RoZ - Futuristic Skater + Zbrush Tips n Tricks

[VisionSeeker]

Hey everyone,

Lately I have been working on a character for a small UDK project that we are doing with some of my classmates, one of the things we want to learn is how to properly use normal mapping low poly objects/characters using high res sculpts. This is my first Zbrush Character, so I still have so much to learn. Hence this post!

I am really interested in your opinions on the character!

Also if you have any cool Zbrush tips and tricks for workflow or character creation let me know!

Hopefully we can collect some usefull tips and tricks in this post.
If the Zbrush section becomes to big we could always start a new post on this topic

RoZ
A futuristic skater, who uses advanced organic technology's to scavenge deserted ruins of a depopulated world.

Maya Concept
http://i43.tinypic.com/dc37nl.jpg
Zbrush WiP images
First Blockout
http://i42.tinypic.com/24xndl5.jpg
Texturing Blockout
http://i41.tinypic.com/xlcqc7.jpg

Please not that this is still a work in progress :)

Zbrush Tips n Tricks
Some of the things I have learned so far!


Zapplink

Photoshop Power
Great Plugin for editing your textures in photoshop, copying new material on to your texture and more!

Baking Matcap Materials with Zapplink
OMG this is how:
Isolate the object with the material you want to bake
Set front,back,left,right,top and bottom camera in Zapplink properties

Zapplink

Ctrl+C the Shader Layer (which says do not touch:poly124:)

Ctrl+V the layer above the diffuse layer

Set the layer to hard light

Merge down (I suggest making a photoshop action for this to speed up your workflow)

Repeat for all the other camera angles

Ctrl+S

Go back to Zbrush and accept all the new zapplinked polypaintings


Congrats you now have your shader data copied to your polypainting :)
Kudos to Screenwriter805 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWRsUkPiSK4

UVMasters
Awesome, a one button UV unwrap plugin. How perfect!

Subtool Masters
Import multiple .obj fast
Export multiple subtools to .obj fast

Efficient High to low Poly creation using Zbrush
My understanding so far:


High Res Sculpting in Zbrush
Base mesh with quads
Even spaced quads
UV irrelevant



Polypainting in Zbrush
Zapplink for speeding up the process using reference material and baking matcap materials



Retopo low poly
Using 3D Coat, Topogun, Maya with plugins or max with plugins to retopologise your character. (dont know which is the most efficient yet)



UV low Poly
Zbrush UV masters or 3D Coat for precision.
Other methods: UV layout by headus (old school), Maya, Max



Combine High poly with Low poly

Xnormals ftw?http://eat3d.com/zbrush-xnormal-pipeline

Let me know what you think and if you have anything to add :D

[VisionSeeker]

I have been working on converting the high res sculpt to a nice UV'd low poly version. I had to push the production for a school presentation deadline. Here is what I got so far(just diffuse applied):
http://i40.tinypic.com/ohrbx0.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/4g45d0.jpg
Feedback is appreciated.

I also ran into trouble though. I split my model in half to save UV space and probably something went wrong with the normal mapping. Because now I have this huge seam on my normal mapped character. This doesn't seem to be a problem on the diffuse though. Any tips on how to fix this?

http://i40.tinypic.com/148q88p.jpg

[greyocto]

what you probably did when you baked it was you used only half the low model. thus the normals will be bent wrong along that seam. what you should do is rebake the normals onto the complete welded low poly model and offset the uvs of one side by -1. Then when you bake the seam along the middle will render correct. there is a tut around here somewhere how to fix them too: http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=51088

[chrisradsby]

Which software do you use? when you split your model what method did you use to get everything back together?

EDIT:
Oh I saw that you use Maya, I think I know how to fix it in Max though I don't know how to fix in in Maya.

[Avanthera]

you could always do this:
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=51088

since its in udk, I think you have to mirror the uvs over horizontally.
or is that just for static meshes and light maps? dunno :)

[VisionSeeker]

Thanksguys,

That link is exactly what I needed shrew!

As soon as im home I will try this out :D

[{scumworks}]

Rather then deleting the other half of the lowpoly (when baking the normal map), offset these uv's so they dont render.

You can read about it as part of poop's tutorial.

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/normal_workflow_2.htm

Or you can (as shrew81 said) fix it in PS.

[VisionSeeker]

Hey everyone,

I have been reading the poop's tutorial, which was certainly interesting.

Software Used
Zbrush to sculpt
I use Xnormals to bake the high resolution data to the low polygon UV's.
Maya to quickly preview results
Goals is UDK

Here are my temporary Diffuse and Normal Textures (I kind of rushed the retopo and UV part for deadline purposes).
http://i39.tinypic.com/34hfaqo.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/2dkfmol.jpg

Redoing low poly topo + UV

Since I want to redo this process, to learn a more efficient workflow I wonder if you guys have any tips for me?

I found baking with Xnormals queite a tedious process. I had 18 different objects to bake and had nearly 60 seperate texture files to combine into one PSD. Should I combine my zbrush model to less subtools so it saves a lot of exporting/baking/merging time?


From Poop's tutorial I figured out that your engine basicly dictates whether or not you can mirror and flip UV's. As far as I have figured out at this moment, you can use mirrored UV's in UDK. But how can you actually get the most optimized/efficient UV layout, while avoiding nasty seams in a smooth workflow?

Going to try the PS fixing trick now just to know how it works.

[Tea Monster]

Baking normals is a heavy pain in the ass. I've had to split stuff up into different parts and all that jazz.

One thing I've done is to use a cage. UV map your low poly, then dupe it off a different layer and use that as a cage.

I break up my cage and my high-poly for baking purposes, leaving my low-poly model in the configuration of what will be in game. That way, I can move parts away from each other to avoid overbake errors. The problem is, that your Hi-poly and cage look like an exploded view of what it should be, but that way, you only need one UV Map and you don't have to re-assemble everything in PS. Because the cage and the low-poly share the same UV Map, you can arse around with the cage and hi-poly as much as you like to get an optimal bake and everything will match up when you apply the cage's bake to the low poly model.