zBrush - LP Creation

mobpapst

Hey there,

i made a little weapon with zBrush. Whats the best way to bake maps from it and create a lowpoly?

I heared that the zBrush unwrap and the maps are not the best. Plz give me your advices.

I want to use this asset in a UDK 4 scene.

Greetz

Stirls

Most people bake maps using an external program like xNormal. You can 'colour' your mesh in zBrush via Polypaint - a tool which essentially allows the user to paint over the geometry using the faces as reference data!

You can activate this by hitting the "Rgb" or "Mrgb" tabs.



There are ways of baking normals/AO/cavity/displacement maps within zBrush using the projection tools, but I'm afraid they're a bit finnicky. I highly suggest downloading xNormal from here: http://www.xnormal.net/1.aspx

Tutorial here: http://youtu.be/e8M4wrCBcDE

The unwrapping in zBrush is okay if you just want to save down your polypaint data for transferring down to a low-poly. I'd probably stay away from them unless you're making little props/small organic designs. The general layout that zPlugins like UV Master create are usually pretty good, but can be a bit rubbish if you're looking to optimize space and detail. I'm a fan of UVLayout, a small standalone program.

That said, UV Master is a great starting point. http://pixologic.com/zbrush/features/UV-Master/

UV Layout: https://www.uvlayout.com/

Here's some of the stuff you can get out of it, albeit I've never gotten such results:



Finally, creating a low-poly can be done in zBrush using the (incredibly confusing) Topology brush. You might have better luck than I did, but I just opted into purchasing a copy of 3D Coat and using that for all of my topology needs. There are alternatives like Topogun, too.

http://www.topogun.com/

If it's a gun, though, you could probably just create a low-poly mesh in your program of choice. If you don't have Max or Maya, Blender could do the job just as well.

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Sorry if this is a bit of an information overload, or if you know most of this stuff already.

mobpapst

@ Stirls

Hey mate,

thanks for this great and detailed expression. My first idea was to decimate my hp in zbrush and load it as "shape pattern" in max to build a fast lp. But i wasnt sure if this is a typical way to do it.

I always bake in xNormal or directly in max. the results are very simular.

But i got one additional question. My hp will be much more detailed as my lp and i dont think that all part will get a piece in my uv, beause i can bake some stuff on a plane.

How to get now a good color map if i want to texture it in dDO? What would be the best solution?

Greetz

Stirls

That's pretty much what I do. Decimate then retopologise! If it works for you, then do it. Sure, there's gotta be a method to the madness, but if it gets the job done in a reasonable amount of time, do it.

I'm not sure what you mean with your additional question. If you mean there's a lot of small details, just try to duplicate as much as you can. If you have two boxes of near-identical size, just unwrap one, and duplicate it. Optimizing your UV's is a tough one.

Colour maps are easy

1. Crack open your mat editor, then assign some colours. Make sure your self-illum is on 100. Each colour represents a different material or base for your DDO textures.



2. Assign them to your model. Make sure the model has adequate UV's.

3. In Rendering > Render To Texture (0), fill in the appropriate file paths and stuff.

From here, you need to enable projection mapping. It will ensure that you're actually baking your selected materials down to the UV Map.



Finally, add an output of a "diffuse map", and select your resolution! This is where the self-illumination comes into play, as you don't get any baked shading along with it.



Afterwards, you should get something like this, where each colour signifies a certain base texture.

mobpapst

Thank you for the detailed explanation how to make color maps. But i already know this :P. But its maybe quite important for other guys in here.

Iam gonna show you what i mean exactly with my additional question. I want to demonstrate it on antoher model i've done, but with the simular problem:

Here is a Plate with rounded shapes in it. Its from the HP:




Here is the Plate of the same direction from my LP. I reduced it only to a plane:




And this is the UV from the LP plane you can on picture Nr. 2:





The roundet details from the hp are only available through the normal map i get after baking. But as you can see no one of the details get space in the UV cause they are dont needed on the lp.

And back to my question. How shall i create a good color map for dDo when iam missing these details in my UV?