[zBrush] Maya > zBrush > Maya

Naturalbeef

Hi, 
Hoping someone can help me here. I've recently jumped into zBrush sculpting and I'm curious about everyone's workflow. I have created a low poly model inside of Maya and imported it into zBrush. What I'm specifically curious about is how to transfer the high poly sculpt onto the low poly model and how it works with UV unwraps. Do you guys do a separate retop model inside of zBrush or Maya after the sculpt and then unwrap the new low poly model? If any one could give me a hand, I would be very grateful. 

Pic for reference.







I guess to summarise. I'm just wondering where I go from here or how you guys would approach this 

Thanks

Alex_J

So, you need to bake the details from the hi model to the lo model. 

First, your lo model needs to match the hi model as closely as possible. Try duplicating your Ztool, and on the duplicate delete all the higher levels above the lowest level. Check and see if that lowest level matches your hi. You may need to adjust some vertices. This isn't rocket science, but it does help to see pro's do it a bit if you haven't done it yourself. There is plenty of tutorials about re topology out there. I wouldn't spend forever on this, as you won't fully understand what is going on until you get into the actual baking. Once you start troubleshooting errors you are having in that step, then you will inevitably start realizing some things you could have done better in these first two steps -- retopo and UV unwrap.

Once you are happy with the lo poly, you'll need to UV unwrap it. This part is a bit more complicated, but it's something easy enough to do in practice if a bit tedious. Again, there is a million tutorials about UV unwrapping. You can get started by checking out the polycount wiki. Again, I wouldn't sweat trying to get things just perfect on your first try. Either way, you are going to do a lot of things poorly but you need to get to the next steps which rely on the UV's before you will start understanding what is really going on.

Me personally, I do any retopo work and UV unwrap in Maya. 2018 has a great UV toolkit -- I don't see a reason to use any 3rd party stuff. I do the retopo just because I'm quicker at moving around in the Maya interface than in Zbrush. It's just whatever your preference is.