Sculpt or Texture small detail

Thunderbeast

As the title says, i am wondering when to sculpt and when to texture small detail. When ever I export from zbrush the mesh will get smoothed and all the often the smaller details get muddied up during the bake. If i were to make those details pop in the bake i would have to amp up the high res model quite a bit. For some reason i can't get comfortable using more than 1-2mil polys for a rock, rubble or other destroyed objects..So i get into the dilemma of high poly count and slower - bake, 3ds max viewport, and potential crash here and there. OR texturing in that detail through something like substance painter.
I am curious to see how you guys tackle these things and maybe another method I am missing out.

musashidan

Often rocks are sculpted/baked to primary/secondary stage and a detail tiling normal map is used for the microsurface, blended in-engine.


I'm not sure what you mean by the detail gets smoothed when you export from  ZB? If your details are being lost in the bake it's because you either don't have enough res in ZB to capture to microsurface(which 1-2 mill generally won't) and/or you don't have enough texel density in your unwrap.  

Thunderbeast

Thanks musashidan! I had suspected that 1-2mil ain't enough but now its confirmed. I even looked back at my sculpts and I am even more conservative than that.
Oddly enough i had not thought of texel density. Which is ironic, because exactly the small area with small uv space had the worse detail projection. I will try to overlap some of the uvs like the insides and outsides, cylindrical object in my case. Going for a what if its breakable scenario. Gonna do it by baking the outside and then creating the inside from the baked outside, to avoid normal mapping issues.
By smoothed detail i mean that Zbrsuh has faceted shading and bumps tend to look more pronounced. When you export and bake, the smooth shading for organic objects well... smooths out the detail .

Butthair

The pronounced bumpiness is actually more about the matcaps in zbrush. Matcap white pronounces details more than they would get shaded in engine or in max/maya.

Depending on the model/material, you may want to try different matcaps that better assume the type of final shading. Characters for instance, SkinShade4, SoftPlastic or even Blinn will give you a better idea as to how the details will show up in max/maya/engine.

 As a general tip, changing your matcaps while you work helps to see your model with new eyes much like flipping your canvas in photoshop.

Thunderbeast

Hmmm, nice tip. I read that matcap gray works really well most of the time and I have been using it. Plus, its similar to what I am used to seeing in max .

musashidan

Or better yet, don't use matcaps. Basic material will give you closest representation  plus it reacts to the interactive lights. Or even better, if you have the Keyshot bridge jump in and out from time to time to view the mesh in a true 3d environment with physical lighting.

Thunderbeast

Gotta love the forums, the knowledge around here is always awesome. Thanks again, musashidan. Will sure try those things.