Hi !
When I export my zsphere based mesh in .obj, then just import it, the model is scaled down. No problem with a mesh generate in another 3d package. What am I doing wrong ? Is there a way to do some kind of reset Xform in zb before export ?
Hope you understand my english :S
Thanks 
I have duplicated this and am looking into it for you.
Hey sorry I don’t have an answer for you but thought that this would be a good place for my problem.
I’ve got a large terrain in zbrush. I need to resize it in maya, so I exported the base mesh from zbrush, scaled it in maya (freeze transform, delete history, etc) and then re-imported it into zbrush.
Now I’ve got my terrain the correct scale and with all the LOD’s intact.
-> saved that as a new .ZTL
BUT! - Now I’m trying to mask off certain sections, create groups based on visibility and then subtools from a Group-Split. The problem I have is when I click that Grp-Split button, the mesh re-scales itself back to the original size!!
WTF!?
Anyway, this probably doesn’t help your problem but at least we both know that the issue isn’t limited to zspheres or meshes from maya.
Can anyone else help us? What’s going on here??
thanks,
-endo
Thanks aurick 
I’ve found another problem, certainly related to this. I’ ve made a cube in max, and exported it in .obj. Then, I ve scaled the same cube i max, resetXform, collapse, and export. The two cubes have the same size in zb3. They have differents sizes in zb2 
It seems to be a basic workflow so I’m wondering if I made a mistake…
Ok, I got It ! :idea:
Tell me if I’m wrong. Before the export and import, zbrush makes a unify on the mesh (that what not the case in zb2, I’m not crazy 
). So I simply make a unify on my zsphere based mesh (and lost all the subtools 
), and now, the tool and the imported mesh have exactly the same size.
i got the same problem, i export a mesh. import it again, and its unified, thus diffrent scale and translated, damn annoying when im working with multiple subtools that all have to line up
Yep, this is an issue for me too. Really screws up the workflow, which used to be stable in Z2 
Basically any ZSphere mesh I create, will not scale correctly when exported/reimported. Seems to only affect meshes created within zbrush - for example if you make a model in Max, bring it into ZB, sculpt it a bit, then send it out and back in again it should be fine.
Easy steps to recreate the bug:
- Create a basic ZSphere setup, create an Adaptive Skin mesh from it.
- Sculpt the resulting skin mesh a little.
- Export the skin mesh to OBJ.
- Immediately re-Import the OBJ skin mesh. Notice that it will be a different size to the one you just exported.
This is 100% reproducible on my end, and very very annoying
Hey man follow THIS LINK. It might help.
My post should be at the bottom of that page. Basically I’ve noticed that if you’re exporting, re-importing and having having scale and translate issues with subtools, you can avoid it by splitting the mesh into subtools ON ANY SUBDIV LEVEL EXCEPT LV1.
So I’m confused by all this. Wouldn’t it have been so simple if there was an on/off option for unify on import instead of making their customers have to figure out a work around? I just discovered this, among dozen other things between applications that want to stop my workflow as I learn things, nothing can just ever work can it, and there always seems to be one overlooked thing in each application to turn things into a nightmare
Anyway. So I found the only way around this was to unify the tool in the deformation tab before exporting, so thus on import, it comes in the same size. But why should I do that, why do I need to resize things, that’s going to cuase problems amoung other tools, right?
Now, if I had subtools, like clothes, eyes, whatever, this can break the program. I did a quick test. A head I did with one subtool eyes, unify it, it gets smaller, but the eyes in subtool don’t change. I then unify the eyes, it gets larger, the size of the head. So, the head shrinks in half, the eyes grows 3 times the size.
So, I try this, gm770 plug-in to merge subtools into one object, each subtool being given a polygroup, which then you can use to later split them back apart. Though, that’s if you didn’t have multiple polygroups on one tool you didn’t want split or merge. So I merge the head and eyes togethor, unify them, then split them. But that’s useless as the split parts are no longer unified. As I export the eyes, immediatly reimport the eyes, they come in unified, and like before, as now as big as the head again.
