ZBrushCentral

LIGHTWAVE UV HELP

ZBrush Artworks
#1

Attention Lightwave/ZBrush users…

I have been working on a fairly low res head study and texture map in ZBrush that I want to take into Lightwave. I have completed the head (and 2 tusks as separate models) and I have done a few test renders with ZBrush that I am happy with.

Next, I can get the model into Lightwave and it seems to behave fine in ‘modeller’. When
I go into ‘Surface editor’ I can load the texture map (.bmp) and even see a little preview. THe problem I have is what type of mapping. ZBrush exports a model (.obj not DXF) with UV co-ords. What do I need to do to get this ZB texturemap to fit the head?.

EDIT: Ooops…Figured it out. I hadn’t told it to use the UV Map DOH!..I’ll post the results soon. Any tips would be welcome though.

#2

I can’t wait to see what you do with this head :smiley: :+1: :+1: :+1:

#3

Hi Southern great model

Click the “T” next to the color channel,

Then in the next window

Layer type “image map”
Blending mode “normal”
projection “UV”
UVmap “OBJ_UVTexturemap” (or something similar)
then your image file

this works for me after selecting

obj, tex, merge, grp when exporting from zbrush.

Dave

#4

Cheers Dave,

Just as I posted I realized what I did wrong. I am enjoying learning Lightwave with ZBrush models and need all the help I can get. :wink:

I have the manual (v7) which I find overpowering and I am working through Dan Ablans latest book as well. I really enjoy modelling in ZBrush and getting the meshes to perform in other applications. DO you find ZBrush textures work ok in Lightwave?

G

I had a quick go with the same head in C4D tonight and the results were ok. where I didn’t do much work on the mesh there is a lot of texture stretch but the bump effect worked ok.

one thing that I could do with help with. C4D seems to take the model and texture better than Lightwave. I find that when I render the model in Lightwave the image has little black irregularities all over the surface, almost as if there are missing polygons. Any ideas anyone? I’ll post a LW render later to show you.

#5

You might try trippling all the polygons (SHIFT+T) this will get rid of any non-planar faces (quads that have become a bit too twisted to render properly)

If you still have problems, zoom into the offending areas, and look for holes. There really aren’t holes, but polys facing the opposite direction. Select them, then press “f” for flip, and that should fix it.

#6

i too am trying out lightwave,so this is a learning experience for the both of us…thanks for posting your tests…

#7

Ken, Are you free tonight? I’m happy to pay for the flight over here to the UK and the hotel accomodation for you and your familiy and your PC for a year to teach me how to use Lightwave :slight_smile: …It worked perfectly and the renders look cool! Many thanks for the tips. I’m working on the bump map then I’ll post the results.

Cheers,

Glen

#8

Astounding model and texture! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

#9

He is looking good!

The textures don’t look as rich in lw as they do in zbrush. Though that can be fixed with the image editor.

Maybe a better way to try would be to export the model and make a new map in lw? Then import back into zbrush to texture. Just a thought, really don’t have much experiance with either program yet. (especially new to zbrush)

Dave

#10

Just wanted to add something. In order to not needlessly triple planar 4 point polygons, hit ‘w’, be sure you are in polygon selection mode ‘ctrl+h’, and you should be able to select only the non-planar polygons ( by hitting the little + sign in front of ‘Non-planar’ )

Anyway, nice work Southern.

#11

“…but polys facing the opposite direction.”

I may say a nonsense, but several softwares, free ones , or converters like 3d Exploration and others, allow to “unify” normals. Even there are ways (max plugins or scripts, features in other softwares, free or not) To find “reversed” faces.

There’s a bad method. Force faces to be doubled faced. That increase a lot the memory, if I’m not wrong.

But seems it is just what is said, some quad faces are too distorted for LW.(I don’t know a word about LW )

By the way…The model is looking cool. There’s one thing I 'm not sure to like in ZB models, and it is the wrinkles produced for zbrush dragging over the mesh…In the neck of you’r monster they’re seen. Anyway , in Zbrush they can be avoided. But where you put them, they’re ok.

Looking at the texture map, seems to me you used a internal zb sphere with zb’s own mapping.

I use to map outside zb. And always use obj.

edit – I’m eager to see ZB 1.5. It seems that new tools are gonna be the best workaround I could ever dreamed for many general 3d problems (those which you find in most softwares and make you loose time…)

I have felt in love with the Mirai-like look of the polyframe mode, and ZB expanding more its views to subdivisions, low polygon count, and methods to construct full bodies easier… :+1: :+1: :+1:

#12

oy southern! beautiful work…but i have some questions about methodology. In ZB, you can see the nice little specular map that creates the scaly skin. This effect comes from ZBs native procedural shaders(material)and is not actually hand painted. My question is how can i export this specular map which is incredibly differant from the color map in order to use in other apps?

ZB is a great soft because we can creat some amazing images so quickly. One of the luxuries of course is the automated specular and bump maps that we get from the library of materials. It would be really awesome if we could somehow get our artististic fingers into these functions and hand paint them in just as we do with the color map.

At the moment this method is done by making slight changes in the material in order to paint the glossy areas and the matte areas…but how do we translate these subtle differances into other apps using ZB? Is it possible?

cant wait till 1.5