workflow question - maya and Zbrush

n88tr

So i want to at least to try to figure this out before i get too far in.

Correct me when i screw up:

1. I make highpoly mesh in maya
2. import to zbrush
3. do whatever i want to in zbrush, scratches, engraving etc
4. export back to obj
5. open in maya

and then it's a super high poly mesh from it being in Zbrush

then what?? treat the new high poly mesh as my high and then tear that mesh down to a low and bake?

or should i have a low poly made up already before even step 2?

maybe i'm overthinking things and a high mesh is a high mesh, zbrush aside?

Thank you PC

cryrid

You can start with a mesh in Maya, doesn't have to be highpoly or anything (that would depend on what you're making and your own preference for how you like to work).

When you export a mesh from zbrush, it will export the current subdivision level as an obj. So if you export the mesh at level 1 you might be left with something that looks similar to the original Maya mesh, if you export it sculpted at level 7 you might find yourself with a few million extra polygons worth of detail.

Since you have Maya, you may want to look into GoZ, which is designed to quickly pass a model back and forth.

If you're done sculpting and are satisfied with the sculpt, you may even want to run Decimation Master on it before exporting.

'a high poly mesh is a high poly mesh, zbrush aside'

A common workflow is to acquire a highpoly mesh by whatever means (sculpt or otherwise), create a lowpoly mesh by whatever means (such as retopology), and then use xnormal/render-to-textre/ultimapper/whatever to bake.

n88tr

I USE xnormal to bake? I thought it was just to tweak the output normal map.

seth.

Xnormal will cope with an undecimated high poly from zbrush, and can also generate a colour map from your polypaint...I think that Maya will bake a better AO, but Xnormals will surfice....never managed to make it crash either....and I have tried

eat 3d has a couple of freebies:

http://eat3d.com/free/zbrush_xnormal

http://eat3d.com/free/xnormal_overview

n88tr

So GoZ is a part of Zbrush or is it a plugin kind of thing? I didn't see any download link on that page cryid

cryrid

It's included with the latest versions of zbrush. You should see a small GoZ button (ctrl+G) near where you load and import Tools, as well as documentation for it in

Pixologic\ZBrush 4R2\Documentation\plugins

n88tr

huh xnormal is a lot more than i thought it would be
excited