ZBrushCentral

OBJ's exporting with hard edges.

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I am currently working on a model that is 1.6 million polys when imported into Maya. I’m exporting the model from ZBrush as an OBJ. When the model comes into Maya from ZBrush all of the edges are set to hard edges. Normally I just soften the edges in Maya before I create a normal map, (I’m actually going to use Melody or ATI to generate the normal map.) but since the geometry count is so high Maya is running out of memory when I go through this operation.

Does anyone know of a setting that will export the OBJ from ZBrush with soft edges instead of hard. Does anyone know of a program that you can load a large OBJ (over a million polygons) and set the hard/soft angle on edges?

Thanks,

NickZ.

#2

Why don’t you just create the normal map in Zbrush? And do you mean average vertice normals? thats usually what i do when i import to maya. if that doesnt work i set normals to face then average.

#3

Spaceboy,

I’m painting detail on a mesh that has no UV’s. This is my hi res mesh that is resurfaced in Maya for a video game, currently ZBrush doesn’t support normal map generation between arbitrary meshes.

In Maya I’m using poly soften/harden edges, any of these operations (average normals) don’t work because the model is so large (the obj file is over 140 megs)

I would love to generate the normal map in ZBrush but it just isn’t possible.

Why ZBrush doesn’t hold smooth shading information I don’t know, it is a real problem. In order to simulate smooth shading you have to turn the DSmmoth level up in Zbrush which changes the contours of your model so it doesn’t give you a real accurate description of how you model will really look in another application.

An export with smooth shading option would be real nice or a use models normals option at import time would be nice as well.

Thanks,

NickZ.

#4

Not sure how to get large obj’s in maya, you can do this in 3ds Max in opengl mode and also lightwave.

#5

“Soft Edges” are a render effect, and so are not something that gets exported. ZBrush exports the model’s polygons. Your rendering engine does the job of smoothing the surface.

The only way to export a smoother surface from ZBrush is to subdivide the model. This will smooth the edges – but will also increase the number of polgons.

In ZBrush, you can smooth the edges without subdividing by turning off Quick3DEdit and setting Tool>Display Properties>DSmooth to 1. But again, this is a rendering effect. It does not affect the actual geometry and cannot be exported.