I was wondering if there was a way to use the decimation master to lower the poly-count of an object and then use the original object to make normal/displacement maps.
use Maya, 3ds Max, Blender or xNormal Projections… :rolleyes:
I have a relatively high poly model which will make blender crash if I try to directly import the mesh in. So I was wondering if there’s a method to decimate the mesh in Zbrush. Then make normal maps on the decimated mesh from the original high poly mesh.
Because I tried decimating the mesh. Then subdivide a few times, then tried to project all. But the polygons inside the mouth of the character gets distorted.
Also, I’m not quite sure on your directions.
Decimation master isn’t to make a lowpoly. It’s to get out a Highpoly. You have to manually build the mesh you want. If decimation master could pull off animation ready models half the game industry and VFX workers would be out of a job.
Nice try though.
Then your choice should be xNormal, it has a non 3d interface, so it loads the high res meshes and the low meshes without displaying them in 3d, so… you can work with really heavy meshes (even undecimated ones) with it…
I have used it with 10 million polys and works just fine…
It even can bake ambient occlusion, base texture, normal maps…
The workflows you can follow:
Low res mesh, quads, uv layout
Zbrushing, Polypainting
Multidisplacement for displacement maps
Zmapper for normal maps
Color to texture for Texture
------------------- or
Thinking that you want to do a low res version of the sculpted mesh using decimation master to preserve the silouethe
Low res mesh
Zbrushing Poypaintin
Decimating a “Mid res Mesh” (500k to 1 million poly)
Decimating a “Low res mesh”, no uv’s (1k to 5k poly)
Uv layout of the “low res mesh” in blender, maya or max…
Projecting the “mid res mesh” onto the “low res mesh” using xNormal, blender, maya or max
Usually the 3d programs have a point cloud or bounding box visualization, this way you can import even 5 to 10 million poly for baking… (Maya, Blender or Max) without crashing
It can be done.
Subdivide your decimated mesh to have as many polygons as the original. Append it to the orginal as a SubTool. Use Tool>SubTool>Project All to copy the details from the original. You can use the sculpting brushes (including ZProject) to fix any errors or problem areas. Then go back to level 1 and create your normal map.
Thank you ISK-86 for informing me about the program XNormals (I’m still learning it). And thank you aurick. Using the the project brush to fill in the detail of the area’s ( mainly the area’s with errors) worked like a charm. Thanks a bundle.