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Rigging model from Zbrush in Maya

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I am modeling a character right now in Zbrush and once completed will do the texturing and displacement map. I am new to rigging, just got Body Language to help with that for Maya. My question though is will the 1st subD level be ok for the rigging? It is at around 7-8 thousand polys. The displacement, texture map will take care of the details at render time, but as far as the rigging goes would the model be ok exported at the lowest level or would it need to be higher, possibly subD 2?

I’m doing this to understand the Zbrush to Maya workflow in creature rigging and detail. I was reading in Zbrush Character Creation that if your going to be rigging the model make sure there is enough edge loops on the lowest subD to make up the shape of the character for weight mapping, etc.

I could use some advice as to what you riggers do. Thanks.

#2

Since the model was created from scratch in ZBrush you probably never stored a morph target at level 1 before dividing it. This means that you don’t have a cage mesh.

What you should do is turn on Tool>Geometry>Cage. You may get better results at level 2 than you do at level 1. Whichever one you like better, export that. You will also want to create your displacement map while Cage is turned on, since it’s critical that the map be generated for the exact model that it will be applied to.

#3

Ok, I made a morph target and clicked cage on subD1 since I didn’t have much detail yet on the higher levels. What exactly does this do? It seems that it morphs the geometry back to the original morph target. I’m assuming you use store morph target throughout the modeling in zbrush and when satisfied click cage on subd1 and export? Still, I’m not sure what cage does visually.

Is it more logical to use a lower poly count mesh at subd1 its 8,482 while at 2 its 34,331? When I start rigging for example instance subD1 I guess softening the normals instead of smoothing would be best to get smooth look. Softening normals won't give my displacement map problems on a MR render will it? Thanks.