Second Life Sculpties in ZBrush 4 - ZSculpty Tools

[marcus_civis]

ZSculpty Tools has been updated. The plugin will work with ZBrush 4 for PC and Mac OSX.
In this version:

*Prim initialization and Sculpty map export
*Collada DAE format export for mesh in SL

INSTALLATION:

1. Remove any previous installation of ZSculpty Tools by deleting the ZSculptyTools02.ZSC file and ZSculptyToolsData folder from the ZBrush 4.0\ZStartup\ZPlugs folder.
2. Download and unzip the plugin file to your desktop. If the unzipping creates a folder open it to locate the ZSculptyTools09.ZSC file and ZSculptyToolsData folder.
3. Move the ZSculptyTools09.ZSC file and ZSculptyToolsData folder to the ZBrush 4.0\ZStartup\ZPlugs folder.
4. Restart ZBrush. The ZSculpty Tools menu is in the ZPlugin palette.

INSTRUCTIONS:

To create a SL sculpty:

1. Select one of the ZBrush Primitives.
2. Press the ZSculpty Tools>Initialize Prim button. Select an option from the dialogue box. These options will set up the primitive so that the exported sculpty map can be uploaded to SL using lossless compression. It isn't essential to use lossless compression but you will get best results, particularly with hard-surface or mechanical objects.
3. The Switch button can be used to switch the HDivide and VDivide values for the primitive. Use whichever gives the best results for your model.
4. Adjust the other values in the Tool>Initialize menu if desired.
5. Press the ZSculpty Tools>Make Polymesh button. This will create a polymesh (with adjusted UVs) which you can sculpt and polypaint.
6. When you have finished sculpting switch to the lowest subdivision level and press the Export Sculpty map button to export a map. Create any textures you want and export those separately. Your sculpty is then ready for uploading to SL. (In the SL image upload preview check 'unconstrained' to preserve the image proportions.)

Notes:
* The Arrow3D primitive can be used for sculpties but the lossless compression options can't be used. Simply set up the primitive how you want before folowing stages 4 - 6 above.
* Sculpty maps can be exported from higher subdivision levels. This will give bigger maps with more detail (if the limited sculpty map format allows) but mostly they will not be suitable for lossless compression upload.
* The Scale UVs button is for scaling UVs for any mesh so that they fit within the 0-1 range. It's not necessary to use this button if you have used the ZSculpty Tools>Make Polymesh button.

To export a mesh:

1. Create your model. SL meshes should not have too many polygons.
2. Your model must have UVs assigned. UV Master is a good way of doing this.
3. If you want to use different subdivision levels for SL Levels Of Detail turn on the Create LOD switch.
4. The Smooth switch will create smoothed normals for your model. For a hard-surface object turn off the Smooth switch.
5. Press the Export SL Mesh button. Your model will be saved as a Collada DAE file which can be uploaded to SL using the Mesh Beta viewer. If there is a texture applied to your model this will be exported as a BMP file with the same name.

Notes:
* If your model has Polygroups then these can be used as separate texture/material regions in SL. Up to 8 polygroups are allowed by SL.

Version 09b : corrections to prim initialization routines.

[Iridescence]

You're a gem :D Thank you again!

[KitchenDon]

Woot! Thanks so much for taking the time to create this plugin. :tu: I'm going to go give it a whirl right now.

[bilster666]

Super thanks Marcus :D much appreciated!
I just wonder if you will add a function to turn models made from zb 3.5 into one of those there magical mesh thingies? probably a pain in the rear to do. But this is great thanks a lot :D

[Filthy Adored]

Thanks so much great fix life saver

The secondlife meshes "they say" they will be Caldera files. Is that more than a patch to make? id guess so its only the closed beta testers know for sure for now how it will work



I Watched Kitchendons spotlight demo, inspired me to get my head around it, its wonderfull, its like taking a rubbing with a Stargate

[ZeroxNothing]

Yay, I'm so happy for this! A million thanks!

[lareinefroide]

Thanks so much Marcus! I am sending you a big virtual hug!

When mesh import comes, the format will be collada. For a short time they lifted the non-disclosure agreement on the mesh beta testers and this information slipped up before they clamped down again.

I will be looking for a pipeline to move my ZBrush work into collada format. A plugin would be the best I could hope for, but failing that, I am considering taking my objects from ZBrush to Blender or Daz Studio (both free) which both export in a collada format. Of course there may be some compatibility issues. I am sure once mesh hits open beta we will be able to experiment, and it is possible that the closed beta testers may already have found the solution. I am sure a few of them use ZBrush.

[marcus_civis]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions guys. :)

If it is collada format I don't see any great problems as that's XML-based and the specification is available and free from licensing restrictions. Ultimately it would depend on if SL had any special requirements.

[varek3d]

You rock! just pure and simple... you never fail to make a valuable contribution to artists everywhere... However I think I discovered a problem. Making a primitive 32/33, then using the plug making it a poly, then smoothing it, I get a hole in the top and bottom of the sphere, it isn't serious and easily adjusted in another 3d program however I thought i would share...

V

[Nancyan]

Yes! Marcus is an angel!

As far as the hole on the poles. I observed that this only happens when the smt button is on while subdividing.

Try this trick. Subdivide up to where you want to be and then down and delete the higher subdivisions. Then go to Geometry and select "close hole". This will create a new polgroup which sculptymaker doesn't like, so go to polygroups and select "group visible".

When you subdivide back up - no more hole. (although if you texture right up to the edges of the hole I believe you don't have any problems with a gap in Second Life on your object.

I've played around with this the fill hole thingy and I've not run into any problems with Sculpty maker. No guarentees though :p

[varek3d]

Wow, TY Nancyan, put yourself up there with angels!

still a pain but no where near as much as it was before...:rolleyes:

However, I did find a quark with that too unfortunately.:( try texturing and grabbing the texture from poly, I'm getting a weird line and the caps I believe messed up the UV a bit if you do a UV check. If the holes don't interfere in SL though, I will try it.

Thanks again!

[Nancyan]

Seems like my little trick only works with the sphere. Sad. I should have checked out the other primitives before I posted that. The the sphere is pretty much what I use always.

I don't think the hole is more of a problem then a distraction. If you paint up to the edges as if the hole was closed then I'm guessing it comes together well in SL.

[varek3d]

A+ for effort Nancyan! :D

[guisquil]

Try clicking "Crease" before subdividing

[Iridescence]

Perfect, guisquil :tu:

[Nancyan]

That's fantastic, Guisquil! Thank you so much :)

[guisquil]

Hi,

Thanks for the plugin, very cool... We found that in our experience the plugin only works for the sphere, all the other primitives still have UV maps that overlap, this is what we are doing now:

We fix the UVs with GoZ in Maya, Edit UVs / Layout (little box) the default setting work for a single prim if you want to fix more than one at the same time select Per object (overlapping)

[Iridescence]

Hi, I thought I would pipe up here, I've completed several projects in Z4 using this plugin now and have had no issues with any of the Ztools I've used - Cube, Cylinder, Sphere, Sweep Profile, Ring and Spiral, so far no problems with overlapping UV's using the zsculpty plugin.

[Nancyan]

Sorry its not working out for you as you had hoped. I'm not having any problems with the new plug-in...just rechecked the primitives and I can convert them all fine, however I'm aware this doesn't work with the zsculpty plug in. I use the Sculptymaker plug-in which is a separate little program outside of Zbrush, made by the same author of zsculpty (known as "very grumpy little man that doesn’t like too many visitors and prefers to spend his time chasing forest critters off his lawn.") Both are available on the Shiny Life website, where you will find alot of good information about this whole debacle (:confused: ) .

And I might mention Sculptymaker doesn't support oblong maps like zbrush does, but there's a work around for those who don't have access to Maya and Modo which you can find on the Shiny Life site. So you can use the ZSculpty plugin for these converted meshes and get oblong maps.

[soulo]

when i try 2 open the zip it says it dose not appear 2 be a valid archive..please help

[soulo]

''the achive is either in a uknown format or damaged''

[marcus_civis]

''the achive is either in a uknown format or damaged''

Try downloading again. I just tested and everything was fine.

[DisembodiedHand]

Not sure if it has to do with the way the plugin makes hte polymesh but zsculpty has been rezzing min size sculpts that arent scaled when using sculpty-rezzer in secondlife.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any solutions? I should also mention im using the same zsculpty i did for zbrush3 so Im not sure if there is a zbrsuh4 version I didnt get.

[Iridescence]

^^ try scaling your mesh in Zbrush, it's either too large for the sculpty rezzer or too small - I had that same issue when I was making objects that would hit the 10 m prim size limit so sculpty rezzer would just make them all .01x.01x.01 instead. Caused lots of headaches until I realised what was going on and scaled my mesh down (use the size deformation tool) I eventually setup a set of decently scaled subtools to work from rather than create from scratch every time and have this happen.

[Duael]

Doesn't work with PolySphere.

The error message says "Please select a ZBrush Primitive and try again".

PolySphere looks primitive to me, ...but what do I know.

