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how do you export from Maya to Zbrush??

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

hey everybody, im confused on how to export my pawn chess piece into zbrush so i could add bumps to it. im using maya 7 and Zbrush 2.0… in maya i go to File>Export selection…then i go the the options section and i see a drop down menu that says General>File Type > Maya Ascii, Maya Binary, Move, Mental Ray, Fbx. i’ve read if u want to export u have to save it as an object file (.obj) but i do not see this option on maya… does anyone know how i can do this… do i have to install some sort of extension in order to save objects as objects? please help

P.S. if u do not have the an answer please do not bothering leaving messages that do not progress me from this matter. Thank You.

#2

does anyone know how to export from maya to zbrush…i seem to not have the option of saving it as a obj file…does a .fbx work good with zbrush???

#3

nevermind i figured it out

windows->settings preferences->plugin manager

load the objExport plugin.

u should now have the option to export ur objects as .obj for zbrush (in certain cases)

#4

heres the tihng: I edited the demohead in zbrush to learn from…and as I built on him I wanted other objects like horns on the head. So I couldnt figure out how to make them in Zbrush I made them in Maya and attached them VIA Maya, When I imported back to Zbrush I could see the horns backface and the rest of the demohead just fine, What went wrong?

#5

Jikaru you’ve got normals inverted in horns. Probably hapened when you’ve duplicated one horn and scaled it by -1 on X.
Anyways, the solution is here:

  1. go back to maya
  2. select horns
  3. go to Display>Polygons>Face Normals
  4. check if in both horns are Normals (lines in the ceneter of polygons) are pointing out.
  5. in case if they point inward: go to Polygons menu, Normals>Reverse
  6. Now select horns Modify>Freeze transformations
  7. export them to zbrush as .obj

that should sort it…

#6

Thanks vadim, that would help if I didnt already connect the horns to the head lol, Maybe Ill prepare a little better next time, But instead of me having to go through all that Theres one thing I dont know how to do and that is switch to lets say for example: From brush Zadd tool to Zball tool and build on an object with the Zballs. Cause When I do that It seems the other object dissapears so im afraid to go much further to play with it without losing progress. And sometimes when I switch between tools it seems to start another object instead of adding onto the previous object I made and just brushes a new completely useless “layer” over object. I love this program but only when I first start it up because If I make a mistake I cant just switch back to the tool cause It doesnt do what it did before.

#7

thanks vadim :smiley: