Zbrush to Maya video tutorial

[apexpriest]

Hello, last week I did a small Zbrush/Maya presentation for the Atlanta Alias User Group. It was a small quick workflow overview on using Zbrush with Maya.
(http://www.aliasusergroup.com/community/index.php?showtopic=513)
Some of the topics covered were:


-Basic Zbrush tools overview.
-Exporting Displacement from Zbrush.
-Rendering Displacements in Maya.
-Generating Normal maps in Maya.


I recorded a video recap of the presentation, so please feel free to download. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Hope it helps.





DOWNLOAD IT AT THIS LINK
http://www.edwin3design.com/root/news.htm



Sincerely

Edwin Sumalave

www.edwin3design.com (http://www.edwin3design.com)
edwin@edwin3design.com

PS: I'm in the process of updating my site, so check back in the near future. Thanks.

[rasamaya]

Thanks for sharing! I will watch this in a bit- I have to make popcorn first!

[Heart_of_VVolverine]

sounds interesting.
Thanks very much :tu:

[FreddyFish]

I started watching this and in the begining you talk about a plug-in for UV layout on HighEnd3d.com.

What is this plug-in?

[FreddyFish]

Are you talking about FG Auto UV?

[apexpriest]

I was talking about the "Pelt tool uv"

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/texturing/3869.html

you can find more infor at

http://www.sunitparekh.com (http://www.sunitparekh.com/)

[rasamaya]

Im back. I had Smart Food popcorn, with this one.
Heavenly, I forgot how easy normal mapping is in maya.
THank you soooo much for sharing.

[FreddyFish]

That's what I thought you said... but I couldn't find the link.


Thanks.

[skulll_monster]

thank u ...
...i never used Surface Sampler before...its very Cool... :tu:

[Evan Gaugh]

The pelt tool is the best thing ever, I've been using it for a few months now. :D

[apexpriest]

Thanks for the support guys, there are a few thing I need to clarifly about rendering displacement maps there are 2 options that Zbrush allows you to use.


Adaptive: Adaptive displacement is located under the (Tool palatte>Displacements).
When this option is enabled the displacement map will be calculated using
an algorithm that speeds up the generation time while keeping the accuracy
and detail.


DPsubPix: Is a different algorithm, that controls the number of times the mesh is
subdivided as the displacement map is created. The higher the value the
more accurate the overall displacement map will be, but in return it will
also increase the time it would take for Zbrush to generate the
displacement map.


To get a more accurate render in Maya you can export your displacement maps in Zbrush as 32bit instead of 16bit, then convert them into .map files in order to render them with mental ray (you can use the quick code DE-LBEK-EAEAEA-R32 for the Displacement Exporter 2). You will have to always set your alpha gain to 2.2 and you alpha offset to -1.1 for any displacement. This will allow you to get the closet displacement in Mental Ray when compared to your Zbrush model.

Thanks to Ryan K. from the Pixologic team for his help on these topics.


Sincerely

Edwin Sumalave

www.edwin3design.com (http://www.edwin3design.com/)
edwin@edwin3design.com

[womball]

Are normals faster to render in maya than displacement maps? I'm downloading this video right now, slow connection.

[apexpriest]

Womball, here are the map generation render times for the character on the video:

-Maya Displacement(Surface Sampler)---------------7min 5sec
-Maya Normal map (Surface Sampler) ---------------7min 5sec

-Zbrush Normal map(Zmapper)---------------------------8sec
-Zbrush Diplacement(Multi Displacement exporter 2) ------3sec

The video was made for the Maya user to understand the basic capabilites of Zbrush.
Hope this helps

Sincerely

www.edwin3design.com (http://www.edwin3design.com)
edwin@edwin3design.om

[mikemagruder]

Edwin,

I just realized that I don't have "Surface Sampler", because I'm on Maya 6. Does anyone know how to connect ZBrush generated Normal Maps to a shader network in Maya?

Thanks for taking the time to make the video and answer my question!