PolySphere demonstrates the same UV problem when creating a new texture with "New From Polypaint.

As mentioned previously, using UVMaster will make it all go away, but, if you then apply Spherical mapping (UV Map > Uvs), the problem will return.

If the problem reappears with internal UV mapping, is it the primitives, or something else?

[marcus_civis]

The PolySphere isn't a primitive. You need to start with the Sphere3D.

[Edit: the primitives are those shapes which have an 'Initialize' menu in the Tool palette. They are created using a math formula and have to be converted to a polymesh before sculpting.]

[Duael]

Alright, so I made a technical boo boo.
But that doesn't really address my post.

The same problem exists in non-primitives, and therefore it is not fixed with your generous plugin.
(And I am referring only to Z4, as all the UV mapping worked fine in Z3.5.)

It would be nice if I could just make use of the default uv mapping (Cross) that comes with the PolySphere. Without enduring the inconsistencies of GoZ to clean this up in an external app.
UV Master is cool (and it fixes the problem), but I cant find a way to force it to conform to the default mapping on a Polysphere. If you select the "Use Existing Seams" button in UVMaster, you get a "Ballooned" Cross.... close, but no cigar.


Perhaps there is another existing thread that discusses this issue on non-primitives that you could point me too. (This forum is getting big, and searching can take as much time a rebuilding the object instead)

[Nancyan]

I'm curious why a ballooned cross doesn't work for your purpose. I understand the need to have the primitives fill the UV grid fully for a specific game requirement (sculpties in Second Life), but I'm unclear why the UV master version isn't acceptable for your purposes. It even occurs to me that the balloon shape might result in less texture stretching, although I don't have the experience to make that determination.

[Duael]

This is a client thing. They want a Si-Fi Planet with cross mapping and topology that matches. They seem to have a technical need for this type of mapping over others. I emailed them and they cannot accept a ballooned cross.
(A ballooned cross only uses slightly more pixels, and I cant think of any advantage it may offer)

I often prefer Cross over Spherical, as it eliminates poll pinching...but each has its own pros and cons.

Seemed like a no brainer for me to start with a polysphere, ..... and it would have been with Z3.5.

[Nancyan]

The problem with the UV's are the same with the primitives..they exist slightly out of the bounds of the uv 1/1 space (I know there is a technical name for this, but I forget what it is). I took the sphere into MODO and shrunk it (the UV's) down to 99.5 percent (need this only in the U direction but for consistancy I did it in both directions. Also I positioned it more squarely in the center to make it look neater :lol: .

Its an easy fix, although an annoying extra step where it used to just work in previous editions of zbrush. I've uploaded the fixed ztl..hope its helpful.

Edit: by "shrunk it" I mean the uv's not the sphere itself.

[marcus_civis]

I've updated the plugin so that there is a new button for scaling down the UVs of any polymesh. This will solve the problem of overlapping UVs in ZBrush if the UVs extend to the full 0-1 range.

[Duael]

Sweeeet! (ya know, the way Cartman says it)

Scale UV's is just what I needed!

Thank you so much Marcus.
May the Breath of a Thousand Camels surround your enemies while they sleep.


And a big Dating Game Kiss to Nancyan for pinch hitting.

[Nancyan]

:)

[marcus_civis]

May the Breath of a Thousand Camels surround your enemies while they sleep.


LOL! You're welcome. :)

[marcus_civis]

I've updated the plugin to include sculpty map export and Collada file mesh export.

[lareinefroide]

Marcus, thank you so much!! I decided to try opening one of my old sculpties made in ZBrush 3.5, which no longer worked in ZBrush 4. I turned off the texture made for it in 3.5, hit the "Scale UVs" button, and lo and behold I could create a texture from the polypaint for it once again in ZBrush 4. You made it possible to use my old work again from 3.5, and there is a lot of it!!

*Doing a little happy dance!*

[BetD]

Yay!! Thank you!!! Being on a Mac, I've never been able to export using the other sculpty exporter plugin. Can't wait to try this out!

[marcus_civis]

lareinefroide,

That's great, I'm glad you find it useful. :)

I just made a minor change to the sculpty export, so that the sculpty comes in to SL with the same aspect as in ZBrush. If anyone was one of the first 5 or so to download version 09 then they might want to download again to get the new version. You only need to replace the ZSC.

[Nancyan]

Thanks so much Marcus! This is great :)!!!:) :) :) :)

Edit (after installing): eeeeeeee! This is incredible. I can't believe how feature-rich this plug-in is. It has EVERYTHING! :)

[marcus_civis]

Thanks BetD & Nancyan :)

Small update (09b) to correct the prim initialization which gave the wrong output for some primitives...

[Filthy Adored]

Just had my first try on the new mesh. Worked really well. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bottlebird/5217418575/ Thats my first Textured mesh. I used the uv master for the first time.It took a little figuring out i was hoping i could take the polypainted parts of the shoe i had, and have them appear by magic on the flattened uv.Maybe theres no way of doing that. I just polypainted on the new combined uv verion of the shoe. A little extra secret bonus of this plugin is the files open in Photoshop extended in 3d. As time passes im using photoshop less and less as i keep finding out zb does all that stuff

[Nancyan]

Great looking shoes! Polypaint isn't UV dependant so if you didn't clear out the polypaint information I would think you could to apply it to the new uv'd version. After creating the UVs, hit the "new from polypaint" button in the Texture Map sub palette of the tools palette and the polypaint information should transfer to a texture with the uv layout.. Worth making a copy and experimenting. I'm not experienced enough to know what happens to polypaint if you merge subtools. I'm not sure that's what you meant.

I made a pair of sheepskin boots, pants, tank top and sweater so far, all mapped out via retop in Zbrush, successfully rigged and UV'd in blender and textured in Zbrush. I had some problems with crashing after some painfully detailed texturing via spotlight so I declared myself a Blender enthusiast and ignored Zbrush until I got over myself.

I'm planning to tackle a pair of rigged thigh high boots next, right after I finish texturing my sculpted bengal kitty. (Am I having fun and neglecting my RL?..yes, yes and er ...yes.)

[Filthy Adored]

Hey thanks for the response ill give that a go today. Re crashing the only problems iv had with that is on a very high poly model when all the ram gets used up and it freezes to disc swap, windows 7 does the prog isnt responding thing, if u wait it out it comes back to life.U can crank up the amount of ram in preferences-memory-compact memory but it u use it all it will freeze up anyways I think cos hard drives are slow in comparison..

[soulo]

hello Nancy,
how do i rig my mesh for second life

[Iridescence]

you don't with Zbrush, not with a skeleton that will work in SL. You will have to look into a program like blender for that. There are tutorials floating around, I'd suggest you start at machinimatrix.com

[Nancyan]

Hi soulo, I had an enforced break here while I waited for Dell to replace my failed video card and screen, so I apologize for a delay in answering.

Iridescence is 100% correct. You need a full animation capable program like Blender (cough...cough FREE!..cough..cough) or those other $$ guys (maya, etc.) to rig your mesh.

The first video of the machinimatrix mesh series was sufficient to teach me to rig the avatar. And from that site you can download a copy of the avatar and its bones. (It took a lot of experimenting in Blender to shrink it to a teeny tiny size and scale it to a giant - painful yet fun.)

You need to stick to the default avatar bones without adding or removing any, however you can scale bones to fit your mesh, just don't change the "hip" location. Check out the Second Life Mesh forums. I think Gaia Clary (machinimatrix.com author) has a beta tutorial of some length that she posted for feedback with plans to refine it and turn it into a video. I read it and it's an excellent start.

[soulo]

Thank you, Nancy you have been a great help

[soulo]

Thanks Iridescense

[ToysoldierThor]

Hi Marcus and thread gang...

I am going to sound like a noob as I have been using Zbrush 3.1 and the Zsculpty plugin for 3.1 to make my SL sculpties and I have learned enough about this environment to let me create my sculpty maps with ease.

Now, I got version 4 and I installed the plugin you offered at the beginning of this thread and I can see the plugin in the Zplugin tab.

But, when I load up one of my old 3.1 create ZTL tools into Zbrush4, it all looks fine on screen but I get one error after the other in trying to create a sculpt map from it. I read this thread. I tried a couple things lke executing the UV Master on it. And I am as close as now being able to create the sculpt map before it comes back and says:

MESH IS NOT SUITABL FOR SCULPTY MAP, OPERATION ABORTED.

In as much noob language as someone can speak, how do I convert my old 3.1 save ZTL files to a manner than lets me use the new plugin?

Or, is it just too complex to be worth converting them?

Thanks in advance if someone has explained the steps to convert old ZTL files to V4 and this new plugin.

PS... the past zsculpty plugin was a godsend.

[Nancyan]

Hi Toysoldier, something to try until Marcus chimes in (I no longer have an activated version of 3.1 or 3.5 to try this in advance so you'll have to do the experiment):

1) Import the sculpty from the previous version of Zbrush. Go into the UV subpalette of the Tools palette and delete the UVs. Drop the tool back into the palette by turning off the edit button.

