ZBrushCentral

The zremesher blues....now what?

ZBrush Artworks
#1

Hi!,

As a newbie to zbrush, I’ve made some rookie mistakes.

MY GOAL:
To make a "Normal map " from my extremely detailed 15 million poly model

MY ROOKIE METHOD:
So I created a creature which originated from zspheres and then dynamesh and subdivs as well. So long story short, I have a finished product with a total of 15 million polys. Somewhere down my journey, I wound up with NO sub D levels. When I tried to “Reconstruct Sub D " it said " Mesh contains Triangles, canceling” I am not sure how I got triangle so I did a “ZRemesher”. But Still says “mesh has Triangles”

I am trying to create a normal map so I can use it in Substance Painter to paint my textures. But it seems that I am screwed if I can’t bring my model down to a lower poly count in order to create UVs…which will allow me to create a Normal map.

Question:
What would be the best way to create a UV/ Normal map in zbrush when stuck with a high poly model ?

Thanks!

#2

Zremesher and project back detail, check problems, mask areas or retouch areas if needed, subdivide, zremesher and repeat same steps until model is ok
THis asuming you are ok with automatic topology.
Dynamesh is not going to create a topology usefull for uvs etc

#3

Thanks ! I just tried that workflow…

zremesher 15 mill down to 250k
Unwrapped
Projected 15 million model to 250k model
sub D up to 2 million
Projected again
Sub D to 8 million
Projected for the final look. (I read that its better to do projections in up res stages )

Dropped sub Ds to Level 1
Create Normal Map

Export Level 1 as OBJ to maya
Bump mapped normal map

Results: Pretty dam close to Zbrush Original model.

Thanks again!

#4

Good!
I need to say that normally Zremesher is done with a lot less than 250k, but if it worked OK for you then cool. Poly counts so high are a bit a struggle for UV programs. If you do the UVs with UV master probably can handle it.
Also usually speed up Zremesher a lot if we first decimate the mode in a moderate way. But this won’t change the quality, only the speed.

#5

Sometimes running Mesh Integrity check and Fix Mesh before ZRemeshing fixues mesh issues and allows ZRemesher to do its thing.

#6

Great I will try that next time as well!