Scaling from zbrush to 3ds max

M1KES · Feb 2012

Hi everyone!
I am going through the process of converting a high rez mesh from zbrush to a low rez one in max. The problem is i made an error earlier on that i didnt think of. When imported the mesh to 3ds max i scaled it x 5000 cause for some reason it was tiny... so i built the low res mesh from there.. now my problem is that i want to bake the normals but i cant get them to match up. How can i scale the zbrush model to be the same size as the 3ds max model?

I cant import the full high rez model into max and scale it, cause it crashes.. so i would like to scale in zbrush if possible.

cryrid · Feb 2012

It might be easier to scale the low poly in Max back up to match the high, then scale it back once you have things baked.

If you knew the exact value you scaled by originally that would make things easier, otherwise you might have to decimate the highpoly, bring that into Max, and find a way to calculate the size of it's bounding box.

M1KES · Feb 2012

Yeah i already tried and decimate and tweak the position by hand, but the normal keep looking off by inches. I tried to scale the low poly ( i originally scaled it up 5000 units) but i did a reset xform and collapsed the model.. so now its default scale is 100 and not 5000 anymore.

poopipe · Feb 2012

scale the low poly down to 2%

cryrid · Feb 2012

Yeah i already tried and decimate and tweak the position by hand

I never do it just by hand. If the bounding box for the highpoly is 250 units across and the boundind box for the low is only 50, then I know what value I need to work with. If for some reason the result doesn't seem to be a perfect match, then it's at least close enough that I can shrinkwrap the lowpoly back onto the high.

Ace-Angel · Feb 2012

A cage should solve your issues, shouldn't it? For baking and stuff, especially if you have Max

M1KES · Feb 2012

Yeah i figured out the 2% gave me back the right scale. But the projection still has some errors.. namely, my character has wings (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94001) and the arms are projecting onto the wings. I am sure a cage should solve that, but i cant really understand how i export the cage from max to zbrush. Its the cage from the projection modier right? I cant seem to export it..
Sorry, this is my first time baking normals!

Anuxinamoon · Feb 2012

Well for future work I would suggest using GoZ to move your meshes from Zbrush to max. All the scaling issues seem to be fixed when you use GoZ.

Also what program are you using to bake your normals? I personally wouldn't use zbrush's normal map generator as it is (now) very limited. You can use Max's one or download a third party program (like Xnormal) which has cage capabilities.

M1KES · Feb 2012

I am using xnormal to bake them.. everything comes out fine, but the arms are projecting onto the wings.. i am not sure how the cages work.

I initially used max for baking (the maps came out fine there), but as i had to decimate the model to get it into max, it lost some detail, so i wanted to do it in xnormal.

M1KES · Feb 2012

got it to work.. just used the cage editor in the 3d viewer... these tutorials were very helpful: http://www.xnormal.net/Tutorials.aspx

RavenTheBird · Feb 2012

M1KES, I usually export the cage from projection in Max only take it to Xnormal.

Here the step by step:

Import a lower res sculpt model into Max,
Project ur Low poly model to your sculpt model,
set up the cage in the projection modifier,
click the export function in the projection modifier,
and you will get a model of your cage,
select your cage model and export it to obj format,
in Xnormal at your low poly tab right click to select a cage file.

Hope it help

Scaling from zbrush to 3ds max

Replies