2) Set up up the primitive type you used for the item you are bringing in to version 4, for example a sphere. Make it a sculpty polymesh via the button from the plug-in and go into UV Master to copy the UVs.

3) Re-load the sculpty (now without UVs) from your current tool palette. Go into UV master and PASTE the uv's you copied into this tool.

Proceed with making the sculpty map using Marcus' plug-in.
Please report back to let us all know if this worked. If so it might be useful for others.


If it doesn't work then the only other workaround I know of is to shrink down the UVs (reduce down to about 99.95 % uniformally - just a tiny bit) using another 3d program, such as Blender or Modo and reimport the item back into Zbrush then try out the plug-in with the externally revised UVs to make the sculpty map.

[Nancyan]

I had a moment to dig up some old tools from prior versions of zbrush to check out my previous suggestion. It worked in 2 out of 3 cases. Not sure why this workaround failed in one case. Be sure to back up anything you play around with!

[marcus_civis]

Hi ToysoldierThor,

Nancyan's method should work but there is a simpler way:

1. Open the ZTL in ZBrush 4.
2. Press the ZSculpty Tools> Scale UVs button.
3. Export the sculpty using ZSculpty Tools> Export Sculpty map.

(You will get the 'Mesh not suitable...' message when the UVs are wrong for sculpty map generation.)

[Krystedez]

Hi guys,

I'm a newb myself. I just started using Second Life a bit, and I want to make my own anthro(furry) avatar, I love the amount of detail those guys put into them.

I'm creating a personalized fox avatar, and I'm having difficulty preparing the head for my model for use with the plug-in. I guess that's because I started using Zbrush right away and made a Zsphere-made sculpted model of a fox head. I wanted to import it to SL and see how it looked so I found your plug-in.

Is there anyway to get my current Ztool-fox head made from Zpheres to be accepted by this plugin? It comes up with the obvious error; not a primitive, and if I try the other thing (UV scaling), it says not a polymesh.

Any tips would be wonderful. I read the whole thread to see if anyone was in my same boat.

[Nancyan]

One approach is to convert your zsphere object to a polymesh and append a proper sculpty polymesh sphere as a subtool. Line up the sphere's poles where it's least noticable and then "Project all". I have included a pic of what I'm describing using the head of the ZBrush Dog model (I hid the body and then deleted it in the geometry panel, selecting "fill holes"..not sure if the fill hole part is necessary).

You will be limited as to detail when you transfer to the sculpt mesh. this is natural in a sculpty so if you have a highly detailed mesh to transfer and hope to get all the detail of an entire head into one sculpty primitive you will be disappointed. You'd have convert that detail into a texture (Projectall.jpg and/or use multiple sculpties to build up geometric detail.

Edited to point out that the projected copy is on the left and the original is on the right, although that's fairly obvious :lol:

[soulo]

hello Nancy,
I was wondering if you could tell me the steps to polypainting the sl male grouped .ztl mesh and export the texture for use in secondlife..

[Nancyan]

soulo that's a tall order, and not one I'm best qualified for. If you have specific questions about the process perhaps I, and others can be of assistance. I'm not at a professional level in either modeling or texturing and having attempted a few SL skins I greatly admire and respect the work I see by some of the better known SL skin artists.

There are a few versions of the SL avatar, some optimized for working in Zbrush and perhaps thats what you are referring to. I forget where I got a copy, but I will say that my copy of the male model isn't quite right in the polygroup divisions. There are polys in the bottom group that belong in the top on my copy, so to begin with that needs to be straightened out. If you have been having problems in this area and would like help let me know. I'll include a picture of what I mean. Its creates a problem with splitting the mesh properly for texture export as I describe below.

To begin with you need to create polygroups by going to the polygroup sub palette and selecting "autogroups with UV". The sl male grouped ztl which I think you are referring to, is almost properly divided, with the exception of a few polys assigned to the wrong part. If you are using a different version of the model which you imported as an obj file, you may find after pressing "autogroup with UV" your model splits into many groups, but they are easy to group together into the three main groups that coorespond to the models UVs.

You paint on the unsplit model so you can cross over UV boarders. After painting the whole model you can then split the mesh into subtools by using the "group split" option in the subtool menu. Then you can select each subtool and select "New from Polypaint" and you will get individual UV images for the head, top and bottom (and not the top, bottom and head all overlaying each other as you would with an undivided mesh).

Clone your textures, flip them vertically and export them to photoshop to refine them, or as bmp images to test out in SL.

The really great skins are worked on in great detail with many layers in photoshop. Seams are also an issue so you need to paint a bit outside of the uv islands to overcome this..that needs to be done in a program like photoshop, although there may be features within zbrush I'm not remembering that take care of the seam issue.

Possibly I confused rather than clarified here. Its a time consuming process with alot of steps, but other then the artistic skill part it's not too dificult.polygroups.jpg

[ToysoldierThor]

Thanks Nancy and Marcus for the help! Yes Marcus, your idea did work and it was quick and simple! :)

[soulo]

Thank you nancy..fortunatly i have one of the better sl meshes, your efforts still managed to enlighten me in more then one way in your response..cheers :D

[soulo]

hello nancy,
I was hoping you could explain how to get a displacement map made, and uploaded to secondlife. Do i have to choose between a texture or a displacement map or do i combine them in photoshop or something? i would like to allow residents in secondlife to be able to add their own textures or change colors to my sculpties and maintain the displacement or shadow/occlusion map details..

Much thanks in advance

[Nancyan]

Hi Soulo,

This is an excellent question that can be better asked via the Second Life community forums. You can access the forums via the Second Life main website. There's a number of very helpful groups there and I follow the mesh forums closely. The Build and the Texture forum are also very helpful. Since this isn't a Zbrush specific question I think that you'd be better served there to get the Second Life specific information you need. Lots of friendly and helpful folks on those forums. Good luck!

[ArtBrain]

Hey everyone, hoping there is an easy fix for this, I'm relatively new to using Zbrush and Zsculpty.

I'm on Zbrush for, using Zsculpty to export for Second Life. When I import the Sculpt Map, I lose most of the detail from the mesh I'm working on. With my limited knowledge, I'm assuming it has something to do with the division levels, or something like that. If anyone can help, that would be awesome. I couldn't post on the Second Life site or I would have.

I'm running a MAC, and haven't tried Sculpt Maker, not sure if I can, but I would love all suggestions on how to keep my details in the Sculpty when I import to SL, thank you.

[marcus_civis]

Actually you're not doing anything wrong, it's just that the sculpty format is very limited. Compared to a model in ZBrush, particularly one with subdivsion levels, the sculpty will look poor. This is because the mesh points are stored as colors, and there are only 256 values on each axis, so a lot of data is lost in the conversion.

One way around this is to bake some detail into a texture map, for example from a cavity or ambient occlusion map. This can then be displayed on the sculpty in SL.

This link gives you some good general information on sculpted prims:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_prim

Hope this helps and apologies for the delay in answering your question.

[bilster666]

just wondering if its possible to export all the subtools in zbrush 4 with the old zsculpty plugin where is exports all the subtools at once? this way i can put the maps in my sculpty rezzer and it builds the individual prims the way they are in zbrush..... is this not possible in zbrush 4 now?
Thanks in advance :)

[Nancyan]

I believe the old z-sculpty plug-ins (the standard and oblong versions) still actually work in version 4.0, however they depend on the uv's you create from the tool palette when pressing "make polymesh 3D" from the tool palette. There is a problem with these UVs when texturing as they are not set up to properly transfer polypaint. Marcus very thoughtfully provided an updated plug-in which creates excellent uvs for texturing and sculpting making.

If you need to use sculpty rezzer to combine subtools in Second Life, you may want to use a blend of both plug-ins. Check the excellent video on Vlad's Shiny Life website, I believe there is a good explanation of the procedure there and the information might also exist here on the Zbrush forum also.

Also there is the additional option of using Sculpty Maker, the stand alone program, which converts objs exported from Zbrush to the kind of sculpty maps with the info need for sculpty rezzer to assemble the subtool parts in Second Life.

[bilster666]

Ok thank you very much for the info Nancyan :)

[Lowk3y]

Hello, I'm having a problem... I made a sculpty with the primitive (32X33) sphere and made it a polymesh. The sculpt map for it is great, however when I mirrored it, I ran into a snag.

I tried mirroring it two ways:
- In the subtool pallet I clicked Duplicate, selected the duplicated sculpty prim, deleted all lower subdivision levels below the highest(total of 4), Deformation pallet - Mirror X axis, and in Geometry I reconstructed it's subdivision levels.

- In Subtool Master I chose Mirror on X axis, and append as a new Subtool.


Both ways didn't work when I went to Export Sculptmap. So I thought maybe I should Scale UVs on the duplicate/mirrored sculpty prims but that didn't work either. I got this prompt, "Mesh is not suitable for sculpt map, operation aborted".

I know I can flip the original sculpty prim in SL in the Build option, but I want to texture them differently. Anyone have an idea of what I can do? Thanks

[Nancyan]

Have you tried flipping the object in Zbrush just for the purpose of making the texture? You can then apply the texture to the sculpt that you have flipped with the SL build tool. I haven't tried this myself, but it seems like it should work.

