FBX Import and Export issue with materials

[system]

Hi all,

I have a mesh has been created using Blender and have only one material applied to all Subtools.
I imported the mesh into ZBrush, everything seems fine but then when I export it out, each Subtools has its own material and they are named like : material0, material01, material010, material011, material012, etc…
I have tried all the combination of export and import options but none of them seems to preserve the material setting of the mesh.

This is the original mesh (test using Substance Painter) :

This is after export from zbrush, you can see each parts of the mesh/each subtools is now have their own weird material.

I have tried all of the combination of options below :

Anyone could help shed some light on this issue of mine ?

Thank you guys.

Attachments

[marcus_civis]

The ZBrush FBX plugin assigns a different material to each subtool on export because texture maps (if any) are linked to materials in the FBX format. ZBrush materials are ignored on export.

If your model doesn’t have texture maps, all you need to do is merge your subtools before exporting as FBX. Your model will then be treated as a single mesh and assigned one material.

[system]

Thanks for the reply Marcus,
I still need each part/subtool of the model to be separated though, because I need to manipulate them in game engine.
Could you elaborate about the texture maps issue ? Could I have done something in Blender or 3D program in general to avoid it ?
This is the FBX file that I was using in ZBrush if you can help to have a look :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8BXCoaEXmvhbnVLTlBVd1ZJa28/view?usp=sharing

[marcus_civis]

There’s nothing you can do to stop a new material being assigned to each subtool. But I will look into the possibility of updating the plugin.

Merging in ZBrush won’t weld the meshes together, so I suggest you try that to see if it works for you in the game engine.

[luler]

I tried that but the material exported is different, I am trying to export a silver material, and I am getting mat one:( I merged all subtools anything else I need to do?

[marcus_civis]

You won’t be able to export the look of the material. Materials in ZBrush are just for use in the program and they can’t be directly exported. However, there is a plugin to help you “bake” materials into a texture map. It’s called MatCap Baker and you can find it towards the bottom of this page:
https://pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/zplugins/

HTH,
Marcus

[luler]

Tkx Marcus_civis !!

[luler]

Hi MARCUS_CIVIS ! I just tried MatCap baker plugin but got 2 error messages subtool has no uv coordinates and subtool has no traditional subdivision coordinates ,so used the uv master under zplugin to create a UV and now it’s been almost more than 1 hour in the process of unwrapping ,is that normal?
Am using zbrush 2020.1.4 MacBook Pro Catalina 10.15.5 processor 2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 ,memory 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

I forgot to mention my object has only the silver material no texture map . maybe I should add any texture and decrease transparency to zero for it to work??

Thanks for your help again​

[marcus_civis]

Hi,
I don’t think it should take that long. I’ll get back to you on this.
-Marcus

[luler]

BTW it took all night long and was still unwrapping.

[marcus_civis]

Yes, this is probably because there is bad geometry. For example, if the geometry has non-manifold edges (i.e. when an edge is shared by more than one face) then this can cause problems for UV Master.

If you want to let me see the model I’ll see if I can find the problem. Send me a direct message with a Dropbox or similar link.

-Marcus

[luler]

Tks Marcus!!

[luler]

Many thanks MARCUS_CIVIS ! what you sent is very close:) , I enhanced it in dimension and now it looks almost the same as my model when exported it ! will follow ur advice and try the Projection Master instead of MAtCap ,again million thanks!

[marcus_civis]

You’re welcome, Luler! Have fun ZBrushing!

[luler]

tkx! sorry to bother you again ! I tried to follow your advice on another model to see if I am able to recreate the same effect, so I used UV map uv and the the projection master under plugin, but when I exported the fbx , the material didn’t get exported did I miss anything here?