ZBrushCentral

Normal Map creasing in ZBrush 3.12 Mac

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I’m fairly new to ZBrush and I have currently been sculpting a model I brought in from Maya 8.5. All of my UV’s were manually laid out in Maya and then I exported the OBJ to ZBrush. From there, I subdivided my model a few times to subd level 6, and added my detail. The issue came in when I went to create the normal map in the Normal Map tab. I set both the Tangent and Adaptive buttons to on (leaving the Smooth UV off since it rounds the edges of the UV map and I lose coverage on the edges of my model). The map generated from this gives me creases on some of my UV lines and on the face, fingers, toes, etc. Then when I apply the normal map in Maya 8.5 in the bump node (as the tutorial in the ZClassroom suggests), I get this really terrible looking bump instead of it affecting the normals on the character. If someone has some tips for me, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

Attachments

CavemanUV.jpg

CavemanModel.jpg

CavemanTextured.jpg

#2

Try the technique here:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=540166&postcount=187

You may be able to apply it to Normal mapping as well.

-K

#3

Hey Kerwin, thanks for the reply. I’m not sure I followed your instructions correctly but I tried it out and I ended up getting an even crazier looking normal map. Anybody have any other possible tips for me?

Attachments

NewNormalMap.jpg

#4

That’s what a PUV (tiled) map looks like. Export your base object with that added the PUV’s and load up that object and the map in your 3D package to see how it looks when applied.

(Think of UV tile methods like PUV as just defining a single square in UV space for each surface polygon in your model–they are just laid out in whatever order the polygons are stored in your model. Since there is no organization like a “flattened” or pelted UV map, you’re not going to see anything that resembles the surface of the model. You’ll need your 3D program to map the tiles back onto your model.)

-K

#5

I came across the same problem with the normal maps i exported from zbrush. And i figured out the problem… but this cud mean u will have to re-do ur sculpting.

make sure u softened all ur edges before u export ur obj. cuz if u leave hard edge lines (like around the eyelids or just trying to make wrinkle stand out in ur model) those hard edges overlap ur normal map and u get that weird crease. so id suggest u leave all tht fine detail to ur normal map. just make sure u import a completely smooth obj into zbrush

hope that helped

#6

Thanks abe2mir, I haven’t had time to get back into ZBrush in a little while but I’ll definitely try it out when I do. Thanks for the tip!