I'm not sure you need to bother with the second sculpt map, although I might be missing something here. If you need an actual flipped sculpt map you can flip the sculpt texture back in Zbrush if you import it back in as a texture and use the texture flipping options (I forget which direction..maybe vertical and inverse. You'll need to experiment).

Alternatively your next best solution might be exporting the sculpt as an obj and use Blender 2.49b with the Domino/Primstar scripts that you can get from http://dominodesigns.info/project/primstar or http://blog.machinimatrix.org. Import the sculpt map using the import from sculpt map option (it doesn't list bmp files, but they'll work fine) and and scale your object -1 on your chosen axis. Also be sure to CTL-N to make certain the normals are flipped outside.

By the way, did you use Marcus' Zsculpty script for exporting the sculpt map or the older plug-in from the Shiny Life website?

[Lowk3y]

I tried saving the sculpt as a .obj file also and went to make a sculpt map with the sculpty maker program but it shows multiple vertical and horizontal blacklines over the sculpt map texture, it's weird. So exporting the mirrored sculpty isn't an option? What I'm trying to do is make ears but I don't want them identical (OCD like that lol) and I wanted to put a slight difference in texture.

[Nancyan]

You wrote:

"In the subtool pallet I clicked Duplicate, selected the duplicated sculpty prim, deleted all lower subdivision levels below the highest(total of 4), Deformation pallet - Mirror X axis, and in Geometry I reconstructed it's subdivision levels."

Maybe you are forgetting to come down on your subd's before exporting the second flipped mesh as an obj for the purpose of making the sculpty map in Sculpty Maker.

After mirroring the object, recreating your subdivision levels and doing your sculpting and texture changes, be sure to bring the object back down to level one to export for the sculpt map. You may not actually need to go as far down as level one but you were probably too high up on the subd levels for Sculpty Maker to work.

I was unable to use Marcus's zsculpty plug in to make a map of the flipped mesh (It caused a crash), but I was successful at mirroring the mesh, reworking it, exporting it as an obj to produce a sculpt map via SculptyMaker.

[Lowk3y]

Pretty sure I switched it back down to 1 but I retried and I had the same results, not sure what I'm doing wrong. They are both at 1024 polys and 1056 points.

[Nancyan]

I tried a few more things including your method of removing the lower subd's for mirroring and restoring them (which I thought might have been the problem as I originally deleted the high). I can't seem to reproduce the error.

Another thought might be in your naming of the subtool. I seem to remember Sculpty Maker is a bit picky about long names since it attaches position data used by Sculpty Rezzer. Try using a very short name and see what happens.

And the only thing you didn't mention whichI added to the work flow is I offset the first ear before mirroring it..in my case offset on the X. Perhaps that was the key to my success, but I doubt it. It may be the name.

[Nancyan]

I realized I forgot to use the initialilze settings you mentioned. I was using the generic sphere 3D. I tested the intialized 32x33 sphere you described and found that if you intialize a sphere and then attempt to turn it into a polymesh via Marcus' Zsculpty plug-in (his plug in corrects the change in the UV's in ZB4 so the polypaint transfers properly) you cannot use Sculpty maker, but you can of course use the sculpt map function from his Zsculpty plug-in. I had difficulties then using the mirror function. If I tried his plug in for the sculpt map I crashed.

It does seem that the generic sphere 3D turned into a polymesh using Marcus' plug in WILL be accepted by Sculpty Maker (not sure why), BUT the mirrored mesh will only work if you delete the HIGHER subdivisions, not the lower ones. Deleting the lower ones creates a sculpt map with black lines.

Again as discussed on previous postings, the polymesh created from the tools palette cannot transfer polypaint correctly. So I would suggest you use the standard sphere 3d (NOT initialized), use Marcus' plug-in to convert it into a polymesh, and delete the higher subds before mirroring. Then use Sculpty Maker so you can create a map of the mirrored mesh.

[Lowk3y]

Thank you :cool: . The problem was as you said, I deleted the lower subdivision levels rather than the higher ones. I was also using the "Reconstruct Subdivision levels" button and that wasn't necessary because I could simply Divide as the original sculpt.

[Nancyan]

I'm glad it worked for you! Just a reminder for anyone who follows this procedure, save a morph target at the highest subdivision level that you want to return to and reapply it. Just deleting the higher subdivision levels and re-subdividing won't bring back the detail in the exact way you sculpted it and you may want that detail to bake into the texture.

[Sandra G]

error.jpg I'm totaly noob! :rolleyes: I do all like you say instaling ZSculpy tool for Zbrus 4, and whenever i want to make polimash or something else it say for me "Error opening file".
I check everything from previus treats and this don't work for me. I'm on Windows 7. With this error i can't learn more and this is very confusing :eek: for me. Please help me, Tnx.

[Nancyan]

Sandra, I'm assuming by "Zsculpty Tool" you mean one of the plug-ins. Its important to use the correct terminology to avoid confusion, since meshes in Zbrush are often referred to as "tools". I believe this is because before you hit the "make polymesh 3d" button and convert them, they are tools for drawing on the 2.5d canvas.

Which zsculpty plug-in are you using? The one from Zbrush Central authored by Marcus or the older one from the Shiny Life website?

[sdc2008]

I'm a zBrush noobie and I hope my question is not off topic, but before I try zSculpty I thought
I would ask if anyone has had success creating a decent, painted zBrush tool in zBrush 4, using
UVMaster, and then running the .obj through SculptyMaker and having it come out looking decent
in SecondLife.

I have been studying the Aminita mushroom tutorial on ShineyLife (thanks very much to Vlad for that!).
I can create an Aminita tool that looks pretty close to the one in the tutorial, including the painting.
Also, I can export the tool to an .obj, run it through sculpty maker, and the shape comes out just fine
in SecondLife.

Where things go awry for me is with texturing the sculpty in SeccondLife. The ShineyLife tutorial
was done with an earlier version of zBrush that had a Tools > Texture menu with a Color To Texture
button. Since I am running zBrush 4, I don't have that option. As I understand it, the zBrush 4
replacement for "color to texture", is the UVMaster plugin, is that correct?

So, I installed the UVMaster plugin and I got to where I can Work From Clone > Unwrap > Copy the UV's
> Paste UV's > Texture Map > Paste from Polypaint. When I export the texture, it looks right in 2D,
but it doesn't wrap around the sculpty properly. I'm guessing the problem is with the seams, which I
only have a basic understanding of.

It looks like everyone is moving toward zSculpty as the best way to both create the object, and texture
it within zBrush 4. But, before I try zSculpty, I thought it would be a good learning experience to see
how close I can get to properly texturing the Aminita mushroom with UVMaster. Is it possible, or am I
just wasting my time and I should just delete UVMaster and go straight for zSculpty?

[Iridescence]

Hi sdc, you are making a simple process way too complicated. :) With SL sculpties and this plugin, you need never touch UV master at all, this plugin does the creation of the correctly sized and scaled UV for you, all you need to do is texture it and export it, using either sculpty maker, or the built in sculpty exporter in the plugin (though my sculpties exported using this plugin are terribly lumpy so I use sculpty maker exclusively).

Where I think you have gotten confused is the texture menus have changed between V3 and V4 in Zbrush. To convert your polypaint to texture, in Z4, unless you have used the "make Polymesh" button included in this plugin, you will get a flat colour texture, not your painstakingly created polypaint. Hitting "scale UV's" in this plugin will correct the problem, and then you just go to the "tools - texture" palette on the right side of the screen in the default UI setup, and press the "new from polypaint" button to create the texture. Then you clone it in the same palette, and from the top texture menu, you can export it to PSD.

Zsculpty started as a way to correct the incorrectly scaled UV that is created when you use the standard "make polymesh" button after you've initialised the sculpt using the standard process that you've already found on Shiny-life, Marcus added a few things, but if you want to successfully make sculpties in Z4, you need this plugin, or you have a lot of messing about with UV scaling on your hands.

So.. tl;dr version (steps 4, 8 and 9 are the big changes between v3 and v4)

1 - Download and install the Zsculpty plugin contained in this thread
2 - open Zbrush and hide the lightbox menu
3 - select a sphere 3d and initialise it as usual
4 - go to Zplugin, Zsculpty tools, Make Polymesh
5 - sculpt your sculpty to your hearts content *without* cutting the mesh or adding geometry through extrude or similar
6 - export your sculpty as an .obj and run it through sculpty maker - upload to SL to test that it works
7 - subdivide your sculpty and texture it with whatever method you like
8 - Tools, textures, New from Polypaint
9 - clone the new texture, then texture - export.
10 - clean up/resize your texture in an image editor, save as .tga
11 - upload to SL and test on your sculpty.

Couple of things to note - the texture may need to be flipped horizontally to fit the sculpty in SL and your sculpty may come out inside out, you can fix that in the SL build tools.


