ZBrushCentral

Are you kidding me?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Are you kidding me, Zbrush, please tell me this is just a bad joke…

With ZBrush 4, if you import an obj file that has polygon part groups and then save it as a tool or as a project, ZBrush goes and renames all the polygon groups to crap that makes no sense.

Yeah, like what might have been “Left_Foot” might now be “Group34”.
I guess it doesn’t like us trying to be organized with our thinking. Yeah, Group 34 is much more descriptive. I think I’m going to suggest that Gnomon starts teaching that naming convention since it’s vastly superior to the old way like Head, Abdomen, Right_Index1 and stupid names like that.

I have a figure that used to have 60-some body parts with names that made sense to me. Now they’re all called Group1, Group2, Group3…

I just can’t believe this. It knows what the poly group names are when it loads an obj and it even knows enough to export an obj with the correct poly group names.
But noooo… god forbid it should save the tool or the project like that, let’s just rename everything and let it be a surprise…

It’s bad enough that all the material groups are consolidated into one that becomes “default_mat”, but this just adds insult to injury.

Do the people who come up with these ideas do any actual work with OBJ files or do they just sit around and sculpt all day and never use any other programs?
:rolleyes:

#2

It is easy to restore your group names before exporting your finished sculpt. This means you don’t have to worry about preserving the groups while you are sculpting:

  1. Go to the lowest subdivision level.
  2. Store a morph target. (If there is already a morph target delete it first).
  3. Import the original OBJ which has the group names.
  4. Switch the morph target.
  5. Export the OBJ which will have the group names restored.

ZBrush supports only one grouping method. You can import material groups as polygroups by pressing the Preferences>Importexport>Import Mat as Groups button.

#3

Thanks for the reply and the suggestion, and for not jumping on me. :slight_smile:

To rescue my project I had to do a similar thing, but not with ZBrush, but rather with Lightwave, to use the sculpt to create an endomorph for the correct figure with the correct groups. That’s alot easier than ZBrush’s convoluted and strange ways.

I love ZBrush to death for most things, but man some things about it really p*ss me off and have me tearing my hair out and scratching my head in disbelief:

UV maps flipped - who came up with that brainstorm? That’s dumb as hell. I guess they figured everyone wanted to paint upside down in Photoshop. :wink:
(yes I know about flipping it on the V but the point is it shouldn’t be inverted in the first place)
No texture groups exported, object groups renamed for no good reason…
C’mon, seriously. :rolleyes:

On the bright side, there are always workarounds, but if the people who made ZBrush just didn’t have this need to be strange and bizarrely unconventional in some cases, alot of those workarounds could be avoided.

#4

Bear in mind that ZBrush’s innovation and technical sophistication is a direct result of that different approach. :slight_smile:

#5

LOL this is true. Point taken. :smiley: