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game character workflow question

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

hi all^^

this is my nab question :D:

Can i create a base mesh in Zbruhs , directly sculpt the details (so the hig poly) and after done my hig-poly mesh go in max ,retopologize the mesh (create the loypoly mesh),create the UVs ,go back in Zbrush and generate my Normal from the old higpoly mesh?..if yes how can i do this? (i mean the genration of normal form the old mesh for the new low poly mesh)…

I hope that I have been clear XD

#2

yes, you can do what you want.
you’ll have to project the LP mesh onto the HP mesh then generate a normal map for the object.

I find doing this in Zbrush is a pain though, I bake my meshes using xNormal because you don’t have to do a direct mesh projection, just a raycasted on.

#3

this is great!..and so how can i project the high details onto the LP ?

#4

another vote for xnormal.

i typically only use zbrush for sculpting and zspheres2. i find all of the other features seem half done and not really usable. sometimes i’ll use polypaint to do a quick base-texture that I can bake down to my lowpoly, but nothing final.

my modeling workflow for game characters goes like this:

  • basemesh in modo or zspheres2 (depends on the project and teh concept)
  • sculpt in zbrush
  • back and forth from zbrush to modo to do things like armor, rivets, stuff that’s not easy to do in zbrush
  • decimation master to modo
  • retopo in modo (or sometimes topogun. current employer doesn’t have topogun so i use modo)
  • unwrap in uvlayout
  • decimated mesh + low poly to xnormal, bake normals, base texture (from zbrush sometimes), and AO. generate cavity from normal map, then take the whole thing in photoshop for textures.
#5

if you do some searching on projecting one mesh onto another you’ll find a ton of tutorials.

nickZ has a good one on vimeo that should get you what you need

Testure and I have the same workflow…except I use modo’s unwrapper with a couple of custom plugins to unwrap. Other than that…the exact same.