetus) so the polybudget it tiiiight.

cryrid

Spudnik wrote: »

Thanks Eoq, that made my day, giggling like a schoolgirl over here

I haven't played around too much with dynamesh but doesn't it destroy all my nice topology from Maya. Or does that not matter?

It will wipe the topology, whether or not it matters is up to you and the particular model/project you're working on. For example, I try to avoid it when I have a feeling I'll be ping-ponging the model back and forth between programs, of if there's topology in place that I really want to preserve (such as edgeloops on a basemesh). Otherwise I try and use it to get the form I want, then retopologize as soon as possible to get something that can subdivide in a similar way.