Thank you, Nancyan! But more importantly, thank you for all the great contributions you have made to this forum, you are a huge help. Thank you also to the others who have posted helpful tips here. Most of all, thank you Marcus for making zSculpty! What a huge help you are to zBrush-SecondLifer’s!
Nice mushrooms 
Glad my step-by-step helped you and now you’re on the way to being a sculpty master!
Thanks but I can’t claim to be the author of zSculpty, only the plugin at the start of this thread. 
Thanks a lot, works perfectly! 
Hello all folks
Im still quite noob with zbrush, i lurked alot and followed many tutorial and now i can say that i master the basics of this powerfull tool correctly. But now it comes the problems XD
i was tring to make an humanoid mesh for SL, and i realized that is better to make 3 divided polygroup (head, torso, leg) to obtain a good resolution into texturing.
the problem is that i’m now quite puzzled: there’s a way to texture single polygrop and export the mesh with those “3 faces” rightly textured?
or i’ll have to divide it to subtool?
in this case, i cannot export the collada file as a multy-poly object 
thanks in advance, and sorry for my bad english.
You can do that but ZBrush can’t display more than one texture map on a model so you need to work this way:
- Your model must have separate polygroups and each polygroup must have its own UV mapping. SL allows up to 8 polygroups.
- To work on a single polygroup in ZBrush Shift+Ctrl+click on it. This will hide the other groups. Shift+Ctrl+click on the background to show the whole model.
- For making a texture map from polypaint:
- hide all the other groups as in (2)
- press Tool>Texture Map>New From Polypaint
- press Tool>Texture Map>Clone Txtr. This puts a copy of the new map in the Texture palette. Export the map from the Texture palette so you have a copy for SL.
- Use the ZSculpty Tools plugin to export a Collada (.dae) file for SL. Make sure you have saved your texture maps separately.
- In SL upload the model and the texture maps. You will then be able to select each region and apply the right map.
HTH,
Thanks Marcus, that’s very helpful for me, also!
Thanks for the fast reply but i’ve still doubs about this part.
I downloaded UvMaster to create a uvmaps of my model, but every time i try to select a single polygroup element and “unwrap” it’s own uvmap i got the complete model in result :S
how to make single uv maps for every polygroup? i’ve to divide it in subtools?
i realize i explained what im tring to do very bad
i use an image to try to be more clear
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/842/examj.jpg/
when i make the uv of my mesh i obtain a single uv maps as the section 1 of the image. what i need to do is to make 3 single images at higher resolution (2000*2000) to mantain proper detail of the polypaint as i bake the texture
thanks again
This is possible in ZBrush but why don’t you try a single texture map first? With UV Master you can adjust the UVs so that you get a good balance between the head detail and the body. I don’t know what texture size you can use in SL but a map of 2048 should give you plenty of detail. Even one of 1024 may be enough, depending on your requirements.
If you later find that you just have to use multiple maps then you can create the UV mapping in ZBrush:
- It’s best to create the mapping right at the start as the process involves splitting your mesh and then merging and this can change the topology. So the following steps assume that there are no subdivision levels.
- Assuming your mesh has polygroups, press Tool>SubTool>Groups Split.
- For each of the new subtools create UV mapping. You can use UV Master for this.
- Make sure all the subtools are visible and that the Tool>SubTool>Weld button is ON. Press Tool>SubTool>Merge Visible.
- Select the new tool in the Tool palette - its name will begin ‘Merged_’. This will have UV mapping based on the polygroups. Use this as your base model for texturing.
HTH,
oh gosh is really THAT simple? o.O
yesterday i was screaming for all the faul i encounter :lol:
Anyway, i already tryed with a single uvmap for all the mesh and the result, cause the number of dettail, is that once imported onto sl it will appear unfocused and loss in dettails
i will try your solution in a few our (im at work now ^^) and will show the result.
Thanks Again!
Edit: I deleted my post here, because there’s an error in my suggestion…sorry about that 
Hello, I have another question about the plugin. If we can Export meshes, is there a way we can Import them also? I’ve found that I edited a mesh further than that of the original I made and exported it, but forgot to save the new version as a .ZTL file. Would I have to drag the new mesh into 3ds Max and convert it into a COLLADA file?
