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ZB<>Maya pipeline question, Morph targets

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi;
I was wondering if anyone could pour me some advice about morph targets:
I got a fullbody character, rigged and bound in Maya. Now I need to make
facial expressions which I intend to create in ZBrush rather than using
clusters in Maya. My question is, do I have to detach the head and a apply
changes, then export or use the character as whole, in bindpose and make
changes to the head? Would I still have the freedom to combine facials and
poses interchangeably in maya? eg: “looking terrified and watching back while
running” or “smiling while adjusting the hat”. You get the idea!

Thanks a lot in advance!

#2

You cannot detatch the head then reattach it without changing the vertex order in Maya which will render the blendshapes unusable. Your best bet is to either export the whole body and sculpt your blends on just the head in Zbrush or detatch the head in Maya and make sure the vertices for the neck are weighted the exact same in the component editor as the corrosponding vertices of the body along the seam. This insures the seam does not show during animation. Export the head geometry and sculpt your blends on that. Frankly, just using the whole body is a lot less trouble especially on a more complex character.

Scott

#3

Excellent! Thanks a lot for the reply!
:+1:

#4

No problem! : ) Good luck, Zbrush is an awesome tool for making quick work of blendshapes. : D

Scott

#5

I agree totally, less fuss in zbrush and live feedback makes it so intuitive
to mold the most bizzare facials in no time. I found out that asigning
polygroups to some regions in face can make a real fast way to combine
movements like eyebrow, corner of the lips osv.

Thanks again!

#6

Actually, you CAN detach and reattach a head to make blendshapes, you just have to go about it a certain way to retain vertex order. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Duplicate your fullbody mesh.
  2. Figure out which faces you want to detach for your head.
  3. On the duplicate fullbody mesh (which I’ll call headMesh from now on), you delete everything except the head faces.
  4. Create whatever wacky blendshapes you want based off of duplicates of headMesh. They should have the same vertex order as the original.
  5. If you need to recombine, take the original headMesh and polyCombine it with bodyMesh. Make sure to select headMesh first, and bodyMesh second. This will reorder the vertices of the body faces, but should retain the order of the headMesh.

Of course, you need to do this pre-skinning, but it should work. Haven’t used it extensively myself… yet. Would be worthwhile to run a few tests of your own to make sure I’m not on crack. I hope that helps. :slight_smile:

#7

Hi Bonedaddy;
now that was a pretty agressive way to concouer this problematic, I
couldn’t think of it in my wildest dream, i guess it will work when you
dare to suggest it, gonna give it a try! This type of workflow would
actually be the swellest thing if I could get it to work, cause I got
several more Zsphere characters waiting to be exposed in Maya, if i
just could fine the less painfull way to do it.
Thanks a big deal for suggesting it!

:wink: