ZBrushCentral

Character as one mesh and texturing question

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Am sculpting a character for use in a game engine which will require rigging and animation.
Ive a pretty high poly character and will do the retopology later once hes completed.
The thing is, ive modelled the character into parts such as the body, shirt, pants and gear etc are all separate objects.
Am thinking to delete some of the hidden geometry of the main body later as it will be covered with the shirt and pants etc.
Am wondering when i do the retopology do i have to have it all as one mesh like for example, target weld the vertices together inside of 3ds max so its one mesh or can i just simply attach the different parts together using the attach tool or even just group them?

For the texturing am thinking of doing polypainting. I hear that you can get the vertex colours from the high poly on the low poly once ive retopped it and unwrap it inside of xnormal is this true?

thanks

#2

Am wondering when i do the retopology do i have to have it all as one mesh like for example, target weld the vertices together inside of 3ds max so its one mesh or can i just simply attach the different parts together using the attach tool or even just group them?

If you Append a ZSphere as a subtool, you can retopologize over top of all visible subtools without the need of merging them together.

For the texturing am thinking of doing polypainting. I hear that you can get the vertex colours from the high poly on the low poly once ive retopped it and unwrap it inside of xnormal is this true?

If you have UV’s, XNormal will convert polypaint to texture, but so will ZBrush. I do remember hearing that there was a tutorial for baking ZBrush polypaint to texture without UV,s in XNormal, but I have never come across it so I’m not sure if it’s even possible. I have my doubts.

#3

If you have access to Max, I’d stick with retolopogizing it in there. You’ll have more tools/options at your disposal, and wont have to worry about polygon limits as much (though you’ll still want to work on a medium-res or decimated version of the sculpt). You shouldn’t have to do any vertex welding, and if it works more like other applications then you probably wont even have to combine all the subtools either.

I do remember hearing that there was a tutorial for baking ZBrush polypaint to texture without UV,s in XNormal, but I have never come across it so I’m not sure if it’s even possible. I have my doubts.

The low res mesh will always need UVs, but otherwise xnormal can read the polypaint information from the sculpt so that particular mesh wont need them. I think you just have to set it up so that it doesn’t ignore the per-vertex color, and use the ‘bake highpoly’s vertex color’ map option.