I have a work around for this. Unfortunately Zbrush is more broken by every update of the tools. Previously the nanomesh uv’s were maintained but for some reason now they just dont freaking work. They change the base line for the tools too much.
The UVs dont work, they are lost in the process from nanomesh to geo.
—Work around below—
Simplified;-
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Take your Insert Brush and draw a single instance as a separate subtool.
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Make your nanomesh setup and draw it up as you please. Just make sure you maintain the mesh topology.
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Make nanomesh setup and turned it into geo. Delete the placement mesh
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Calculate the number of nano mesh instances.
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Use array mesh on original Insert Mesh subtool to make the same number of instances.
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Make into geo without extrude(array setting)
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Copy Uv’s from array mesh to nano meshes.
Anyway, my work around is as follows, requires a little math with the calculator but it works.
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Take your Insert Brush and draw a single instance as a separate subtool.
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Make your nanomesh setup and draw it up as you please. Just make sure you maintain the mesh topology. This is key. So you may translate the mesh with EDIT MESH function in nanomesh tools, but do not edit the topological structure.
(It is absolute that it needs to match the Insert brush subtool.) -
Once you have made your nanomesh setup and turned it into geo. Delete the placement mesh so all that is left in the subtool is your nanomeshes.
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Now we need to count the number of nano mesh instances.
(you can unwrap all islands with uv master and see how many islands there are, then divide it by the number of islands in your original insert brush.)
e.g. my insert mesh brush has 3 islands. My nanomesh has 330. 330 divided by 3 is 110. So I have 110 instances of the nanomesh -
Now with the original Insert Mesh we will use array mesh to create 110 instances (in this example) of our uv mapped insert mesh subtool.
Make it into a mesh without extrude enabled in array mesh settings. -
Now go uv master, and copy the uv’s.
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Go back to your nanomeshes and paste the uv’s in. The UV’s have now translated. This will only work if the topology is the same. Regardless of position and orientation.