ZBrush and scale?

jordank95

I realize when I start a sculpt in Zbrush I can sub divide and dynamesh at low numbers and get a good sculpt. But when I import a mesh from Maya that was modeled to real world scale, the numbers in Zbrush are really hard to work with. 

For example, I made some big greek pillars for a blockout in Maya to the right scale, brought them into Zbrush and noticed I had to really boost up the Dynamesh numbers to get what I needed. In the end the mesh ended up being about 14 million total points in Zbrush and it still wasn't as dense as I would have liked it.

Whats the correct workflow here?

musashidan

I'm not sure about Maya, but Max is a factor of 100 larger than Zbrush. Every operation you do in ZB is optimal at its own native scale(which isn't really comparable to real-world scale in trad 3Dc packages as ZB isn't a true 3D environment)

The unify tool in the deformation palette is ZB's native scale. The other option is to install the Dynamesh master plugin. You just type in the polycount you want and  It does all the scaling behind scenes for you. You don't have to worry about the scale of your model.

Personally I got fed up wasting time on every project fiddling with scale between Max and ZB so I have been use the Styx plugin for about 2 years now. It is so good that Max/ZB are essentially one package now. I can jump in and out effortlessly with ZERO scale issues. If you do a lot of work between Maya and ZB then I highly recommend it. It's only $5, and it's a workflow changer.

kanga

Styx sounds good, haven't tried it yet.  You could also load the demo soldier into a scene. That model is at optimal size for sculpting in ZB. Then bring in the pillars. Assuming the soldier model would be about 180cm, use that model as a size guide. Scale your pillars to suit, then GoZ them back to Maya to test scale. Back in ZB play with the export settings till the size in Maya is as perfect as you can get. Save the tool the export settings will be saved with it.

If you are baking textures detail your pillars and export the end result usually as an fbx. Copy and decimate the end mesh then GoZ it back to Maya to make a lowpoly retopo over it. Uv the retopo in Maya and you have a hi and lo for baking.

Cheers