One of the things I was most looking forward to with R7 was the ability to import and export FBX files. Unfortunately, I’ve been tweaking every setting I can find but I can’t get them to preserve polygroups. The documentation claims that FBX should preserve polygroups. Has anyone else given this a try? Also, are there any plans to include Maya creasing in future FBX updates? If I could send creases and polygroups back and forth to Maya, I would be over the moon! 
Cheers!
Will
3ds max 2015 have opensubdiv now why does not zbrush send crease info or dynamic subdiv info that is stored in the edges of a model to 3ds max, in order to render with less vertex count .I tried goz and fbx export but no success . I do not want to put more edges to sport the hardsurface. If any one now a way to do this plx share or I hope pixologic do something about that.
Hi Will,
Polygroups are included in FBX files exported from ZBrush, as FBX ‘Polygon Groups’, but this data is presumably ignored by Maya. I think it would be necessary for the ZBrush plugin to have an option to ‘export Polygroups as Selection Sets’ in order to provide what you want. I’ll look into this.
For creases, yes, these will be included as soon as is practical.
Thanks, Marcus. That’s great news. Being able to send creases and polygroups back and forth between Maya and ZBrush would be the final step in seamless integration between the two, in my opinion. That would be the biggest game changer of the year for my workflow. Thanks for looking into it.
Cheers!
Will
Marcus,
I also need to preserve vertex color as well. I am pushing my models to Substance Designer and I would like to bake a color map off off poly paint information. This works with obj export, but zbrush obj export does not include hard edges normal data.
What would be really nice is if Zbrush could be compliant with both fix and objectives export AND import.
I have not found a way to remortgage my object into zbrush and have it read my vertex color data. It is there in other programs and is exported from zbrush but isn’t read back into Z.
If you could, please give an etc on when any of these methods could be updated! I really need this to bake high quality maps in substance designer from my high resolution hard surface models I create in Zbrush.
Thanks for the help!!
Also a real progress bar would be very helpful. I start to export a large model (2 mil +) and it says “file exported. Time 1.256 secs” and then the cursor sits there and spins and spins for like 4-5 min. The first time I exported I though ZBrush died on me. I’m using the 64 bit version if that makes a difference.
So it just took 30 + min to export an fbx file of mine that was 2.8 million + polys. IS this normal behavior? My PC has been running a bit slow to begin with and I need to reformat and re install all my apps, but this seems to be a crazy export time even for a slow PC.
Hi Nick,
On vertex color / polypaint: this is included in FBX files from ZBrush (and will import also). Check your import settings in Substance Designer.
On a progress bar: I agree this would be useful. I will look into it.
On time to export: 30 min is way too long. I just exported the Earthquake model, all subtools at high res (over 3 million) and it took about 2 min and my PC is old (6GB RAM). Make sure you don’t put ZBrush in the background while processing subtools or it will pause. (This is a limitation with all plugins but will be most noticeable with FBX and MME.)
(As an aside, I think your auto-correct has been a bit creative in your first post!)
HTH,
Thanks Marcus! I will investigate further into why vertex color is not being read in correctly in Substance Designer. Oh my gosh…auto correct makes me sound drunk or high…or both! I didn’t even realize this happened!
Marcus,
I have made a really simple test in ZBRush with a high res sphere. On the sphere I have polygroups and polypaint, I exported the sphere using the FBX plugin and imported into that into Substance Designer. I have tried every method they have for baking color information and I am getting no results using polygroups.
I was able to get polypaint to show up (I checked the embed maps option on the ZB plugin, not sure if that has any effect or not) but I am not able to get the polygroup information to bake in SD.
I exported an OBJ to check and make sure it was working for OBJ and it does. So, am I doing something wrong on my end for the FBX export to get both vertex color and polygroups to export both at the same time?
Thanks!
Is anyone else able to verify that this is or isn’t working in Substance Designer? Thanks!
Hi Nick,
Apologies for the delay, my ZBC notifications are screwed at the moment.
I can confirm that Substance Designer is not reading Polygon Group information from FBX files. I don’t know at the moment if this is a fault with SD’s handling of FBX or ZBrush’s implementation of FBX. If you have an FBX file that SD does read Polygon Groups from then perhaps you could let me see it?
One workaround is to split your mesh in ZBrush before exporting:
SD will then read the Mesh IDs and produce a map. Polypaint should also be included OK.
HTH,