Quick question about zbrush-->retopo workflow.

ahendowski

Hey everyone!

So I'm trying to wrap my head around the process of workflow, and for some reason it's not clicking or making sense.

I'm trying to do everything in Zbrush, retopologize in 3d-coat, then uv unwrap and then go from there.

So my question is, after I do a sculpt, I retopologize, then I UV unwrap... how do I polypaint from there? Can I polypaint on the high-res sculpt and bake it out? If so, how does it know what my low-res UV maps are?

I've always figured you create a low res mesh, uv unwrap, then bake normals / color maps to the UV's. But if you retopologize, it seems like you'd have to go back and re-sculpt the details.

Anyone can clear this up my any chance?

ZacD

zBrush has better retopo tools than 3d-coat, there was a thread comparing the newest tools in each one, and zBrush came out ahead. I still like 3d-coat's if you have to use it.

You can polypaint the high poly and bake that to the low poly, yes. Baking uses the low poly mesh and UV's and then looks at your highpoly.

ahendowski

So essentially, I can create an entire character from sculpt to texture, and then retopologize it, uv unwrap, then using something like xnormal, bake the normal maps and the color maps?

I apologize for the really newbie question, it's just my head is having a headache of a time trying to wrap my head around the process.

cryrid

so essentially, I can create an entire character from sculpt to texture, and then retopologize it, uv unwrap, then using something like xnormal, bake the normal maps and the color maps?

Yup. XNormal allows you to bake the polypaint colors of the highres sculpt onto the low poly. You just need to
1. Export your polypainted sculpt with polypaint turned on (decimation optional, but if you do be sure to enable the 'Use and Keep Polypaint' option under the preferences)
2. Uncheck 'Ignore per-vertex-color' in Xnormal's highpoly options
3. Under Xnormal's Maps to Render options, enable the 'Bake Highpoly's vertex colors' map