Isn’t this a horrible mistake for this program? How are you suppose to export tools to say give them UVs, import them back in to create your displacement map or paint, if they want to unify earch time. And there seems to be no way to avoid that. If it was one simple object, fine, unify it ahead of time, but if you got eyes, other parts in subtools, already aligned up, this auto unify on import is a disaster.
Now I have to find out why Hexagon 2.1 and 2.2 wants to reorder the points from my zbrush export, causing things to explode when you improt and go backup to high subd.
HOW HARD IS IT TO DO A QUICK UPDATE TO ADD AN OPTION TO NOT UNIFY ON IMPORT!!! Wasn’t that an option in the past under Preferences>Import/Export? Why remove the option, and always leave it on?
So, no way to turn off UNIFY on import objects? No answers. Again, why do they have set to always on with no off, if I wanted to unify it, I could do that after import in the deformation tab.
Came up with this thread whilst searching for a solution to the same problem. Has any fix been found?
Doh, found an easy solution to this today - store a morph target before export, and morph your mesh back down to scale on import.
mcgoat, doesnt the morph target revert it to what it was before you imported? for instance, you export a obj that is different than your current model (layers) then reimport. does this still work? i really wish there was a toggle switch for auto unify
Not sure if I understand what you mean, but if you have layers it should work fine. Maybe you’re need a morph layer so that you could turn the other ones off and just have one layer for buffering any problems, but it probably wouldn’t be necessary.
Bear in mind that the morph target fix is only relevant if the scale is a problem in zbrush but not other apps. By that I mean I just want to export the object to uv it, and bring it back in. Since it seems that zbrush unifies on export not import (people here seem to be saying its unifying on import, which I haven’t noticed), you’ll still have a badly sized mesh in the obj outside of zbrush.
Interestingly, I have managed to export a couple of tools that have had this problem at the right size, but I haven’t yet found exactly what the fix is. However, both the models were subtools of tools that weren’t made from zspheres (ie models that don’t get unified on export). Exporting the objects whilst they were under one of these objects seemed to make them keep their size, in a similiar way to how when you want to retopologise using an existing topology you need your topology mesh and reference mesh as subtools of each other so the size stays consistent.
Anyway I’m not sure if that is the fix but there is a fix somewhere because I’ve pulled it off a couple of times. I’ll try a few tests and see if that consistently does the trick
thanks, i meant for staying all within zbrush, no uv’s etc.
i like to sculpt on different layers cause it give me more options. sometimes i find that i like a model with certain layers on or off, a specific version, so what i like to do is export that version then reimport it into its own new layer, this is where the scaling issue pops up.
I think that Transpose Master will give you a fix for this. What you do is this:
-
Go to the lowest subdivision level - this is essential.
-
Export an OBJ.
-
Press the TPose>SubT button and choose ‘Load file from disk’.
-
Select the OBJ you exported at (2). When you get a ‘The SubTools appear to have changed’ message choose ‘Proceed Anyway’.
-
The OBJ should be loaded in without scaling issues.
Having done the above once you should be able to load OBJs in as usual without problems - and without using Transpose Master again.
HTH,
Marcus, thank you.
I have not tried this today, but for myself i’m not sure this will help, usually when i export out a layer as an obj its never the lowest level. i suppose i could delete lower, then do the export/import, and reconstruct, however will this not mess up my original layers? also do i reconstruct the new obj layer or the original?
also this brings up a related question, when is it best to unify, at the lowest or the highest level, i’ve noticed that they both orient/scale the model differently.
is there any way to disable the auto unify?
Spaceboy,
It doesn’t matter what you normally do. Simply export and re-import a OBJ from the lowest level using Transpose Master following my instructions. The point is that TM fixes the scaling issue for the ztool (providing you have the latest version of TM). Once you’ve done this once it will be fixed and you don’t need to use the TM method for subsequent export/imports.
I’ve no advice to give on unify I’m afraid, and there’s no way to switch it off that i know of.
" It doesn’t matter what you normally do"
yikes,bite my headoff, sorry, i was just explaining cause i was somewhat confused, i will do as you say and see what happens.
Spaceboy,
Apologies, I didn’t mean to be rude. Scaling on import was an issue with TM, that’s why I think it will work for this.