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Problems with export for DAZ / Poser after saving as ZTL

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Does ZBrush omit information or mix things up, once you save as a ZTL?

I have no problems creating morphs and Displacement maps for use in DAZ Studio with ZBrush as long as I never save my work (as a ztl) before exporting it as a morph target in OBJ format.

My (Test) Workflow:

  1. Export an OBJ from DAZ Studio (export works as a morph target in DAZ)
  2. Import the OBJ in ZBrush and immediately export it (still works as morph target in ZBrush)
  3. Save as ZTL in ZBrush, restart ZBrush, import the ZTL and export it as OBJ => doesn’t work as morph target anymore

Since there is no editing happening and it’s always the same mesh, the problem seems to be caused by saving the mesh as a ZTL.

Does anyone have an advice for me? Thanks in advance!

#2

How exactly does it ‘not work’ as a morph target?

#3

I’m guessing you’re describing a workflow that has multiple groups (body parts/bones/material zones) and using something like “Morph Loader Pro” to reload into DAZ. FWIW, I have found that if you save your object as a ZTL, you will loose the specific group names and instead your polygroups are “Group nnnnn” with “nnnnn” being a numeric value. They are still correct groupings, but they are no longer named “rThigh”, lShldr", “hip”, etc., etc.

An alternate workflow, which avoids this is to always save as a .obj when working on morph targets which span multiple groups. Since ZB now preserves scale/translation on import/export in ZB 3.5 this is easy and keeps your group names intact.

Should you end up (either by saving as ZTL or other “accident” with your polygroups) with a model that won’t load correctly in MorphLoader Pro, open up the .obj Zbrush gave you and check your polygroup names. If they are all of the form “Group nnnnn”, then you’ll need to rename them according to pattern of the original model. MorphLoader Pro may accept the load as morph.

An important sidenote is that Zbrush doesn’t really understand the material zone / parts polygon tags in the .obj format all that well. It tends to use the “parts” to form polygroups on import when dealing with poser models which works well for morph targets. Poser/DAZ tends to use the two different polygon tags for very different functions (e.g. parts are breakdown of the models “bones” and materials describe shading zones for either maps or procedural textures.) If you’re going to do extensive poser work, you’ll probably want a traditional polygon modeler handy or something like UVMapper Pro to massage polygon tags and perhaps to create traditional, paintable UV maps. (I personally use Modo for UV maps and and polygon tagging, but it’s a little bit pricey unless you need its other features–UVmapper might fit the bill well if your main workflow is DSA <–> Zbrush.)

HTH,
-K

#4

Marcus, see my explanation above. :wink: I think he’s having problems with what happens to group names–Daz Studio has a very powerful tool, Morphloader Pro, which with its “bone welds” feature allows you to save a model with multiple parts. It keeps itself sane by using polygon tagging to figure out which part morphs go to which part. Zbrush preserves these names exactly if you load and .obj and export an .obj without touching polygroups. However, if you save as a .ztl, then polygroup names seems to go bye-bye. It’s just a minor inconvenience about .ZTL files–easily worked around. :slight_smile:

This primarily shows up with my students when they are doing FBMs rather than morphing a single part.

#5

Thank you both very much.

The error message from morph loader pro is rather unspecific (“Morph Loader reported no effect for the following file(s):”).

Kerwin, thank you for your great explanation. I expected that ZTL somehow “forgets” necessary information - but I didn’t realize that it would be the group names - because ZBrush kept the groups themselves correctly (when you turn Polyframe on).

Following your advice, I opened an OBJ in a text editor and yes, once you save a file as ZTL and then do an export, group names change from “hip etc.” to “Group N”).

And like you said, it’s only of importance, when you do FBMs, when you only do a head morph and apply the OBJ directly to the “head” group, it apparently doesn’t matter that it’s called Group 1 instead of head.

I was eyeing Modo, but I think my hobbyist budget is kinda exhausted with ZBrush this year :wink: Either I will get UVMapper (unfortunately I am on a Mac) or I will use my polygon modeller to rename the groups correctly. Or if this all fails, there is always textedit.

Thank you again very much for pointing me into the right direction, I really appreciate it, especially because DAZ/Poser are a more like hobbyist tools, and these forums are a hub for the more professional users.

–

Edit: I renamed the groups from “GroupN” to their original names and Morph Loader imports the mesh correctly now. Thanks!

#6

Glad to have helped. The text editor solution works nicely if slightly tedious.
:wink:
On a Mac, you might want to try Hexagon from DAZ. While not quite the powerhouse of Modo, it seems to have many features useful for working with Poser-based objects and would probably make a good utility for dealing with things like prepping base meshes for Zbrush.

Poser/DAZ is actually used in some professional circles (mostly as a reference tool) though many would be loathed to admit it. :wink: A lot of my students use it as a learning tool and so the next natural instinct is to want to create their own content for it. :smiley:

#7

Yes, the last time, I used the text editor for 3D work, was during the beginning of the 90ies, assembling 3D scenes for POV-Ray. Compared to that, renaming groups is a breeze :wink:

On a Mac, you might want to try Hexagon from DAZ. While not quite the powerhouse of Modo, it seems to have many features useful for working with Poser-based objects and would probably make a good utility for dealing with things like prepping base meshes for Zbrush.

I have Hexagon, but during my quick test today, renaming the groups there didn’t make the mesh usable in Morph Loader, while renaming them in UVM or the text editor did the job. I definitely will look into this again and try to figure out why.

#8

I apologise for reviving this thread but I’m experiencing this issue, still prevalent in ZB4. How does one exactly go about using either UVMapper or Text Editor to rename the group/s? Sorry I’m merely a hobbyist and a complete n00b regarding this :smiley: