[zBrush] Exported normals' edges don't match

ksenias

Hello, question from another noob in modeling.
I create my normal by sculpting in zBrush, where it looks fine, bu-ut when exporting it all into any other program, seams look weird and kinda inverted. What should I do? Sorry if it was asked before, send me to the discussion then.

musashidan

Zbrush has a weird vertical flip on textures quirk. You have to reflip the texture either on export from ZB or in photoshop. Also, if you're using S Painter I highly recommend baking there. It's a much more modern baker and ZB NM bakes are not as good quality as other bakers like xnormal/substance/handplane/knald.

ksenias

How weird, I thought that zBrush must be perfect for such tasks since we make nice high poly models there.

I could not get how to flip it well. Tried flipping one channel in PS, erasing half of the edges, to find out I did something wrong. Flipping channels in zbrush has no effect also, since edges keep being not matched.
Also, what would be the work sequence for baking nm in painter? I should not create high poly, detailed model from lowpoly in zBrush, but start painting right in SP? I really don't know, sorry, got used to zbrush and it's automated remesher, create normal/texture so have no idea how to do by other means.

musashidan

ZB baker is just very old and was never really the best quality. There is a 'flip vertical' button in the texture palette.  I'm not sure is ZB tangent basis is directX or opengl. S Painter is directX by default.

Baking in SP is very straightforward. It can handle very high poly meshes as it doesn't have to load the mesh physically in the viewport.

If you search for Michael pavlovich on YouTube he has a ZB to SP baking process video.