ZBrushCentral

Overlapping UV / Symmetrical Texture for a game workflow

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey hey,

I haven’t been able to find a recent discussion of how current texture artists deal with creating normal maps and diffuse maps in Zbrush with overlapping UV’s. Let’s say you have a repeating or a symmetric element and you want to save texture space and overlap those UV’s. As far as I can tell ZBrush hates that while 3ds max is totally cool with it. So generating a normal map is impossible if you have overlapping UV’s. (maybe possible in max?)

Does anyone have any tips on how to tackle that problem other than generating a normal map in zb, taking the basemesh back to max, overlapping the uv’s, rearranging the texture in photoshop and trying to line it up to the new uv map? There’s got to be a better way.

Thanks for any input!

#2

I don’t have any decent info for you, but I am quite interested in the subject. I haven’t used an overlapping UV set since my first 3D character, 4 years ago.

I know Max can handle an overlapping normal map through it’s shader system, but I don’t know the procedure. (I don’t like Max at all.)

That said, remember that even if Max can handle an overlapping normal map, that doesn’t mean your game engine of choice can also handle it. You might find out what your renderer / engine will support before you commit to overlapping UV’s.

Hopefully someone will link some great info. :wink:

#3

Thanks for the reply. I think most engines are cool with overlapping UV’s even on normal maps. I found another way: literally delete half the basemesh, mirror and weld the vertices. That may yield to a nasty seam which is fixable in a way described here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51088
Still, there has to be an easier way since so many game developers use ZB… I’ll keep looking.