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What am I doing wrong? Struggles with exporting a texture from zbrush...

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1
My intent is to take a low-res Maya mesh into zbrush, texture it and make a displacement map for it, and then export the displacement map and texture map back into Maya for rendering with the original mesh (unaltered). I've watched tutorials on this a hundred times, but they seem to be using a different version of Zbrush (I'm on 3.1) or else glossing over a step or something. Here's what I do, maybe someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong?:

  • import an .obj from Maya into Zbrush

  • draw this tool onto the screen

  • hit ‘make polymesh3D’

  • hit ‘tool>morph target>storeMT’

  • hit T to enter edit mode

  • select ‘matcap white’ material and orange color

  • say ‘color>fill object’

  • subdivide several times (ctrl-d)

  • begin painting color and zadd into the object

    At no point does the ‘tool>displacement’ menu give me an option to export anything, regardless of what subd level I’m at. I’ve tried ‘texture>new’ and it makes a texture with a solid color in it, but at no point am I painting on that texture. I’ve tried many many variations on ‘tool>texture>enable UV’ including AUVTiles, and then have tried txr>color, it turns my model black and acts like it’s putting a texture into the texture palette, but nothing shows up. I’ve tried col>txr and it makes my mesh disappear and again pretends to put a texture into the texture palette but nothing shows up (you can see a square quickly shooting up into the palette area but the palette doesn’t change).

    I’m at my wit’s end here, please help! I’m clearly missing some crucial steps here or else not dealing with a full deck.

Thanks,
Ben

#2

First, you don’t need to make polymesh3D. All imported models are already polymesh models.

Second, have you read the online documentation? www.pixologic.com/docs. There are sections on polypainting and displacement mapping. Please go over that information, as it will answer the majority of your issues. If you continue to have trouble after that point, we’ll then be able to assist you.

#3

As I understand there is something mess with UV’s, if your OBJ is already UV-mapped I advice to set your current mesh (with buggy UV’s) to initial subdivision level and import OBJ from Tools:Import subpalette. Now you can increase your subd level and check UVs by clicking UV>Tex. Hope it helps because it help me!

#4

I did solve my workflow problem, mostly from reading this:

http://www.zbrush.info/site/index.php/ZBrush_To_Maya_Displacement_Guide

and

http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/Paint_It!

Very helpful to have these step-by-steps, because what Zbrush actually does in its workflow is so different from other packages… My problems lately are more minor, so I call that progress. Thanks guys!