:D

[Atwooki]

This thread should help:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=3513386#post3513386

Connect the 'Out value' of the normalMapper node to the 'Normal Camera' of the shader :)

Chris

[mikemagruder]

thanks atwooki! I'll give that a try! :)

[bicc39]

Many thanks.
Stupid question.
At two of the Maya shows in New York,last year.
I raised the subject of Zbrush and it was basically voted
down. Can you advise how it came to pass that it was presented
there and are there plans to put it into the "road shows".
Gets tiresome being the voice crying in the desert.
Xsi should not be the only major "zbrushfriendly" program.

[apexpriest]

Hey Bicc39, The user Atlanta user group meeting was set up by Rick P. He is the community manager of www.aliasusergroup.com (http://www.aliasusergroup.com) I'm not aware if there are any plans for "road shows" at the moment. Send him an email, I think he might be able to help you.

Sincerely

Edwin Sumalave
www.edwin3design.com (http://www.edwin3design.com)
edwin@edwin3design.com

[MASTERSHOKHAN]

Thank you so much! I watched your video and I finally understand how to make a normal mapped character. The gallery is about to be filled with my work! muhuhuhuhwahahahaha! :D

******Remember to turn hardware rendering and High quality rendering on************

I did this tutorial 4 times because I couldn't see my normal map, in realtime, in my veiwport.

[carlsden]

hey man, thanks a lot for that video tutorial. There is however one problem with that normal mapping technique. My high poly model file when imported to maya leads to maya crashing.

[MASTERSHOKHAN]

Hey, Carlsden

You can do 3 things here.

1. Export a lower sudivision from zbrush. A subdivision where the mesh is in the 100-900,000 range. Millions of polys crash Maya, my mesh was like 500,000 polys.

2.Change to Bounding box instead of Smooth/ flat shade all before importing the dense zbrush mesh

3. Break the mesh into pieces and map it piece by piece.

[raayaar]

Hi! I just want to thank you for this great movie. You saved me hours, even days of browsing through forums and instructions. Thanks a lot ;)

[MASTERSHOKHAN]

I coppied everything you did in the tutorial but I'm getting this problem. Does anyone know what this is? I used Auv to texture. I tried automatic maping in maya and got the same results.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/MASTERSHOKHAN/problem.jpg

[raayaar]

I looks like you didn't soften the edges on the high-poly mesh before generating displacement map with the surface sampler. Select your high poly mesh, go to Edit Polygons -> Normals -> Soften/Harden and click all soft (180), and apply. I hope this is it...

[carlsden]

Hey, Carlsden

You can do 3 things here.

1. Export a lower sudivision from zbrush. A subdivision where the mesh is in the 100-900,000 range. Millions of polys crash Maya, my mesh was like 500,000 polys.

2.Change to Bounding box instead of Smooth/ flat shade all before importing the dense zbrush mesh

3. Break the mesh into pieces and map it piece by piece.Hey MASTERSHOKHAN (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=24262),

thanks for that but i still dont exactly understand what you mean.
Did you mean to
1: import the medium poly model from zbrush to maya?
2. 'Change to Bounding box instead of Smooth/ flat shade all before importing the dense zbrush mesh'- how do i do this?
3. Break the mesh into pieces and map it piece by piece- how do i do this, and are you refering to the low poly mesh?

thanks

[MASTERSHOKHAN]

Alright er-body,all I had to do was smooth my normals on my low poly and hi poly before generating the maps.

Carlsden

1.Yes, do import the medium level model from zbrush into Maya. My best results were with test meshes under 100,000k.

2.Also here is a pic of ths bounding box I was talking about in the Maya viewport options.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v650/MASTERSHOKHAN/boundingbox.jpg

3. BlackNull, another modeler here, breaks his mesh into pieces before taking it to zbrush, to allowing for more detail. Check out his Wolverine (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=265300#post265300) thread for more.And don't forget Rawkstar's Necromancer (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=33615&page=5&pp=15).

[carlsden]

Hey MASTERSHOKHAN (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=24262), i just realised that i dont have the surface sampler option as I'm using maya 5. what should i do? vbmenu_register("postmenu_280330", true);

[SNARK]

Hi.

When I download the zipped folder and go to extract the file, it is empty and I get a message saying there is nothing to extract. Am I missing something?