I hope this helps you get on the right track :)

[sdc2008]

This is great! Thanks Iridescence for such a detailed and yet easy to follow list of instructions. Everything worked perfectly! Here is what it looks like:
SecondLifeAminita3_001.jpg

[Nancyan]

nice sculpty 'shrooms!

[sdc2008]

Thank you, Nancyan! But more importantly, thank you for all the great contributions you have made to this forum, you are a huge help. Thank you also to the others who have posted helpful tips here. Most of all, thank you Marcus for making zSculpty! What a huge help you are to zBrush-SecondLifer's!

[Iridescence]

Nice mushrooms :D Glad my step-by-step helped you and now you're on the way to being a sculpty master!

[marcus_civis]

Most of all, thank you Marcus for making zSculpty! What a huge help you are to zBrush-SecondLifer's!
Thanks but I can't claim to be the author of zSculpty, only the plugin at the start of this thread. :)

[AdriRips]

Thanks a lot, works perfectly! ;)

[Ragash]

Hello all folks :D

Im still quite noob with zbrush, i lurked alot and followed many tutorial and now i can say that i master the basics of this powerfull tool correctly. But now it comes the problems XD

i was tring to make an humanoid mesh for SL, and i realized that is better to make 3 divided polygroup (head, torso, leg) to obtain a good resolution into texturing.

the problem is that i'm now quite puzzled: there's a way to texture single polygrop and export the mesh with those "3 faces" rightly textured?
or i'll have to divide it to subtool?

in this case, i cannot export the collada file as a multy-poly object :(

thanks in advance, and sorry for my bad english.

[marcus_civis]

the problem is that i'm now quite puzzled: there's a way to texture single polygrop and export the mesh with those "3 faces" rightly textured?
or i'll have to divide it to subtool?


You can do that but ZBrush can't display more than one texture map on a model so you need to work this way:

1. Your model must have separate polygroups and each polygroup must have its own UV mapping. SL allows up to 8 polygroups.
2. To work on a single polygroup in ZBrush Shift+Ctrl+click on it. This will hide the other groups. Shift+Ctrl+click on the background to show the whole model.
3. For making a texture map from polypaint:
* hide all the other groups as in (2)
* press Tool>Texture Map>New From Polypaint
* press Tool>Texture Map>Clone Txtr. This puts a copy of the new map in the Texture palette. Export the map from the Texture palette so you have a copy for SL.
4. Use the ZSculpty Tools plugin to export a Collada (.dae) file for SL. Make sure you have saved your texture maps separately.
5. In SL upload the model and the texture maps. You will then be able to select each region and apply the right map.

HTH,

[Nancyan]

Thanks Marcus, that's very helpful for me, also!

[Ragash]

1. Your model must have separate polygroups and each polygroup must have its own UV mapping. SL allows up to 8 polygroups.


HTH,

Thanks for the fast reply but i've still doubs about this part.

I downloaded UvMaster to create a uvmaps of my model, but every time i try to select a single polygroup element and "unwrap" it's own uvmap i got the complete model in result :S

how to make single uv maps for every polygroup? i've to divide it in subtools?

[Ragash]

i realize i explained what im tring to do very bad :)

i use an image to try to be more clear

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/842/examj.jpg/

when i make the uv of my mesh i obtain a single uv maps as the section 1 of the image. what i need to do is to make 3 single images at higher resolution (2000*2000) to mantain proper detail of the polypaint as i bake the texture :)

thanks again

[marcus_civis]

This is possible in ZBrush but why don't you try a single texture map first? With UV Master you can adjust the UVs so that you get a good balance between the head detail and the body. I don't know what texture size you can use in SL but a map of 2048 should give you plenty of detail. Even one of 1024 may be enough, depending on your requirements.

If you later find that you just have to use multiple maps then you can create the UV mapping in ZBrush:

1. It's best to create the mapping right at the start as the process involves splitting your mesh and then merging and this can change the topology. So the following steps assume that there are no subdivision levels.
2. Assuming your mesh has polygroups, press Tool>SubTool>Groups Split.
3. For each of the new subtools create UV mapping. You can use UV Master for this.
4. Make sure all the subtools are visible and that the Tool>SubTool>Weld button is ON. Press Tool>SubTool>Merge Visible.
5. Select the new tool in the Tool palette - its name will begin 'Merged_'. This will have UV mapping based on the polygroups. Use this as your base model for texturing.

HTH,

[Ragash]

oh gosh is really THAT simple? o.O

yesterday i was screaming for all the faul i encounter :lol:

Anyway, i already tryed with a single uvmap for all the mesh and the result, cause the number of dettail, is that once imported onto sl it will appear unfocused and loss in dettails :)

i will try your solution in a few our (im at work now ^^) and will show the result.

Thanks Again!

[Lowk3y]

Hello, I have another question about the plugin. If we can Export meshes, is there a way we can Import them also? I've found that I edited a mesh further than that of the original I made and exported it, but forgot to save the new version as a .ZTL file. Would I have to drag the new mesh into 3ds Max and convert it into a COLLADA file?

Also, there's talk about how you are unable to rig a mesh in ZBrush. I'm curious as to why? There's a Rigging panel with which you can make zspheres be the bones of the mesh and move it around to how you see fit.

[Iridescence]

You could probably use Blender to convert your collada file into an obj for importing into Zbrush.

As for rigging - yes there is a rigging panel in Zbrush, you can pose your meshes using this method, but to skin your mesh to be worn in Second Life you need to use the second life avatar skeleton, or have your bone names correspond with the bone names in the official skeleton. I haven't found any way in Zbrush to do that, or I'd be using it fulltime and forgetting about Blender. :) Maybe someday someone awesome will write an appropriate plugin!

[marcus_civis]

Yes, currently you will need to convert the collada file elsewhere as import directly into ZBrush is not possible. Rigging in ZBrush is something I'd like to add but I'm not sure yet whether it could be done in a sensible manner.

[Ragash]

Thanks Again marcus! your suggestion was so usefull and i realized what i wanted to try :3

i've another question now, if i wanna make a multi-subtool mesh, and exporting into Sl as Sculpty, is still possible to use the plug-in as the versione for zbrush .3.5?

and what's the right process?

1)initialize
2)modelling
2.a)appending subtool (made from the initialized sphere3d)
2.b)modelling again
2.c)appending [...]

3)merging all subtool (?)
4)make sculpty (?)

i've already tried in this way, but when i try to export the resulted merged mesh the plug in says that my mesh is not suitable for exporting
i still miss something? :eek:

thanks in advance!

[Nancyan]

Your post is a little unclear. If you are using ZB 3.5 you should use the Zsculpty or Zsculpty Oblong plug-in or the Sculpty Maker stand alone program that you can download from the Shiney Life website. ZB3.5 doesn't have the same issues with UV's as ZB4.0 (which is the reason Marus so kindly helped us out with a plug in in the first place.)

Procedure (zb3.5):

Initialize each part that will become a subtool and hit "make polymesh" for each

Build up your subtools arrangement by appending these in the subtool palette

Sculpt

Make only subtool visible at a time and process each subtool individually thru either Zsculpty, Zsculpty Oblong or the little stand along program SculptyMaker (not for oblong sculpts). They will be giving a unique name with position information. Keep your names different for each part and make them short...there's alot of info added to them.

Upload them from the appropriate folder where the images were sent and rezz a sphere. Add the sculpty rezzer script to the sphere and return it to your inventory. Re-rez the sphere and add the sculpt maps to the contents. Touch your sphere and the assembled multi-part sculpt will assemble itself. You may still need to do some tweaking and possibly turn a part or two inside out via a checkbox.


Procedure (zb 4.0):

If you are talking about using the plug ins in ZB4 you can do the following:

after you make each subtool a polymesh (prior to sculpting), go to UV master and unwrap it. Go into transpose>scale (shortcut E) and hold down the alt key...very carefully scale down the flattened UV's until you just see the grey lines of the grid..you are trying to get the UV's to set just inside the grid but fill it up completely. In their default form they are slightly too large and spill over this area. Unflatten and now you have something that is acceptable to the old plug-in.

Follow the above procedure for making your parts and bringing them into SL to assemble.

For my part I use Marcus's plug-in quite alot, but each option has it's own advantages depending on the project.

[TAZZZZ]

downloaded the ZSculpty tool plug in for Second Life; followed the instructions but when I unzipped the files I got a folder that did not have either of the two files stated in the installation instructions here; the files in the folder after unzipping are: ZSculptyDLL.dll and ZSculptyDLL.dylib As I do not have much expertise in this stuff; I am confused? Are these the files that should go into the plug in folder for ZBrush? Can someone please help?

[Nancyan]

Did you download the plug-in that Marcus created, from this forum thread, or are you talking about the zsculpty plug in from the Shiney Life website?

[TAZZZZ]

umm was the plug in found here in ZBrush central; but thanks and sorry folks; I think I just got a bad DL file.. Tried it again and it all seems to be there! as it should be.

[Nathaniel A.]

