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A possible way to project the polypaint and deformations from a high res dynamesh

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I answered this question from TrevorG in his thread and maybe others can use this way too.
The UV- and polypaint- transfer might not work with all meshes, so try for yourself.

Is it possible for me to project the polypaint and deformations from my high res mesh to my newly created UVed low poly model?

Trevor,

that IS the problem when you use Dynamesh.
As Dynamesh creates a complety new topology every time you remesh, you don’t have a matching low-sub-d-mesh to project your details.

What you can try is this:

Make a copy (clone) of your high detailed and polypainted Dynamesh-model.

Then there might be two ways you can go:

A) Lower the Dynamesh-resolution slider to the desired low-poly-level and do a remesh.
Now you have a low-poly-dynamesh. In case you need quads, retopo this low-poly dynamesh into a usual quad-mesh and give it a UV-layout.
Then you can use that low-poly-Mesh as a base for the usual retopo and detail-transfer.

B) Use decimation master to create a low-poly-mesh that better matches your high detailed dynamesh work without loosing much details.

So, detail transfer to a low-poly version is not the problem.

The problem goes with the polypaint.
You can create a GUV-tiles UV-map with your dynemash-work to get the polypaint into a GUV-map and so out of ZBrush, but there is currently no official way (so far I know) to get a color-transfer from dynamesh to the low-res version.

But I found a way that might work for you.
Try this:

  1. Create a clone of your polypainted dynamesh.
  2. Use decimation master on the clone to create a low-poly-version of your work. Your Polypaint will be lost, but we will recover it.
  3. Create a UV-layout of your choice on the decimated mesh (UV-master within ZBrush or else)
  4. copy the UV’s with UV-master (ZPlugin)
  5. Make your polypainted dynamesh the active tool, open the Tool -> UV-Map rollout, put the UV map-size-slider to 4096 or higher and paste the UV-set with UV-master on it.

ZBrush will now show boxes that the transfer does not work and bla-bla-bla, but if you now see an active ‘Delete UV’-button in the Tool -> UV-Map rollout, the transfer has happened despite what Zbrush told you.
In that case, you can

  1. open the Tool -> Texture map rollout and hit 'New from polypaint.

Maybe there are distorsions you have to adjust or try again with a higher UV-map-size

  1. Now, with an active UV-texture on your dynamesh, use again decimation master on your dynamesh with the settings you used on the clone and now you’ll have again the detailed low-poly mesh, but now with the color-map and UV’s.

Good luck.