zmapper question.....

fritz · Dec 2005

so for those of you who have successfully zmapped things, let me get this straight.

i can build a low poly model and unwrap it in max. import it into zbrush. go crazy and make it look all neato. then import the low res into zbrush. then zmap it for the normals?

i normal mapped something out of max before but ended up w/horrible seams. i heard zmapper corrects all seam issues. have you found this to be true?

one last question: if i were to generate my normals in zbrush. where do i go to save out the normals as a targa?

thanks!!!

Silva_Spoon · Dec 2005

1) You dont need to reimport your low res to zmap it. Just drop down to the lowest sub div level and then zmap

2)There is a "Seam Overpaint" slider that you can bleed your maps with. In max use "padding"

3)After Normap map generation the new normal map is automatically put onto your model in zbrush just goto the Texture drop down menu at the top and hit export. Make sure you flip it verically before doing so.

fritz · Dec 2005

OK...here's what i'm after. i build the low-res in max and unwrap it. i then brought it into zbrush for a test. i zbrush it up. then i hit zmapper. the normals on the low-res came out fine. but when i export to get the targa...things are jumbled up. here's what i get:

this is the unwrapped low res from max:

then when i try to export the normal map out of zmapper, i get this:

Silva_Spoon · Dec 2005

It looks like you used zbrush to auto unwrap the mesh so its UVs are different now.

fritz · Dec 2005

i never clicked any auto-unwrap. where might that be? are there any workflow tuts available for this that you know of?

headengine · Dec 2005

I've been having the same kind of problem.

We spent a bunch of time working on a tight workflow for normal maps generation (max>zbrush and back) and I'm hoping we might start to use zmapper even though we're mid production to save some time and messing about.

So far though I'm getting the same issues... garbled UV's, even though they'd been all nicely unwrapped in max... must be something simple I'm not doing