Thanks!

~S.~

[apexpriest]

Hi:

Carlsden: If you were using Maya 6 you can use the Transfer Surface Information tool, is the same thing
Alias added some more options and changed the tool's name for Maya's 7.0
release. I'm not sure if that was available on Maya 5. Otherwise I would use the Zmapper plugin, it works great. Ryan Kingslien recorded a great video tutorial on it (http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/education/education-zclassroom.html)
SNARK: Sorry to hear that you had problems downloading the tutorial. I just tested the download on IE and Firefox and it opened fine for me at work. I encoded the video with Apple's H264 encoder, but anyone with quicktime 7 should be able to play it. Try downloading it again and let me know if it dosen't work, I'll try to find another way for you to get it.

Sincerely:

Edwin Sumalave
edwin@edwin3design.com
www.edwin3design.com

[SNARK]

Thanks, Edwin. It downloaded today and has cleared up a number of issues for me.

~S.~

[godlike27]

Thanks for the tutorial :tu: , I love Maya... I think if I'll have a daughter I'll call her Maya :)

Tomas

[Bboy]

HI guys I am having trouble Loading the Pelt plugin for Maya 7.0

i put the plugins in the D:/Program Files/Alias/Maya7.0/bin/plug-ins/")

and also the Icons folder inside the D:/Program Files/Alias/Maya7.0/icons

& i put the scripts in the D:/Program Files/Alias/Maya7.0/scripts folder am i missing somthing??
Below are the instillation notes. yes it's looks straight forward but i cant seem to get them loaded. Yes i go to plugin manager and load from there. i would realy love to get this plugin working so all /any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

1 thing i do see is a Peltsetup.mll but i cant seem to load it, so where am i supposed to put this file??? also i dont have a "prefs" folder in my main instillation directory but i do have the icon folder there, so no pref folder with a icon folder inside????

instilation notes

1) Place scripts in your maya/x.x/scripts dir

2) Place icon folder in your maya/x.x/prefs/icons dir

3) Place plugins in your plugin path (ex.: "C:/Program Files/Alias/MayaX.X/bin/plug-ins/")

4) In the Script Editor, type: rehash;
source peltingToolsSetup.mel;
peltingToolsSetup;

5) This will create a shelf icon in your current shelf.

[Bboy]

I finally got it sorted, i actually had to put the scripts inside the bonus tools scripts directory, This doesnt actually follow the directions for PC but instead it was the install notes for the MAC . Anyways it seemed to work so i will just stick with it lol

I was pulling my hair out there for a while. I spend so many hours trying to unwrap so this will hopefully be a god send.

Thanks for this great script. :D

[mandana2000]

:cry: sorry but I downloaded the zip file.twice.but it didna work.u know.I extracted it and started to watch it .but no video available.it's a mov file and I tried to watch it with quick time, real player and etc. but still no video.it has a white bg with the voice but the video not available.can u tell me hoe should I open the video file?

[MASTERSHOKHAN]

Maybe try vlc player. But the real problem is that u need new codecs

[mandana2000]

:D thank u.well done.nice tut.and thank u for the advice

[apexpriest]

Thanks for the kind coments. I encoded the video with Apple's H264 encoder, but anyone with Quicktime 7 should be able to play it.

Hope it helps

Sincerely

Edwin Sumalave

[scottMan]

I cant thank you enough. For all the video's I have watched on the subject yours was so direct and to the point and worked so good.

Thanks man

Huge props.

[fishwish]

That was a first rate vid I learned a lot.I feel less scared by zbrush now and starting to enjoy using it.I am waiting for UT2007 to come out and would love to make a model for it having made a few for ut2004.For ages I have been putting off using zbrush as I got to grips with maya but no more.
Thanks for clearing the fog away.:D

[RAYNER]

Thanks for sharing :)

[phix314]

Thanks man! Cant wait to watch...

