ZBrushCentral

Sculpting large single mesh....??

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Okk guys I am sculpting a dragon for a client and i am running into a problem…
The mesh is a single mesh with the body and the wings…

Now the problem is that the wings are consuming too much of polycount and when i subdivide my mesh
It doesnt go upto the level i wish to detail…

Plus since the mesh is soo large i am wondering how to extract the normal map out of it
I mean if i fit all my uv’s in a single 0 to 1 grid… every part gets a very low resolution of space…
Is multi uv tile supported in zbrush…

Please help…how do i go about it??

#2

Do you have any specific reason why it should be a single mesh? Technical or otherwise… and what is going to be your final 3d application?

#3

ummm its gonna be rigged…soo i guess i need to keep it single…otherwise the wings and the body might mismatch…
basically the rigger said he’d prefer if its a single mesh…

we’re using maya for the final output… rig anim and lighting…

#4

Well I guess there are a few ways you can alter your workflow to get it the way you want… my personal workflow would be…

  1. Sculpt with different subtools to get the proper level of detail that you want, so you can break up the main body into different pieces, and sculpt it so you don’t see the separation.
  2. When you’re done, decimate all the pieces and take that to Maya.
  3. Build you single animation mesh in Maya with proper edgeflow for deformation.
  4. Do uv’s the way you like in Maya, single or multiple.
  5. Use transfermaps to extract normal/diffuse maps.

I know there are different ways to get the same result with more steps done in zbrush as well… This is just one of them. Good luck!

#5

okk havent used maya’s transfer options… vl see…it shud work…
thanks mate :slight_smile:

#6

well the technique works pretty well… but since the mesh is a single mesh… i am unable to sculpt fine details…polycount issues…
A lot of people suggested splitting the mesh into various parts based on uv islands… but how do u guys go about working at the areas where mesh is split???