Hello i am new to ZBrush but i seem to be getting the hang of it a little, i want to Create SL Meshes, i think most of what i am doing seems right but not sure, when it comes to knowing where to polygroup things and using the UV Master i think i am screwing things up :s i can't seem to find any good tutorials on creating SL Meshes using Multiple Subtools.

When i am making things for my creations i have been using Shadowbox mostly because its fun .-. lol. Is using shadowbox acceptable for making SL Meshes? I understand about the 8 polygroups per SL Upload, but what i don't seem to understand is the polygroups, Using the UV Master and some Texturing problems. When i use UV Master idk if i need to use it on Each subtool i have, or all my subtools once i merge them. And when it comes to Polygroups i have no clue where to properly split them all up. And for texturing once i texture something just to see what its gonna look like then use UV Master (yeah i know i am most likely not supposed to texture before using UV Master .-. :P) but yeah when i do it morphs the texture making all these black blotches show up and small tiny black speckles. I think what i am doing wrong is my models are to big for fitting in the grid that you see when you flatten things >,.,< but i have tried using the Scale UV's button but my meshes are still flattening way far past the grid itself some to the point where it looks like they will stretch on until forever.

If anyone can please help me it will be much appreciated ): i am really eager to learn how to design things for SL to improve not only my SL but maby one day my RL aswell.

Here is what is happening to my mesh's when i flatten them after using UV Master :s

274500

[ToysoldierThor]

I am sure someone somewhere might have mentioned / asked this before but I couldnt google find it.

I have been a bit frustrated because I wanted to use some of my older Blender created OBJ exports into ZBRUSH to make some mods on them. Sadly I have had no luck getting Zsculpty to recognize them (constantly says they need to be a primative first and I have no clue how to do that - tried everything I know)...

So....

I have decided to make them from scratch. problem is that ever since Zbrush4 and the latest ZSculpty for Zbrush, all the sculpty exports that come out of Zsculpty have a huge bounding box inside SL - but only on the Z-AXIS. The sculpty in the box is flattened right out like a pancake.

The X and Y AXIS of the rezzed sculpty is perfect. every one of my sculpties i create has the same problem on the Z. I primarily used the PLANE3D to start but I have even tried a couple others and same issue.

Anyone know how i can fix this? What am I doing wrong?

[MediumTank]

ZSculpty Tools has been updated. The plugin will work with ZBrush 4 for PC and Mac OSX.
In this version:

*Prim initialization and Sculpty map export
*Collada DAE format export for mesh in SL

INSTALLATION:

1. Remove any previous installation of ZSculpty Tools by deleting the ZSculptyTools02.ZSC file and ZSculptyToolsData folder from the ZBrush 4.0\ZStartup\ZPlugs folder.
2. Download and unzip the plugin file to your desktop. If the unzipping creates a folder open it to locate the ZSculptyTools09.ZSC file and ZSculptyToolsData folder.
3. Move the ZSculptyTools09.ZSC file and ZSculptyToolsData folder to the ZBrush 4.0\ZStartup\ZPlugs folder.
4. Restart ZBrush. The ZSculpty Tools menu is in the ZPlugin palette.

INSTRUCTIONS:

To create a SL sculpty:

1. Select one of the ZBrush Primitives.
2. Press the ZSculpty Tools>Initialize Prim button. Select an option from the dialogue box. These options will set up the primitive so that the exported sculpty map can be uploaded to SL using lossless compression. It isn't essential to use lossless compression but you will get best results, particularly with hard-surface or mechanical objects.
3. The Switch button can be used to switch the HDivide and VDivide values for the primitive. Use whichever gives the best results for your model.
4. Adjust the other values in the Tool>Initialize menu if desired.
5. Press the ZSculpty Tools>Make Polymesh button. This will create a polymesh (with adjusted UVs) which you can sculpt and polypaint.
6. When you have finished sculpting switch to the lowest subdivision level and press the Export Sculpty map button to export a map. Create any textures you want and export those separately. Your sculpty is then ready for uploading to SL. (In the SL image upload preview check 'unconstrained' to preserve the image proportions.)

Notes:
* The Arrow3D primitive can be used for sculpties but the lossless compression options can't be used. Simply set up the primitive how you want before folowing stages 4 - 6 above.
* Sculpty maps can be exported from higher subdivision levels. This will give bigger maps with more detail (if the limited sculpty map format allows) but mostly they will not be suitable for lossless compression upload.
* The Scale UVs button is for scaling UVs for any mesh so that they fit within the 0-1 range. It's not necessary to use this button if you have used the ZSculpty Tools>Make Polymesh button.

To export a mesh:

1. Create your model. SL meshes should not have too many polygons.
2. Your model must have UVs assigned. UV Master is a good way of doing this.
3. If you want to use different subdivision levels for SL Levels Of Detail turn on the Create LOD switch.
4. The Smooth switch will create smoothed normals for your model. For a hard-surface object turn off the Smooth switch.
5. Press the Export SL Mesh button. Your model will be saved as a Collada DAE file which can be uploaded to SL using the Mesh Beta viewer. If there is a texture applied to your model this will be exported as a BMP file with the same name.

Notes:
* If your model has Polygroups then these can be used as separate texture/material regions in SL. Up to 8 polygroups are allowed by SL.

Version 09b : corrections to prim initialization routines.

WHERE IS THE "Export SL Mesh button" I see this no where.

[ToysoldierThor]

The Export Mesh button is in the Zsculpty Tool right below the Export Sculpty Map button.

[marcus_civis]

As ToysoldierThor says (thanks ToysoldierThor :) ), the Export SL Mesh button is below the Export Sculpty map button. You need to click the 'Mesh Export >' title to expand the menu.

[khenein]

I am sure someone somewhere might have mentioned / asked this before but I couldnt google find it.

I have been a bit frustrated because I wanted to use some of my older Blender created OBJ exports into ZBRUSH to make some mods on them. Sadly I have had no luck getting Zsculpty to recognize them (constantly says they need to be a primative first and I have no clue how to do that - tried everything I know)...

So....

I have decided to make them from scratch. problem is that ever since Zbrush4 and the latest ZSculpty for Zbrush, all the sculpty exports that come out of Zsculpty have a huge bounding box inside SL - but only on the Z-AXIS. The sculpty in the box is flattened right out like a pancake.

The X and Y AXIS of the rezzed sculpty is perfect. every one of my sculpties i create has the same problem on the Z. I primarily used the PLANE3D to start but I have even tried a couple others and same issue.

Anyone know how i can fix this? What am I doing wrong?

I do have the same problem and it's mainly because of exporting when the file has more than one subtool. We do need a solution to reset the bounding box before it exports the sculpty map, Or a solution to fix the scultpy map after it's done through 2d software.

[khenein]

I am sure someone somewhere might have mentioned / asked this before but I couldnt google find it.

I have been a bit frustrated because I wanted to use some of my older Blender created OBJ exports into ZBRUSH to make some mods on them. Sadly I have had no luck getting Zsculpty to recognize them (constantly says they need to be a primative first and I have no clue how to do that - tried everything I know)...

So....

I have decided to make them from scratch. problem is that ever since Zbrush4 and the latest ZSculpty for Zbrush, all the sculpty exports that come out of Zsculpty have a huge bounding box inside SL - but only on the Z-AXIS. The sculpty in the box is flattened right out like a pancake.

The X and Y AXIS of the rezzed sculpty is perfect. every one of my sculpties i create has the same problem on the Z. I primarily used the PLANE3D to start but I have even tried a couple others and same issue.

Anyone know how i can fix this? What am I doing wrong?

I think I solved that problem, after doing a few searches and experiments I came up with a very convenient solution that is now working for me quite well.

Now let's assume you have the SculptyMap you exported from Zbrush
The Sculpty map is in "bmp" format
Change the sculpty map into "png" format using any 2D editing software
Get a free software called "Sculptypaint" It's a java software and available on this link http://elout.home.xs4all.nl/sculptpaint/
Now after downloading the software open it and drag and drop your sculptymap.png into it
It will give you couple of choices, chooses "Load as a new Sculpt image (.png)"
This will load your sculpty, you will notice that your sculpty far off or unsymmetrical to the main axis
Now the point is to center your object so that its in the middle of the axis
On the right side of Sculptypaint underneath the sculpty map click on "Select All" this will enable you to move all your sculpty into position
Click on Translate x or y or z till you center your sculpty onto the axis so it's almost balanced
When done, click "Save 64*64 Sculpt Image" on the top left side of the window
It will save the image in the SculptyPaint Folder so dont look anywhere else for it
Now go to second life and upload your SculptyMap, but the next step is important
When you upload the sculptymap you will find it distorted, Dont panic. What happened is that the sculpty paint has enlarged your sculpty to fit in it's bounding box.
All you need to do is to resize the sculpty manually, but in the end you will get a skin tight bounding box around the sculpty.

Note, it might be a little extra work resizing and so, but it sure is worth it and it's not a tough job either.
Hope it works for you as well. cheers!

[soulo]

does the zsculpty plug in work with 4 r2?

[ToysoldierThor]

marcus,

Can you confirm a couple things for me?

1) does the current version of Zsculpty with MEsh support include the ability to export collada with multiple texture zones? i.e. to set texture areas (I think via the creation of UV islands - not sure) so that when it enters SL the mesh can have different textures applied on different surfaces of the mesh?

2) I thought ZSculpty was created by the owner of ShineLife. I might be wrong. If so, I went to ShinyLife and he has stated that his life on SL has come to an end and he is moving on to new experiences. If this is true.... does that mean that this is the last version of Zsculpty we will all see - no improvements ? This would worry me as Zsculpty is critical to why i am using Zbrush for SL mesh creations.

3) Do you ever see that Pixelogic will every create a NATIVE COLLADA EXPORTER?

[Iridescence]

marcus,

Can you confirm a couple things for me?

1) does the current version of Zsculpty with MEsh support include the ability to export collada with multiple texture zones? i.e. to set texture areas (I think via the creation of UV islands - not sure) so that when it enters SL the mesh can have different textures applied on different surfaces of the mesh?

2) I thought ZSculpty was created by the owner of ShineLife. I might be wrong. If so, I went to ShinyLife and he has stated that his life on SL has come to an end and he is moving on to new experiences. If this is true.... does that mean that this is the last version of Zsculpty we will all see - no improvements ? This would worry me as Zsculpty is critical to why i am using Zbrush for SL mesh creations.

3) Do you ever see that Pixelogic will every create a NATIVE COLLADA EXPORTER?


I'm not Marcus, but I can answer 2 of these for you.

1) The current version of the Zsculpty tools includes a good collada exporter which exports the selected subtool using it's polygroups as the multiple material or texture zones. It will fail if you have more than 8 polygroups in the subtool.

2) "ZSculpty" was created by Shinylife. "Zsculpty Tools" is a completely different plugin created by Marcus for us. I guess if there are any updates to be done to Zsculpty Tools, Marcus or someone from this forum will be the person who does them. Tho I'm sorry to hear that Vlad is done with SL, he is a very helpful and sharing dude.

3) I dunno, tho I don't think it's likely, since they only have an OBJ exporter and have no native exporters for any of the other formats used in the 3D world. :) Plus this plugin has a collada exporter already, not sure why you'd want another one.

[ToysoldierThor]

I'm not Marcus, but I can answer 2 of these for you.

1) The current version of the Zsculpty tools includes a good collada exporter which exports the selected subtool using it's polygroups as the multiple material or texture zones. It will fail if you have more than 8 polygroups in the subtool.

2) "ZSculpty" was created by Shinylife. "Zsculpty Tools" is a completely different plugin created by Marcus for us. I guess if there are any updates to be done to Zsculpty Tools, Marcus or someone from this forum will be the person who does them. Tho I'm sorry to hear that Vlad is done with SL, he is a very helpful and sharing dude.

3) I dunno, tho I don't think it's likely, since they only have an OBJ exporter and have no native exporters for any of the other formats used in the 3D world. :) Plus this plugin has a collada exporter already, not sure why you'd want another one.

Well that is great news and a big Relief! I have been trying to get SL Mesh / Zbrush technique questions answered from the SL Mesh forum about multiple textures and no one has responded with an answer. So I suspected it could not be done. So you somehow apply multiple texture zones on a Zbrush model via polygroups? Is there somewhere I can read the details how to exactly do this? I am not that familiar on how polygroups works - much less how to use them to make these texture surfaces for export to SL.

I am glad that support for ZSculpty is NOT from Vlad as I thought that this meant no more support for Zsculpty on Zbrush. Sad to see he left Why would i want Zbrush to have native support for Collada.... because the risk of support for collada would not poof if the 3rd party poofed.

PS I was told on the SL MEsh threads that Zbrush does not support Rigging of mesh nor would the Zsculpty support it - that Zbrush can only create Static Mesh models for SL. Is this true?

[Iridescence]

Well that is great news and a big Relief! I have been trying to get SL Mesh / Zbrush technique questions answered from the SL Mesh forum about multiple textures and no one has responded with an answer. So I suspected it could not be done. So you somehow apply multiple texture zones on a Zbrush model via polygroups? Is there somewhere I can read the details how to exactly do this? I am not that familiar on how polygroups works - much less how to use them to make these texture surfaces for export to SL.

I am glad that support for ZSculpty is NOT from Vlad as I thought that this meant no more support for Zsculpty on Zbrush. Sad to see he left Why would i want Zbrush to have native support for Collada.... because the risk of support for collada would not poof if the 3rd party poofed.

PS I was told on the SL MEsh threads that Zbrush does not support Rigging of mesh nor would the Zsculpty support it - that Zbrush can only create Static Mesh models for SL. Is this true?

I create each polygroup/texture zone as it's own subtool, create the UV, create the textures for it etc all in it's own personal subtool with a single polygroup. Then before I export it, I use the subtool master plugin to merge the subtools, preserving the tools as separate polygroups within the one model for final export. Then you can merge up to 8 subtools for a final mesh that exports with 8 texture faces. Alternatively, do your UV unwrap and material assignment in another program like Blender.

Zbrush doesn't support rigging and skinning in the way we need it for SL. For that you will have to go to another program. Blender works absolutely fine for this, there is a lot of support for it on the SL forums and elsewhere on the internet, there is a 3rd party plugin for GoZ for blender which works like a charm to take your model back and forth for ease of sculpting and building geometry, and it's free.

[ToysoldierThor]

I create each polygroup/texture zone as it's own subtool, create the UV, create the textures for it etc all in it's own personal subtool with a single polygroup. Then before I export it, I use the subtool master plugin to merge the subtools, preserving the tools as separate polygroups within the one model for final export. Then you can merge up to 8 subtools for a final mesh that exports with 8 texture faces. Alternatively, do your UV unwrap and material assignment in another program like Blender.

Zbrush doesn't support rigging and skinning in the way we need it for SL. For that you will have to go to another program. Blender works absolutely fine for this, there is a lot of support for it on the SL forums and elsewhere on the internet, there is a 3rd party plugin for GoZ for blender which works like a charm to take your model back and forth for ease of sculpting and building geometry, and it's free.

thanks for the workflow on how to creat these texture zones with polygroups. I will admit i dont fully understand polygroups and subtools but that will now be the next tutorials and google youtube videos i will look for so i can understand your workflow you suggested. I understand your concept - just not the technical steps.

As for Blender..... big NOPE !!! I started out 3D modeling for SL using Blender and I can say that I created 3 of my 6 landscape sculpty map packs from within Blender.... but even after 1 year.... I never got comfortable with Blender's horrendous overly geekoid UI. I was convinced by a top SL Sculpty creator from IBM to try Zbrush. And even though i am still learning more about Zbrush with mesh arriving in SL, Zbrush and Sculptris are far easier for me than Blender. I wont go back to Blender unless there is something i really need to do that ONLY blender can do.

As for GoZ.... I almost had it all installed for sculptris and photoshop and then the zaplink function broke in Zbrush. It was working for sculptris but when I tried to get PS to Goz I now get errors when I try to engage it all the time. :( I posted the error on the Goz forum but no one responded. So it still sits broken. Didnt know there was a GoZ for Blender.

The error I get is: [FileExecute,gGoZDLLPath,GoZMergeUVs,[StrMerge,subToolPath,appExt]]

thanks again for all the insight!

[Iridescence]

thanks for the workflow on how to creat these texture zones with polygroups. I will admit i dont fully understand polygroups and subtools but that will now be the next tutorials and google youtube videos i will look for so i can understand your workflow you suggested. I understand your concept - just not the technical steps.

As for Blender..... big NOPE !!! I started out 3D modeling for SL using Blender and I can say that I created 3 of my 6 landscape sculpty map packs from within Blender.... but even after 1 year.... I never got comfortable with Blender's horrendous overly geekoid UI. I was convinced by a top SL Sculpty creator from IBM to try Zbrush. And even though i am still learning more about Zbrush with mesh arriving in SL, Zbrush and Sculptris are far easier for me than Blender. I wont go back to Blender unless there is something i really need to do that ONLY blender can do.

As for GoZ.... I almost had it all installed for sculptris and photoshop and then the zaplink function broke in Zbrush. It was working for sculptris but when I tried to get PS to Goz I now get errors when I try to engage it all the time. :( I posted the error on the Goz forum but no one responded. So it still sits broken. Didnt know there was a GoZ for Blender.

The error I get is: [FileExecute,gGoZDLLPath,GoZMergeUVs,[StrMerge,subToolPath,appExt]]

thanks again for all the insight!

