ZBrushCentral

Transfer Pose from Character from zBrush

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi guys,

I have a problem on my workflow. Bascially what I want to do: Creating a character in DAZ and bring in a nice pose. Exporting the model in a T-Pose to Marvelous Designer → Cloth it → Exporting it in T-Pose to ZBrush → Detail it. I want to have the base of the Character in the T-Pose for further projects/needs. But now I need to bring that Character from ZBrush in the pose which I created in DAZ at the beginning. So the whole idea is to have one final character with cloth and details in a T-Pose, which I can bring in any pose for any needs now and in the future.

What is the best way to get there?

Within my research the closest was this: Pose Your Zbrush Sculpts Fast and Easily! - YouTube
But the problem in my scenario is that I do not have same UV’s, because I am adding the cloth.

Do you have any ideas?

Thanks so much in advance!

P.S. I am using Zbrush, Daz, C4D, maybe there is also a way using C4D for it … (or Maya, Max, Blender also an option)

#2

As far as my knowledge goes, I only see two options, and one of which I have no idea how to do it. BUT I’ll try to give a stating point.

  1. (The one I dont know how to do) rig your character in Blender, Maya, or Max and mimic the pose. This wont allow you to reuse the character in the future but at least you wont have to restart.

  2. Doing this will require you to restart… The pipe line would look something like this: Model character in Daz → Export T posed character as OBJ from Daz to Blender → Create poses in Daz → Export posed character as OBJ from Daz to Blender → In Blender create a shape key from the T pose, to the pose you imported → Now you should be left with one character that has the pose you want as well as a T pose. (side note) [In future, now all you have to do is open that same character in Daz, pose it, import that new pose into Blender, and shape key it to your character. The shape keys stack so you can add as many poses as you wish.] → Export T pose from Blender to Marvelous Designer and make your clothing → Once finished, send your pose to Marvelous and set the T pose as the morph target. Simulate to get the clothing to fit your pose. Dont worry too much about it not being exactly perfect. You’ll be able able to fit it in the next step. → Now that you have your character in their pose with clothing, send them to Zbrush and continue on with your pipeline.

As far as I know these steps must be followed in this order to avoid model size issues from software to software. Also I’m stuck at the UV process as what I’m trying to figure out is how to use UDIMs within Blender and Substance Painter. And im having issues with the Daz UVs. So idk if I need to revise something in this pipeline in order to get better UDIM UVs. I’m not sure yet. But if UDIM isn’t something you’re going for just use whatever you normally would. Also, this a high-ish poly work flow. You could remove parts of the model once they’re in the pose, but you then loose the ability to shape key it back to T pose. So be mindful of that when removing polys. Create a “base” save of the character where it has the T pose and pose. This way you can make adjustments within Blender or Zbrush and bring the fixed pose to Blender and update the T pose with the fixed pose. This pipeline took me a about 8 months of trial and error to get right. 3D modeling learning curve is STEEP af.

Details if you care:
Somethings take too long to explain here but I’ll be happy to help find a video or article that’ll explain steps.

  • When exporting characters from Daz to Blender, in the OBJ export settings set the “To:” to Daz 1 unit = 1 cm. The proportions will be HUGE in blender, but normal sized in Marvelous, Substance Painter, and Unreal engine.
    -If there are still size issues between Daz, Blender, and Marvelous, install the Daz to Blender script addon from Daz Central. Use this script to export from Daz to Blender to get the real world size appropriate characters between Blender and Daz. BUT this is wayy too small in Marvelous to be useful. So you’ll have to scale them up to an appropriate size. I don’t recommend do this btw. But it’ll get your character in Blender if you keep having issues.

  • Shape Key explanation:
    Make Daz character
    Export OBJ to Blender
    Pose character in all her potential poses
    As you finish the pose send export the pose as an OBJ. Same settings as the non posed mesh
    Once all poses are finished being exported.
    In Blender import and select the A pose mesh.
    Go to the object data properties tab in Blender.
    Select the plus sign and a new shape key called “Basis” should appear.
    Now import the posed mesh as an OBJ.
    Select the posed mesh. Then SHIFT select the A pose.
    Go to the object data properties tab in Blender.
    Select the upside down chevron. And select join as shapes.
    The A pose should now have a slider option under shape keys.
    Delete the posed mesh.

#3

Well, wow! Thanks for the detailled feedback <3 I will try it out! Will let you know how it went ……

THANKS SO MUCH!!

1 Like
#4

UPDATE: So I went back and reset my settings in DAZ and Blender to make sure this workflow worked at the base level. It kindda works. I’ll rewrite it so that it works with normal settings. My apologies about that. My Zbrush and Marvelous setting stay default so there wont be an edit for those steps.