[OrgoneGhost]

so ive watched the video tutorial in this thread, and i cant seem to get maya to load my displacement map.

heres the steps ive done, please tell me if im missing anything:

1. model low poly base mesh in maya
2. UV in maya
3. save off as .obj, and open in zbrush
4. divide mesh 5 levels within zbrush
5. modify using standard brushes,etc
6. go down to 1st level of subdivide and run displacement plugin in zbrush
7. save displacement map out
8. open low poly model in maya
9. create blinn material, apply it to mesh
10. choose a file node and attach it to blinn material , selecting 'displacement map' option
11. double click the file node and find my displacement map saved from zbrush plugin
12. get an error message saying maya cant find my displacement map file


any suggestions?:confused:

[OrgoneGhost]

nevermind - i just didnt set the bit depth correctly. i set it to 16bit and it loaded fine. (it was at 32 before)

[OrgoneGhost]

ok now im having a problem with the mental ray rendering... heres a pic of the prob.

http://www.thehighsaints.com/mentalray_prob.jpg

so, the top middle is the mesh in maya after subdiving (as shown in video), and the mesh to the right is the zbrush tool at higheset subdivide.
obviously the mesh to left is the mental ray rendering.

heres a copy of the error message i got...


// Error: (Mayatomr) : mental ray has stopped with errors, see the log //
// Info (Mayatomr): Aborted //
// Error: (mental ray) : .../Desktop/PROJECTS/3D Art/displacement_map1001-D32.tif: file format subtype or version not supported //

[OrgoneGhost]

can anyone please help me?

heres what happens when i switch to 'Maya Software' render...

http://www.thehighsaints.com/maya_prob.jpg

[jbakutis]

Did you convert your Disp map to a RGB file? ZBrush makes it as a GreyScale image, and you have to convert it in Photoshop (or another App).

[OrgoneGhost]

yes ive tried that as well. honestly i dont know what to do anymore. ive looked at just about every single thread/tutorial i could find on this issue for the past few weeks and nothing i try is giving me proper results.

out of desperation, im going to put up the files (.obj, and the .tiff file) and see if anyone can get the proper results within maya.
if someone can - can they PLEASE post their steps and settings used??

http://www.thehighsaints.com/displace_test

[apexpriest]

Hi OrangeGhost,

I would like to apologize for the really, really, really, late reply. Sincerely I lost track of the forum thread and missed your post. I hope that you have had luck figuring out that problem. If not try the following:

-Mental ray seem to work more efficiently and faster with .map files. So you can do this by converting your files into .tif and then dragging and
dropping the .tif file into the attached .bat and it will generate a .map
file next to it.

Hope it helps

Sincerely,


Edwin Andres Sumalave
www.edwin3design.com
edwin@edwin3design.com

[MRC_O]

very happy for your work

thanks a lot

[pixolClay]

OrgoneGhost, make sure that you also set the Alpha Gain, and Alpha Offset to a value of 2.2 and -1.1 (if youre using a 32-bit displacement map)......

[MRC_O]

hi,i just followed everything in the tutorial but when i do the rendering with maya mental ray my model trasform in someting terrible!!! as you can see....!!!

any help??? may be the displacement map file from zbrush is not good?!?!? i have attached the disl. file...

thanks a lot!!!!
prova displ[1]..jpg

[sketchguy]

MRC_0, I believe there's the matter of fiddling with the alpha gain values.

This video is great, however, i'd like to see it updated to take into account ZBrush 3.1 and more recent versions of Maya that take advantage of using the Approximation Editor for creating and editing Displacement Tesselation.

A definitive ZBrush 3.1 -> Maya tute should be mandatory for the FAQ page! ;)

[DavePoon]

I have got the same problem as MRC_O.
I think the problem is from the new implementation of Maya 2008.
Still can't find a way to fix it!!! :(

[DavePoon]

Just found the simple solution from this thread, really simple...
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?p=423353&posted=1#post423353

[Lusankya]

Is it me or does the video not exist anymore?

[shanpeter]

Very Nice and Useful Video Tutorials.

Thanks for giving it!

[SNARK]

Hi, Jason.

Great vids. Great effort. Great results.

Could you explain a little how to use the 'Refract' and 'Blur' buttons in the Draw Palette?

Thanks!

~S.~

[matellion]

Thanks for sharing! But the link can't be download! :tu: