Zbrush VS Xnormal for Baking... Advice

David Wakelin

Hi guys

Just watched a few videos on zbrushes mapper plugin, thought it was quite straight forward and as I'm used to using zbrush thought it might be worth a use for my current character project to produce the normals for my retopped mesh.

Problem is I've heard Xnormals is better not only that but my retooled version contains some floating geometry... Will zbrush produce a normal map of the merged character despite it being in parts rather then connected?

Any advice would be great as I just want a well produced normal to put on my first character retop

Cheers

cryrid

xnormal hands down imo

As for floating geometry, it might depend on how you define the word. ZBrush will basically bake what you see on the highest subdivision level of a subtool down to the bottom level of that same subtool. It can't bake between completely different meshes. If you have different polygon islands; the shirt not being connected to the pants, then that wont be a problem as long as they look how you want them to on the highest subdivision level. Even if they are different subtools, the MME plugin can combine everything together on the UV layout as long as the UVs aren't overlapping.

If you're using actual floating geometry that hovers above a surface to make it appear like detail which belongs to the underlaying one (like this, it's not going to work out so well.

David Wakelin

Thanks Cryid your always helping me out!

By floating geometry I literally mean objects not connected I.e being separate to the mesh... Say for example a backpack strap on a Tshirt...

My characters trousers have this sort of problem due to them overlaying his boots and thus the boots aren't connected to the main character...

However how do I organise uv islands? I wanted the rucksack for example on it's own island... Or the boots contained with the rest of the meshes uv island... If it's separate/not joined by a vertex how would this be possible?

Cheers!

Ps found Eat3Ds pipeline from zbrush to Xnormals. Will have a try

cryrid

In an example like that, zbrush wouldn't have a problem with the baking. The meshes won't need to be connected or anything. As long as it's not actual floating geometry that involves a highpoly mesh with completely different geometry than the low. Even still, I think xnormal gives more control and better results.

David Wakelin

Cheers Cryid... Any suggestions on my lack of UVW island knowledge I mentioned?

cryrid

That depends more on what you're using to unwrap the mesh with. You can export or GoZ the model to any program, update the UVs like normal, and then import them back into zbrush. If you're trying to do them entirely in zbrush then your options will be more limited. There is the option to have each polygroup be it's own UV island when using UV master, but I don't think it has any way to weld UVs, especially if the vertices aren't even welded.

David Wakelin

Sorry,

What i meant was... I'm going to unwrap my retopped mesh in headus; the only parts that are all connected is everything minus the belt and backpack.

If i wanted these to all be on 1 uv island despite them not being connected in any way (due to them floating) how would I do so...?

is it simple a matter of goz to maya. Combine the elements I want - i.e. boots and belt to body. Keep the belt separate....?

Sorry for not coming across clearly... my main point is if i have a retopped mesh with floating geo how would i get this onto the same UVW island?


Also... If my high poly mesh is in several different subtools... would i merge these subtools to become 1 mesh before taking in x normal? and what if i had already polypainted it.. would i lose this data?

cryrid

I don't think you'd really want them all to be one 1 UV island. The distortion would be pretty bad, and it would make baking harder as well if you have different polygons fighting for the same UV space. If that was a goal for whatever reason, then you'd probably be better off having them be modeled as a single solid mesh instead of in parts.

(what you're describing isn't really what people mean when they say floating geometry).

Also... If my high poly mesh is in several different subtools... would i merge these subtools to become 1 mesh before taking in x normal? and what if i had already polypainted it.. would i lose this data?

They wont have to be combined. Xnormal will let you import several meshes at a time. It also includes support for polypaint, so as long as you export the tool from zbrush with polypaint on, then the data will be there.

David Wakelin

Cheers Cryid

- 2 last questions!!!

1. If i have mesh under mesh - i.e. a tshirt ontop of a body - will this cause baking problems? I know its usually best to remove the mesh underneath - so sounds like a pointless question but didnt really want to have to go through all my subtools again.

2. when you mentioned the UV island. I understand that was a bad idea - but say for example i have everything connected; EXCEPT the rucksack which is seperate and the boots which are seperate - how would i combine these into another UVW map to ensure im not having 3 maps but 2? or would it really be just using a smaller map size and texturing each on their own island?