Crazyeyes, ever tried Modo? Beats every other app I've tried for modeling. Very fast, as for workflow, there's so much customization you can to do to tailor it perfectly to your style. Hands down the most customizable interface. What's most important is what you're used to of course, but if you ever would want to try something other than XSI for modeling... check out Modo. I'm definitely a hotkey user myself, just the fastest way to work.
As for taking a decimated sculpt from Zbrush to XSI (or whatever software), do you do much work on that after decimating? I find it a real pain in the ass with the topology you get from the decimation and all tris.
As far as topology, I usually either take a lower SDiv iteration from zbrush back into XSI and poly reduce/UV or i just take a lower SDiv from zbrush and retop on top of that from scratch in XSI. XSI has a retopologize tool just like in Zbrush but much faster. Its a poly snap function that creates quads while snapping to points. Some of my XSI user colleagues and friends use other features in XSI called Shrink wrap which takes a teccilated grid plane or cylinder or Box and molds the shape around the high poly mesh.
To prevent stair-stepping in CrazyBump displacement maps, just enable the setting "Save Displacement at 16-bit precision," on CrazyBump's preferences page.
It now occurs to me that this feature should probably be more accessible, rather than buried on the prefs page.
If y'all still notice stair-stepping with the 16-bit displacement, lemme know; I can always add 32-bit if there's a need for it.
Well guys, sorry about the 9 month delay but here is a quick tutorial for the Crazybump/ Zbrush thing I explained earlier on post 45. It's crude but I think it sells the point. I would have done a video but since I don't really make that many tutorials (this is my first) I figured it would be a little more cost effective to just write it out with screen shot examples.
Interesting approach. Thanks for sharing your work and your techniques. Its going to be interesting to see if I similar results can be replicated in Mudbox
Since there is no way to restrict sculpting in zbrush to one axis (z) to sculpt out forms do you avoid sculpting at the edges of the mesh? Or is there a way to restrict a brush's axis influences and i'm just dumb?
Since there is no way to restrict sculpting in zbrush to one axis (z) to sculpt out forms do you avoid sculpting at the edges of the mesh? Or is there a way to restrict a brush's axis influences and i'm just dumb?
Thanks!
Mike
If you go to Transform, Modifiers, turn off XYZ, and turn on Z, you'll solve that problem. The only tiling issue I encounter is with AO. AO almost always requires some sort of geo continuation on all 4 sides of the plane to calculate correctly. So you either have to dup your plane, move it over to all 4 corners and then re bake or correct in Photoshop offset.
The only tiling issue I encounter is with AO. AO almost always requires some sort of geo continuation on all 4 sides of the plane to calculate correctly. So you either have to dup your plane, move it over to all 4 corners and then re bake or correct in Photoshop offset.
Replies
As for taking a decimated sculpt from Zbrush to XSI (or whatever software), do you do much work on that after decimating? I find it a real pain in the ass with the topology you get from the decimation and all tris.
I'll have to look into Modo.
As far as topology, I usually either take a lower SDiv iteration from zbrush back into XSI and poly reduce/UV or i just take a lower SDiv from zbrush and retop on top of that from scratch in XSI. XSI has a retopologize tool just like in Zbrush but much faster. Its a poly snap function that creates quads while snapping to points. Some of my XSI user colleagues and friends use other features in XSI called Shrink wrap which takes a teccilated grid plane or cylinder or Box and molds the shape around the high poly mesh.
It's extremly fast. An hour or two job.
It now occurs to me that this feature should probably be more accessible, rather than buried on the prefs page.
If y'all still notice stair-stepping with the 16-bit displacement, lemme know; I can always add 32-bit if there's a need for it.
I hope this helps.
Enjoy.
I have a quick technical question:
Since there is no way to restrict sculpting in zbrush to one axis (z) to sculpt out forms do you avoid sculpting at the edges of the mesh? Or is there a way to restrict a brush's axis influences and i'm just dumb?
Thanks!
Mike
If you go to Transform, Modifiers, turn off XYZ, and turn on Z, you'll solve that problem. The only tiling issue I encounter is with AO. AO almost always requires some sort of geo continuation on all 4 sides of the plane to calculate correctly. So you either have to dup your plane, move it over to all 4 corners and then re bake or correct in Photoshop offset.
I think PhilipK has a nice sulution for this:
http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/materials/stonecracked/stonecracked.html
Thanks, that tutorial sounds like it could work. Ill give it a try.
Thanks everyone. I hope it helps.