ZBrushCentral

Question on Character Workflow

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Question,

I have modeled a knight. Has about 10 Sub Tools of armor parts and full body. It has clean topo for both Low and High levels. I am ready to unwrap in Maya then bake normals and texture, but when the character is ready to go into a game engine it will be a single object.

Should I combine all the armor and body into a single mesh before I bring it into Maya for Unwrapping? Or should I unwrap each object separately, bake normals, texture, bring back into ZBrush to combine (DynaMesh? ZRemember? or Decimation Master?) Then bring it into my game engine?

I’m just confused on the best way to get from multiple sub-tool objects to a single game ready single object.

Thanks!

#2

200% Shouldn’t bake in Zbrush.

Decimate your meshes (if needed) and kick them out to another application to bake in.
Unwrap your lowpoly model assuming it is a single object, or use as many as needed to achieve the look you’re going for, etc.
It doesn’t need to be a single object, but if you plan on using a single texture sheet, then you should unwrap it as such.

Bake, texture, etc.

#3

Thanks for the reply beta_channel,

The reason I want to make it a single mesh, is because a majority of the armor has faces that are never seen by the gamer. For example, the bracers on the arm will be useless geometry on the side that touches the skin as well as the skin that is not seen.

So lets say I start the process of collapsing everything into a single mesh (low poly), would you recommend I Dynamesh first to combine all of the subtools that will get rid of unseen geometry, then use ZRemesher to reduce quads? My concern is that I will lose all high level detailing. I had already detailed my armor with designs at the high level.

Another question, how do I create new polygons that conform to my subtools? I saw someone awhile ago creating Quads by clicking on the mesh in zbrush creating his own new custom topology. It wasn’t ZModeler and it looked like he started with ZSphere? Does that sound right?

Thanks again!

#4

Retopo is the word you’re looking for. In zbrush it is done with zspheres.

How you get to your lowpoly mesh doesn’t matter. If you don’t need faces, don’t model them. If you think they will work better combined, combine them. It really all comes down to what does it need to do.

#5

Greetings,
Looks like you are quite new to this topic, right?

  • At first finish your highpoly sculpt, when you say it’s finished save it. Dont worry about the number of subtools, polygons, UV’s or anything else, they doesn’t matter.
  • 2nd you must make a low poly mesh by retopology. Best solution for me is to make it with an external program called topogun. But if you want to go with ZBrush there are a few possabilitys to do that. I highly suggest searching on youtube for some retopology tutorials, watch them first and use you model to learn the different methods.
  • After that you have two models: The highpoly and the low poly. The low poly is the model you want to throw into your game.
  • Unwrap the low poly.
  • Use XNormal ( a free programm) to bake all the details from your high poly on the textures of your low poly. Again I suggest looking for a quick tutorial first, if you have never worked with it, but its fairly simple and you should know everything you need within minutes.
  • finish your textures and have fun. :slight_smile:

Cheers,