The good news is that the Blender UI has vastly improved to a more intuitive system with the release of V2.58, so if you haven't tried that, give it another go. You can do everything else in Zbrush if you're comfortable, personally I prefer to build base meshes, create UV maps and do the skinning in blender and use Zbrush for everything else from sculpting to texturing. If you want to create skinned mesh, you need to learn how to do it somewhere, and Blender's price is right. If you can afford 3-4k for something else, good for you, go for it! :)

[ToysoldierThor]

The good news is that the Blender UI has vastly improved to a more intuitive system with the release of V2.58, so if you haven't tried that, give it another go. You can do everything else in Zbrush if you're comfortable, personally I prefer to build base meshes, create UV maps and do the skinning in blender and use Zbrush for everything else from sculpting to texturing. If you want to create skinned mesh, you need to learn how to do it somewhere, and Blender's price is right. If you can afford 3-4k for something else, good for you, go for it! :) :) Ironic as the last version of Blender that I grapsed was 2.49. Yes I have installed the absolute latest version 6 weeks ago and ironically for me it far more confusing. Menus I used to know where they were are completely not there anymore and when you start up blender its as if the developers felt it was important that they show you almost every functional window possible - and to date I had no clue how to close those windows (remember that I am a Windows UI persion but even such - I could not figure how to close most of those windows). I tried for a bit to understand the changes but to be honest - it was just too confusing and I didnt want to go through another round of trying to wrap my head around Blender. I dont know what the developers of Blender dont seriously consider adding a team that is not GEEK SQUAD oriented and would try to really tackle the UI that Blender is known to be one of the wost UI's in the industry. Anyway... for me ... I will only go into Blender if I absolutely have to. There is no denying that Blender is powerful. So let me asking .... exactly what is "SKINNING" a model? I assumed that mean texturing the surface. Clearly that is not what it means. So.... for creating a 3D model that is destined for SL.... when and why would I need to "skin" a model that only Blender can do and not Zbrush? Thanks in advance.

[Iridescence]

Skinning is the process for attaching a mesh to a rig, in our case, the SL skeleton for attachments like clothing. I know sl'ers call it "rigging", they're wrong. Rigging is the building of the bone structure. You cannot do this for SL in zbrush, at least not that I have been able to work out, so you need to use another application for this process. Maya, max, blender all work. Without this, you're stuck with making static meshes.

[ToysoldierThor]

I create each polygroup/texture zone as it's own subtool, create the UV, create the textures for it etc all in it's own personal subtool with a single polygroup. Then before I export it, I use the subtool master plugin to merge the subtools, preserving the tools as separate polygroups within the one model for final export. Then you can merge up to 8 subtools for a final mesh that exports with 8 texture faces. Alternatively, do your UV unwrap and material assignment in another program like Blender. .... I finally got an hour to try to go through your workflow. I didnt have enough time to really understand the details nor work out all the missing data that I didnt know from your steps (i.e. how to create subtools from a model that I have subdivided into several polygroups and how exactly the subtool master tool works - it had a lot of options), but I did end up getting two ugly mutated sides of a cube into SL where I was able to texture each of the two sides. :) WOOOHOOO! Thank you for the seed info on how to do this. What I need to take some time now is to work out the details on how to properly polygroup, and get the model into subtool, and learn more about the options of subtoolmaster.

[ToysoldierThor]

I create each polygroup/texture zone as it's own subtool, create the UV, create the textures for it etc all in it's own personal subtool with a single polygroup. Then before I export it, I use the subtool master plugin to merge the subtools, preserving the tools as separate polygroups within the one model for final export. Then you can merge up to 8 subtools for a final mesh that exports with 8 texture faces. Alternatively, do your UV unwrap and material assignment in another program like Blender.
.

An update Iriescence....

thanks for your initial instructions on how to create SL Surface Texture zones on a Zbrush model. It gave me a place to start learning. After a lot of playing I found a much more simple approach to what you sugguested. There is no need for SubTools and the SubToolMaster utility. It can all be done by just using PolyGroups and UVMaster....

High Level logic to the workflow.... The way Zbrush defines SL Texture Sufaces for SL is by defining PolyGroups on your Zbrush model then telling the UVMaster to create a UV Map & creating a separate UV Island on the map for each polygroup it sees on the model.

Here are the detailed basic step-by-step instructions on how to apply multiple texture faces on a single object Zbrush "Tool" (i.e. Zbrush's terminology for a model) that can be collada exported to SL to allow independent editing of these surfaces. Steps preceeded with the word "Normal:" means that the step is part of the normal workflow of creating a zbrush model for export to SL:


Normal: Create a new model (i.e. "Tool" in zbrush) and go into Edit mode and "make polymesh3D"
Normal: Do all the basic shaping of the model you want at the lowest polycount (best you get your model to the lowest polygon count at this time before going to further steps)
Normal: If you want to fine-tune your model shape now and/or you want to start the PolyPaint process of your model now, you can with no penalties to the workflow.
- Increase model's polycount to very high res (over 1 million polys for a 1024x1024 SL texture resolution)
- This is done in the TOOL->Geometry-Divide (press it 5 times for 5 divisions of the model's poly count)
Normal: You can continue with both high-res shaping and/or polypainting the entire model
- Remeber that real subtle shaping changes at this res will barely if at all detected at the lowest LOD destined for collada export to SL.

** Ready to identify the individual texture surfaces for manipulation in SL **
** This is done by setting PolyGroups on the model for each of the max of 8 texture surfaces **
Reduce your model back down to the lowest Geometry (ie. lowest LOD) - done in TOOL->Geometry-SDiv1
Enable your PolyF ("Draw Ployframe" grid) button so that you can select each of your polygroups that will match each of your Texture Zones / Faces you want available in SL.
- A poly mesh grid will appear on your model and the color of the model will change to a single color weird color.
- As you create new polygroups, these new polygroups will be represented as a new color on this grid
Draw "select" the polygons that are included in one of these polygroups (i.e. using the Crtl-Shift keys and drawing a lasso around all the polygons).
- All the polys you green lasso'ed will remain visible on the screen and all the other will hide from the screen.
Press the TOOLS->PolyGroups->"Group Visible" button. This will set all the visible polys as a new defined polygroup (and it will be assigned a new color on the polygroup grid)
- To see the hidden polys, just CRTL-Shift and Click the hidden part of the model. This should hide the polygroup you just created and make the hidden part of the model visible. To see all the entire model press the Ctrl-Shift and click anywhere off the model
Repeat Steps 7 & 8 until you have defined all the polygroups you need that will = all the texture surfaces you want to be texture surface editable on the mesh in SL

** You have now defined all the SL texture surfaces on the model as POLYGROUPS **
** Now you can either continue PolyPainting each polygroup or the entire model until you are happy **
** When you are completely happy and want to take the completed model to SL... **
Goto ZPlugin->UVMaster Menu and click the "WORK ON CLONE" button
- This creates a lowest polycount copy of your entire model where UVs will be applied to it and later on transferred back to your main model
- protects your main model from mistakes and gets around UVMaster limits on working with models with multiple LODs and/or subtools
In UVMaster menu, click the "PolyGroups" button
- this tells UVMaster to make a UV set where each polygroup must be an island on the UV set
- each UV island when exported to SL will become your independent SL Texture surface
In UVMaster menu, click the "UNWRAP All" button
- this unwraps your model for each polygroup and creates the new UV set for the model
- you can see the actual UV set with all its islands if you click on the "Flatten" button. Click "Unflatten" to return
- you can see the seams of all the islands on the model if you press the "CheckSeams" button

** Now to place the UV set back onto your main model from the clone **
In the UVMaster menu. click the "Copy UV's" button
In the main TOOL menu, select your main model again to make it the active model on the Zbrush screen
- does not matter if your main model is in high or low polycount LOD
In the UVMaster menu, click the "Paste UVs" button
- this applies the UVs from the clone to your main model

*** You have now create a Zbrush model with multiple surface zone that SL will recognize ***
** Now to get your model ready for exporting to SL **
Normal: Make sure all your PolyGroups are visible (Shift-Crtl and click somewhere off your model)
Normal: Make sure your TOOL->PolyPaint Colorize is enabled so you can see your painted model
Normal: Make sure your model is at the highest resolution so your painted model is at the highest resolution
Normal: Goto the TOOL->UV MAP submenu and click the 1024 buttom
- you are doing this to tell the texture mapping to create a map of 1024x1024 resolution that matchs SL's max resolution during mesh import or to create your own independent texture map for SL import after some photoshopping of the texture map
Normal: Goto the TOOL->TextureMap submenu and click "New Form PolyPaint"
- this transfers the polypainted data on the model onto an industry standard Texture Map that conforms to the UV Map of the model at the 1024x1024 resolution
Normal: Optionally if you want a workable external copy of the texture map the click the "Clone Txtr" button, then under Texture menu, you can export this cloned texture to a file on your hard drive.

** You are now ready to export your model to SL **
Reduce your model to the lowest geometry / LOD from the TOOL->Geometry-> SDiv1
- you need to do this so that the Collada export tool will export the lowest LOD to SL
In the Zplugin->Zsculpty utility, click the "Export to SL MESH" button and follow the simple instructions
Save your Zbrush Tool (if you have already a few times during this process http://secondlife.i.lithium.com/i/smilies/16x16_man-happy.gif
Exit Zbrush
Enter SL
Mesh Import your new Mesh and if you want you can include the texture as part of the import
Res your new SL mesh
YOU ARE DONE!!!!
You can Select Texture any of the polygroups from the model and change the imported texture for that surface, or change any texture dynamics that SL Edit allows.