ZBrushCentral

What exactly is the workflow from High Poly to Low Poly and Rigging

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey Zbrush central,

Not sure if this is the right place to put this since I understand the process isn’t just in zbrush?

I’m not too familiar with sculpting, I’m a travel agent picking up sculpting as a hobby, I’d like to do a 3d scene of myself and my family on a yacht since we can’t afford one irl haha.

So in summary of the process if I understood this right follows as below

Start in zbrush > model the character in T/A pose in full detail>paint the high poly mesh>retopology>zremesh to a low poly>export to maya or uv map in zbrush via a mesh clone>paste UVs on high polymesh>bake UV and polypaint to diffuse,normal etc maps>project on the low poly retopologized zremeshed sculpt> export to maya to rig.

Is this right? Its an observations I’ve made looking on youtube. There isn’t a clear from start to end process however I’d like to know if they way i’m heading is right. Appreciate any advice or response to direct me better!

#2

If Maya is part of the process, you can change a few of the steps around.

The first step is to obtain your highpoly sculpt and low poly model. I would say its fairly common now to tackle the sculpt first and then retopologize it to create the final lowpoly model, but there are times when the opposite could also work. As long as you have your high and low meshes, you’re good.

Only the lowpoly model requires UVs. The sculpt doesn’t require them, and the file size will be much lighter without them. You can create them in a program like Maya or inside of zbrush.

I would strongly recommend baking your maps using a program like xnormal (or substance painter, maya, etc). Unlike zbrush, these bakers will let you use meshes that have completely different topologies which means projection will be unnecessary. They will also give you more control over the normal map, will let you bake additional types of maps, and some of them can even read polypaint data from the model itself (which is why the sculpt doesn’t need UVs).

If you do bake externally, you’ll need to have your highpoly sculpt and low poly model exported as OBJs files. It may be recommended to duplicate the sculpt and run it through Decimation Master before exporting it for baking. This will mess up the topology but will preserve the surface details at a fraction of the file size. Be sure to open the Decimation Master settings and enable the “Use and Keep Polypaint” setting. When you export the sculpt, make sure polypaint is enabled when you do so.

#3

Cryrid, understood. So it short I can sculpt the full details and paint the high poly sculpt than zremesh to make a low poly one and do retopology in maya. Once done I’ll make the UV in zbrush and export the low poly and the decimated high poly for baking into the low poly mesh?

Also if the process only uses maya. Retopology is done on the high poly sculpt before being zremeshed? I saw an incomplete video on that. Not sure if I misunderstood the context.

#4

ZRemesh itself is another form of retopology (in this case the computer does it automatically). So when it comes time to create the lowpoly model you have a few choices. For example, you could:


  • Use Zremesher and simply stick with the results if you’re happy with it,
  • Use Maya’s modeling tools to manually retopologize it with complete control,
  • Use ZRemesher to do the bulk of the work, and ten manually touch up areas in maya.

#5

Ah I understand, Zremesh is just a tool then and there are also retopology tools within zbrush to help guide it?
this person seems to put some lines around before zremesh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqqLKKV5YE4

#6

Yup. You can use the ZRemeshGuides Brush before using ZRemesher to try and give it some extra ideas about how to make the edge loops flow. Unfortunately this is currently a lot less powerful than it used to be in older versions of zbrush (they changed how zremesher works in order to prevent spiraling edgeloops, but as a result curves don’t really seem to be taken into effect unless you crank the strength up to 100).

http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/topology/zremesher/using-curves/

#7

I’m predominately a maya user, and am just starting to dabble in zbrush myself. I just thought I’d chime in here and say that if you’re just planning to make a single image, all the work in maya to do extensive retopologizing and rigging may be a bit overkill.

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I think you can actually do your models and pose them within zbrush using transpose and masking, or “zsphere rigging” and then use the zbrush rendering tools.

If you are planning to make some kind of animation, then you probably would want to look into rigging and animating it in maya… but ultimately, it may just come down to your preference for what helps you get your final imagery the best/quickest.