I understand that one can’t simply “export” a material the way one exports a texture. “Materials” in ZBrush are unique to it and are handled differently in other programs, with their own proprietary shaders etc. So I’m wondering – what’s the best way to replicate (or at least approximate) my model’s beautiful ZBrush materials in Daz Studio? These are the steps I’ve been following. Am I doing it right?
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First I polypaint the model, putting both materials and textures on it.
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I use UV Master to create UVs for my model. This works well enough for my present purposes. ZBrush exports .OBJ files with the UV information embedded, it seems. All good so far!
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I create a texture map, using the submenu in the Tool palette. So I get a nice diffuse texture – but of course it’s just the polypaint, not the “underlying” materials.
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I create a displacement map for the model. Obviously this requires that I’ve subdivided the model at least once. I drag the displacement map to the alpha palette on the left side of the ZBrush UI.
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Following a Youtube tutorial, at this point I create a simple Plane3D, make it a polymesh 3D, and then apply the displacement map to it. This gives me a plane with a bumpy appearance. I then apply the material to the bumpy Plane3D. Then I export this as a displacement map.
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Should I instead be using Multi-Mesh Exporter and not bothering with this whole plane3D rigmarole?
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Whichever way I do it, I get uneven results in Daz. I seem to do better just exporting a texture map and then fiddling with Daz’s own shaders, which seems to be what the Daz people recommend.
So, is this process on the right track? Should I consider investing in Substance Painter to improve my results? I’d appreciate any advice. Thanks!