ZBrushCentral

Subtools going slightly off center between Zbrush and Maya weirdness

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Ok, i dont know how, but things have been going slightly off center going to and from zbrush and maya.

heres the weird thing… I have trousers as a subtool of the body of my character. If i goZ or export as OBJ into maya its off center, If i then center pivot my trousers to make sure its exactly at 0,0,0, then do the same again goZ and try exporting as OBJ into maya… its still off center ?

…but If i load my tousers mesh from maya into a fresh new zbrush doc then goz or exprot to maya its perfectly centered ???:confused:
anyone know what is going on here ?

I can see my torso subtool is slightly off center in zbrush also if i activate the floor plane to check the center line. I can use the deformation to slightly move things in X, but this is no good as I eventually want everything in Maya and rig for animation and it needs to be exactly centered in maya. thanks

#2

check your export settings in Zbrush.

1
0
0
0

is what you typically want to have.

If you start a mesh inside of another application this will typically be off though.
Before you import anything into zbrush you’ll want to load up any mesh that comes with zbrush (3d start up meshes). They will default to the correct settings.

You can merge any new meshes you’ve created outside of zbrush into this file and they will retain the correct export settings to work to and from zbrush using goZ. After you import any mesh, you can delete the base mesh (3d startup) mesh that you had from the beginning.

Hope this fixes your problem

#3

Thanks so much for that , The export settings has fixed my problem:D… I was checking the export/import settings under preferences, i didnt realise that under the tool menu there were these extra settings. When i checked, all axis were off including the scale was at 22?

But i only had proeblems with the X axis slightly off, which i set back to zero, I found i had to leave the y and z and scale at the settings it had or it would completely trhow it off when in maya and the scale would be tiny.

Do you know why this has happened in the first place and why in the export settings my scale is at 22 and x and y axis are also set to something other 0 for position ?

when i import new geometry I always create a zbrush polymesh sphere or star then import my geomtry… is this what you mean loading a mesh before importing anything ?

Thanks again for your help… I was trying to sort it for a couple days :+1:

#4

No clue about the importing and exporting details for maya as I don’t use it.

With importing and exporting I mean appending in new meshes as a subtool, not importing over a star, etc.

Make a startup 3d mesh, sphere, cube, etc. Then use subtool master to import in new geo as a subtool. All subtools will maintain the export settings of the base startup mesh you have (which defaults to 1,0,0,0).

#5

Hey Beta_channel, thanks for your replies, really appreciate your help :+1: its sorted me out great.

The offset export setting problems i was talking about was from Zbrush not maya. after you recommended it under tools not prefs and to be at 1,0,0,0.

My x axis i just set back to 0 and all is good, but i still dont know why zBrush is off on the x, y and scale and I have to leave my scale at 22 and my z is 1.243 or something random… but if i change these it makes it really small and off position, so im only resettin the Xaxis back to o which fixes my problem.

and thanks for the explanation on using an existing 3d mesh then importing as subtools, seems a bit mad this is needed, hopefully next update will fix these issues… thanks again ! :slight_smile:

#6

Not a problem.

I understand what you’re saying.
The reason your settings are at an odd scale and y and z setting are due to scale differences between programs. So if you start in another one chances are that zbrush will be off to compensate for the difference.

Adding new meshes built in an outside program has been a problem since 3.0 I believe. It isn’t a big deal, but yeah, kind of a pain.

If you make a default .zpr or .ztl and have zbrush default to that mesh you can quickly import new meshes that way.

Still a pain, but eh, work arounds.