ZBrushCentral

Normal Mapping Multiple Subtools?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I have a very high res model in Zbrush made of 25 subtools. I have made an single object low poly model I would like to project all the high res subtools on to a single normal map. How can I do this in zbrush. The low poly was made in maya by tracing poly’s directly over my highres so the silohette is almost identical to the high res.

I know this can be done in xnormal, by importing the low res model, and then importing the 25 highres subtools as .obj to be projected to normals. Can Zbrush do anything like this, or atleast get similar results? Any explanations or links to tutorials would be awesome.

#2

If you’re using the PC version, you can use ZMapper to project a normal map. The instructions are found in the online documentation. (See my signature.)

For both PC and Mac there’s also a different option which will give you more control than the ZMapper approach. Append your new model to the original as another SubTool and divide it to have enough polygons to support the detail you’ll have. Now use Tool>SubTool>Project All to copy the details from the source. You may need to adjust the projection modifiers to get the best results. You can then clean the projection up if necessary using the ZProject and other sculpting brushes.

Once projected, go to level 1 and create your normal map.

#3

Thanks Aurick. I couldn’t find any documentation that specifically talks about multiple subtools baked onto one normal map to be applied to a single mesh. Do you have a link to this.

I am at a loss right now and can’t figure this out. I’ve seen so many others do this, and get crazy detail on their low poly from multiple high res objects. I just want to do the same.

#4

what you need to do is bake or rather “project” each subtool individually to your new lorez mesh.

as described, append your lowrez/new mesh to the orig hirez model.
Zmapper allows you to “capture” a mesh…using this feature you can then project onto another mesh but only one to one at a time.

So you will have to generate a normal map projection for each subtool onto your new mesh, then combine in photoshop.

the base colour of a tangent normal map is R:128, G:128, B:255

If you need you could also create subtools for all UV seams