ZBrushCentral

Normal Map zmapper problem

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi Guys, I’m relatively new to zbrush. I’m trying to bake out the normals of a model that I’ve imported from 3ds max previously, and somehow, I’m always getting a black mesh appearing.

My exact steps are:

  1. Turning on ‘enable uv’ in textures.
  2. Lower the Sdiv lvl to 1.
  3. Going to normalmap, turning ‘adaptive’ on, and clicking on ‘create normalmap’.
  4. I get a blackish looking model.

I’ve already unwrapped my model in max previously, so I’m not sure whether it’s because of an inverted normal. But I don’t see anything on the reverse side of the model, so I don’t think it’s because of an inverted normal.

Even if I:

  1. Turning on ‘enable uv’ in textures.
  2. Lower the Sdiv lvl to 1.
  3. Go into zmapper, create normal map.
  4. I still get a black model.

In the ztextures, it’s just a sheet of white.

I’ve been looking through tutorials from various sources, but I still can’t get my normals baked out :cry:

What am i doing wrong???

#2

I just realised that I’m getting an all-blue tangent on my model in the zmapper (which I guess is because I did something wrongly)… Now, when I bake out my normal maps, I just get a blue sheet of texture… Is there a way to solve this?

Thanks!

#3

When you Disable UV’s you’re actually deleting them. Enabling UV’s makes it possible for the model to have UV’s again, but does not restore any previous mapping.

After enabling UV’s again, store a morph target (unless you’d already stored one before dividing, in which case you’d now Switch) and then import your original model again. This will restore the UV’s that you’d assigned to it, and you should now be able to create your maps.

If you need to go up in levels again, switch morph targets first.

#4

Hi Aurick, if I don’t enable UVs, (before the disable, cause I’ve an older version of the file), how do I go about baking out my normal maps? I noticed the option is diabled in the normal maps panel.

I don’t quite understand why there’s a need for morph targets… 3dmax’s normal map baking is so much easier :confused:

Thanks!