ZBrushCentral

3.5R3 (Import/export Scale issues with subtools and transpose master)

ZBrush Usage Questions
#21

nickz,

SubTool Master for 3.5 R3 contains a ‘Scale Offset’ option that will quickly set all subtools to Scale = 1, Offset = 0.

HTH,

#22

Marcus,

Thanks for that. I just gave it a go and it looks pretty cool. Can you explain what is going on behind the scenes? Is it simply setting all the values and changing scale, or is it retaining the scale of everything and then making all the values conform to a scale 1 offset 000 world space coordinates for ease of use?

Thanks again!

#23

^
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Hitting this before I did any I/O activities fixed any scaling problems I was having with my external apps during the normal modeling/sculpting/assembly process. I have not, however, made use of Transpose Master…I dont know if that complicates the situation.

#24

I have also tried opening files that i worked on in 3.1 and 3.5 r2 that were fine, in 3.5 I’ll open the same zbrush files. Then, as a test I imported from Max a few of the earlier base mesh .objs that the subtools were subdivided from. They SHOULD show up in the exact same spot and scale as the existing subtools, but instead they’re in a completely random seeming position and scale.

#25

I also tried scale offset with subtool master, but that seemed to make the situation even worse than before once I got all my pieces into max

#26

i am experiencing the same problem and it is a major bug for us. Very simple workflow - export any subtool as OBJ, model something outside of ZB using it as a reference then import and append it - the new subtool is nowhere close to where it should be. Works perfectly in ZB 3.1.

#27

similar problems here using 3ds max 2010 and zbrush 3.5r3, but i never had these problems with 3.1. what has changed internally to cause these problems?

#28

*update - just figured it out. No guarantee it will work for you, but that’s what happened for me:
somehow i saved a tool with top-most subtool with 1, 0, 0, 0 numbers in Export, that was breaking exporting and appending sub-tools since the correct scale was something like ten times larger. Opened older version and indeed the numbers were 93.021790. Put those numbers in and exporting/importing/appending works as intended now.

I wrote the numbers down in a file just in case, since the moment you change one of the numbers they will change for all sub tools, nothing changes visually but export/import/append scale will break

#29

Hey Joker

Also make sure that the Largest tool is the top subtool and always have that subtool selected when you are appending. Let me know if there is a tool that you can send me to test with as well.

Paul

#30

im having the same problem but im using 3.12 on mac. and i cant figure out whats going on. and unfortunately i dont have a fall back. looks like im out of luck.

#31

hate this one :frowning: but many thanks for the tip with writing down numbers from earlier versions, that just saved me a lot of trouble:+1:

#32

So I’ve been having this same problem as well, and it only seems to pop up if i’ve appended subtools to an existing tool. It seems to shrink my models 100x, similiar to the picture earlier in the thread, and to make matters worse, it offsets the pivot and placement of the model, so I can’t just scale it back it.

The project I am on requires me to go back and forth keeping all the pieces exactly the same.

Would be nice to get some help with this.

#33

Hello

Make sure your export does not say nan. If it does then you just need to get the scale and offset numbers from the top subtool.

Reminder when you are going to start a new project in ZBrush now you have to make sure that your first tool is the tool with the most mass and then append everything to that. (Ex. The demo soldier is the largest mass of his accessories. Do not do a workflow like this. The first tool is the back pack and then append everything to that.

Paul

#34

Hi Paul. What if we don’t know what subtool has the most mass? We work with hundreds of subbtools, and sometimes its hard to tell. And sometimes the client adds something new in the middle of the project. And what about files from previous versions of ZBrush. Most of these have the head as the top tool. We return to these files and update them them all the time. Can we get GoZ or appending of .ma files to work with these? Please tell me that our library of three years of files will not become obsolete as ZBrush moves forward.

Thanks.

#35

Hello

No your files will not become obsolete at all. You can append the .ma or GoZ file to any mesh yes. Do you have a tool that I can have for testing?

Paul

#36

from my thread with the same issue, before R3, foudn some things out maybe someone didn’t see, you can ship around that problem with using a polysphere as the first tool to append you initial basemesh to

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=75645

Ok getting closer to the source of evil and its getting creepy…

so if i open up any tool in zbrush and import my basemesh ( example: www.polyphobia.de/nonpublic/staff.obj) i get these values:
Scale: 480.361267
X Offset: -0.0122
Y Offset: -0.930996
Z Offset: 0
and other funky values with any other mesh exported from max with the zbrush export settings, where are these values coming from? the tool is placed on the scene center, the file is simply in cm as a scaling, it doesn’t matter if i use inches or whatever, so what funky scaling is zbrush using internally?

So others and me searched for ways to get past that scaling issue and found a solution with loading a polysphere which has the scale and offset settings like they should be scale 1 offset 0-0-0, now if you append you freshly imported model, which gets a funky scale and offset value it also gets transformed to 1-0-0-0 as it should be and as it is exported with 1 as the base scale and placed on 0-0-0.
Now if you do the same with any 3d Mesh from zbrush like Sphere3d, Cube3d or whatever Form3d Tool it gets the funky scaling only with the Polysphere i get clean results and if the export values somehow change during the work i can easily change it back to 1-0-0-0.

On a side note, when converting a Form3d tool into a polymesh, the scaling changes from 1 to 0, not so on a polysphere.

So i hope this will help tracking the scaling bug inside the zbrush System a bit more. Didn’t try R3 yet so maybe its already fixed, i can’t say.

#37

Hi Paul. I’m going to try to get you a file. Can I PM you?

Hi Neox. I tried your method with very high hopes. Yes it does sort out those weird export numbers, making them scale 1 and offset 0. However, they import into the original Maya file at the wrong size and place (from where they were when I built them). In the end, this seems to do what hitting the scale offset button in Subtool Master does. And whenever I ry to import a .ma file into ZBrush, it still tells me I have missing vertex info, and aborts.

#38

Yes you can PM me so we can talk. :slight_smile:

Paul

#39

omulu01: ouch, it fixed my issurs from max, so i hoped it could help on maya files too, did you try importing objs instead of .ma files?

#40

Hi Neox. Obj’s have never been a problem for us. I am only having trouble getting .ma files to go back and forth in the correct position and scale. But thanks for your ideas! Somehow we’ll get this figured out.