what is wrong with my workflow ? HELP !!!

BittaSingh

Hello Everybody ,   i need some help  to improve my workflow for character modelling .  i mainly work in zbrush , maya  and substance painter . i will write down  my  workflow   and  then the problems i face  .  if you can help with any of these problems it will be very  helpful  . so  

1 - ( CONCEPT )   so i start by collecting some reference images   for what i want  to make   and start it in zbrush .  i try to get as much details  as possible in this stage only  using dynamesh .   usually i have many subtools   but not crazy high  just around 10 - 15  . once base is finalized i decimate   the meshes and export  them . 

2 -  ( RETOPOLOGY )  so  now i import these decimated meshes in maya  and retopo them using quad draw . i also use  topogun   and  zbrush's  zremesher   sometimes  , depends on the mesh . 

3 - ( UVs )  after retopology i  use maya to make uvs  using uv toolkit  .  i almost  always make multiple UDIMs   . Then I export all the meshes   with uvs  to reproject details in zbrush again . and also save the maya file .

4 - ( REPROJECT DETAILS )   import back all the new meshes  with uvs and proper topology   to  zbrush  and divide them    and project the details back on new meshes .

5 - ( SUPER DETAILING ) now i give all those little little details  like skin pores  , cloth seams and other high end details  .  

6 - ( POLYPAINT )  so this is tricky , i polypaint  to make color id map , which i can use in substance painter .  

7 - ( EXPORT )  now i will export  all the meshes  again both as low and high poly . for high poly  i first decimate them  then export . 

8 - ( RENAME IN MAYA ) import all low and  high poly meshes in maya  and rename them  properly  and use suffix ( _ low and _ high ) . this is done for  sp  .  combine all the low meshes and export them as single object . i use to do same thing with high poly  , but that is not necessary   as i can import multiple meshes  for baking   as long as naming is proper ( i recently find this out  , before that i use to combine the high mesh too , which almost always resulted in maya crashing and  freezing and  wasting my time , which was the main reason i  wrote  this ) .

9 - (  TEXTURE IN SP )  then i import  low mesh  in substance painter    bake   all the maps     and  texture it  too . export all maps  . ( below is not a very good result  , hope this time  i'll make good one )

10 - ( WORK IN MAYA )  in this last step i would  import  and apply the  maps we made in  sp .   and MAKE HAIRS IN XGEN . then render in arnold .  ( below   pic  not rendered in arnold . this is iray  render . this time  i'll render in arnold . )


PROBLEMS  


1 -  ( RETOPOED MESH  CHANGE SIZE )  so this i the first problem i often get . i don't know why   but  when i import the low poly mesh with uvs  that i had made in maya   , its size is reduced . and  weirdly  , some time just re importing it solves the problem   but mostly i have  to export it quite a few time   again from maya and re import in zbrush to get the correct size .  i you know why this happens    please  help .

2 - ( IMPORTING HIGH POLY MESH IN MAYA ) so this problem had wasted so much of my time  because i used to think  i can only use single combined  mesh  as base high mesh for baking  , now i know  i can use seperate  objects  too .   thanks @pmiller001 . but i still have some baking problems  , that ill describe below . 

3 - ( UVS PROBLEM )    don't know why  when i export the high poly mesh from zbrush and import in maya  it  have some trillions of seams . almost like it separates all the polygons , but this generally happens to objects that are duplicated and mirrored . 

4 - (SP  PROBLEMS ) firstly  i am quite new to sp . it  is a wonderful and easy  software  i think  ,  but still you need to study some concepts and things in it for best results  , like masking  and layers they are not that difficult , we all know  photoshop , it is quite familiar .  so my problem here is  when i bake using  match by name   it gives weird results  ( see image below ) i dont know what am doing wrong here   , i mean  when  i use match by always   results  looks still better  ( but those obvious  problems  i do get   because of overlapping and all ) but match by naming  is not working for me . please i need help in this . also why am i getting that strong line in the center of the mask ?

5 - ( MAYA PROBLEMS )    

( multiple UDIMS )  so i dont no  what i was doing wrong but  earlier i was working on a project and i could not  load   textures on all udims automatically . ( like you set one map and all other maps will be automatically   loaded )  this  did not worked for me  . had to set all udims manually .

( XGEN PROBLEMS ) xgen is  super cool for  making hairs   but it kinda  gave me below result  when i tried to render using arnold . 

 so these are some problems iam getting   hope to get some solutions  and  help,i know this got too long  but i hope  this would help  others  too  .  right now i am working on this model  http://polycount.com/discussion/196704/cw-flash-barry-allen-sculpt#latest   and  needed  some help regarding it . please feel free to check and give your crits  on it  . Thank You .

BittaSingh

ok , so   i ran into another problem  , can  someone please help me  out ? . so  i was trying to bake the model am working on , here is a pic  of it in normal  ( i mean just imported low poly mesh no  bake  )   this mesh has multiple meshes   all exported   into single file called  flash_low  , also all the meshes  have names like  face_low  , mask_low  etc  .    so when i baked it  using match by name   i get below  result . i dont know why this is happening  . i have named all the  high poly meshes according to low poly meshes  like  if i have  face_ low then  high poly one is  face_high. still iam getting this   . why ? 
so i tried to bake by match by  always  and i get this result .  these errors are pretty obvious   cause  of overlapping  . right ? or is there something else ?

also i wanted to know  is it  necessary  to have same uvs or uvs atall  on high poly mesh ?  in this scene  my  low poly mesh  have  different uvs than high poly one   ,  i mean uvs are same  but they are not  placed  like  high one . ? please  shine some light on these   . Thank you 

AndySC

Problem 3  (Edit, Problem 4: line down the middle). The mirror modifier can leave duplicate verts/edges along the reflection, these will need merging or will present as two separate edges causing a problem with smoothing.

BittaSingh

AndySC said:

Problem 3. The mirror modifier can leave duplicate verts/edges along the reflection, these will need merging or will present as two separate edges causing a problem with smoothing.

ok , thats a good info    .  so  can i do that in zbrush ? or have to do merge vertex in maya ,  doing in maya will be very unstable  because  of high poly . 

AgelosAp

@BittaSingh your file format might be deleting the naming. What file are you using and where are you exporting it from? for instance Zbrush doesn't keep subtool names if you export in obj so you should use the FBX exporter

BittaSingh

AgelosAp said:

@BittaSingh your file format might be deleting the naming. What file are you using and where are you exporting it from? for instance Zbrush doesn't keep subtool names if you export in obj so you should use the FBX exporter 

yes  i had that problem and now i export in fbx ,  thank you  for  mentioning . i am also having some other difficulties ,  like  my id map is pixelated , i couldn't  found how to solve that , but i found a trick ( to add paint effect  to mask and edit it manually ) . i am doing that right now  . thank you for helping  out . here is the link  to my current  project am doing , please check and  give me tips and crits  . i really need them . thanks again 
         http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2609537#Comment_2609537

Elithenia

You can change the exporting size of the model in Zbrush, under 'export settings' ...