normal maps from zbrush and maya combined?
So i've finally been figuring out how to do normal baking in maya for hard surface stuff, and other non character stuff where the work is preferred in maya because its far more acurate.
My problem is this, i made a column, very low poly, and a high poly which is pretty much just the same model but with nice smooth beveled edges, it baked pretty well, and everythings fine.
So what i want to do is to now rough it up, not so much that i would need a new low poly, but just want to add some surface detail.
what are my options
importing the low poly into zbrush doesnt work because i cant do the beveling and proper smoothing i want like i can in maya with controlled edge loops and other fine controls
i tried sending the high over to zbrush, and re importing in maya, but at the resolution the model was at 512 thousand polys or so, its extremely laggy 1, and 2 my bake turned out absolute shit and i'm not sure why,
are these the only two options for acquiring normal map data from both maya (smooth and perfect) and zbrush (rough and real)
I also have 3d coat which i will probably end up using for its draw on normals feature if i can't find a good workflow with zb for adding the roughed up features.
So thanks for any help, and if you cant address these issues directly just tell me your workflow for a model that requires both finely tuned hard surface high poly, and the zbrush stuff
My problem is this, i made a column, very low poly, and a high poly which is pretty much just the same model but with nice smooth beveled edges, it baked pretty well, and everythings fine.
So what i want to do is to now rough it up, not so much that i would need a new low poly, but just want to add some surface detail.
what are my options
importing the low poly into zbrush doesnt work because i cant do the beveling and proper smoothing i want like i can in maya with controlled edge loops and other fine controls
i tried sending the high over to zbrush, and re importing in maya, but at the resolution the model was at 512 thousand polys or so, its extremely laggy 1, and 2 my bake turned out absolute shit and i'm not sure why,
are these the only two options for acquiring normal map data from both maya (smooth and perfect) and zbrush (rough and real)
I also have 3d coat which i will probably end up using for its draw on normals feature if i can't find a good workflow with zb for adding the roughed up features.
So thanks for any help, and if you cant address these issues directly just tell me your workflow for a model that requires both finely tuned hard surface high poly, and the zbrush stuff
Replies
create a plane in mud and sculpt some dirt and roughnes...
use the normal viewport filter to show the normals of this plane...
create a viewport render...
use this new normalmap (or old ones) as stencil to paint a new detail normalmap onto your model...
combine the new and the old texture in PS...
or paint a black and white image onto your model and generate a normal from it...
or import your low and your highres into mudbox...
sculpt the roughnes to your high and bake between the low and the high...
in mud you can bake between arbitrary meshes...
you could also use turtle and bake a bumpmap into your normalmap...
Any other suggestions on how this can be done?
not sure what it means.. how about importing low poly that with adjusted smoothing group ito ZB
Decimation Master.
Xnormal
HTH
if you import say, a barrel shaped cylinder low poly into zbrush and smooth divide it, it tries to become all sphere-like because you don't have enough (reinforcement) edge loops in certain places (because its the low poly) and if you divide it a few times without smoothing it and then smooth it you keep the right shape but get a bunch of weird bevels.
you really have to add edgeloops in certain areas so it smooths nice but maintains the desired shape, which i dont THINK you can do in zbrush.
so that would be :
1. import your low poly barrel with adjusted smoothing group
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=55992
2. import your hipoly that already created inside maya with bevel and such.
sculpt it inside ZB to add "surface detail"
3. generate normal map using Zmapper
i don't see there is a problem here..
Or yeah, I'd probably just use Decimation Master and bake everything in Maya.
this plugin hasnt been updated yet for 3.5R3, and you also stated using zmapper, so i'm guessing i have to use 3 if i do this. And then i could save as a ztool and open it in 3.5? This is getting complicated.
In a related note there no longer seems to a download link for the plugin for 3.1 either