Also, there’s talk about how you are unable to rig a mesh in ZBrush. I’m curious as to why? There’s a Rigging panel with which you can make zspheres be the bones of the mesh and move it around to how you see fit.
You could probably use Blender to convert your collada file into an obj for importing into Zbrush.
As for rigging - yes there is a rigging panel in Zbrush, you can pose your meshes using this method, but to skin your mesh to be worn in Second Life you need to use the second life avatar skeleton, or have your bone names correspond with the bone names in the official skeleton. I haven’t found any way in Zbrush to do that, or I’d be using it fulltime and forgetting about Blender. Maybe someday someone awesome will write an appropriate plugin!
Yes, currently you will need to convert the collada file elsewhere as import directly into ZBrush is not possible. Rigging in ZBrush is something I’d like to add but I’m not sure yet whether it could be done in a sensible manner.
Thanks Again marcus! your suggestion was so usefull and i realized what i wanted to try :3
i’ve another question now, if i wanna make a multi-subtool mesh, and exporting into Sl as Sculpty, is still possible to use the plug-in as the versione for zbrush .3.5?
and what’s the right process?
1)initialize
2)modelling
2.a)appending subtool (made from the initialized sphere3d)
2.b)modelling again
2.c)appending […]
3)merging all subtool (?)
4)make sculpty (?)
i’ve already tried in this way, but when i try to export the resulted merged mesh the plug in says that my mesh is not suitable for exporting
i still miss something? 
thanks in advance!
Your post is a little unclear. If you are using ZB 3.5 you should use the Zsculpty or Zsculpty Oblong plug-in or the Sculpty Maker stand alone program that you can download from the Shiney Life website. ZB3.5 doesn’t have the same issues with UV’s as ZB4.0 (which is the reason Marus so kindly helped us out with a plug in in the first place.)
Procedure (zb3.5):
Initialize each part that will become a subtool and hit “make polymesh” for each
Build up your subtools arrangement by appending these in the subtool palette
Sculpt
Make only subtool visible at a time and process each subtool individually thru either Zsculpty, Zsculpty Oblong or the little stand along program SculptyMaker (not for oblong sculpts). They will be giving a unique name with position information. Keep your names different for each part and make them short…there’s alot of info added to them.
Upload them from the appropriate folder where the images were sent and rezz a sphere. Add the sculpty rezzer script to the sphere and return it to your inventory. Re-rez the sphere and add the sculpt maps to the contents. Touch your sphere and the assembled multi-part sculpt will assemble itself. You may still need to do some tweaking and possibly turn a part or two inside out via a checkbox.
Procedure (zb 4.0):
If you are talking about using the plug ins in ZB4 you can do the following:
after you make each subtool a polymesh (prior to sculpting), go to UV master and unwrap it. Go into transpose>scale (shortcut E) and hold down the alt key…very carefully scale down the flattened UV’s until you just see the grey lines of the grid…you are trying to get the UV’s to set just inside the grid but fill it up completely. In their default form they are slightly too large and spill over this area. Unflatten and now you have something that is acceptable to the old plug-in.
Follow the above procedure for making your parts and bringing them into SL to assemble.
For my part I use Marcus’s plug-in quite alot, but each option has it’s own advantages depending on the project.
downloaded the ZSculpty tool plug in for Second Life; followed the instructions but when I unzipped the files I got a folder that did not have either of the two files stated in the installation instructions here; the files in the folder after unzipping are: ZSculptyDLL.dll and ZSculptyDLL.dylib As I do not have much expertise in this stuff; I am confused? Are these the files that should go into the plug in folder for ZBrush? Can someone please help?
Did you download the plug-in that Marcus created, from this forum thread, or are you talking about the zsculpty plug in from the Shiney Life website?
umm was the plug in found here in ZBrush central; but thanks and sorry folks; I think I just got a bad DL file… Tried it again and it all seems to be there! as it should be.