ZBrushCentral

ZB3.5 R3 and the Poser Scaler

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi all,

I noticed from the Pixologic plugins download page that Poser Scaler is now a part of R3, however when I go in to ZB, I can’t see it in the ZPlugins menu.

Any help appreciated.

thanks and regards,
Andrew

#2

Oops sorry, I omitted to mention that I am using ZB3.5 R3 under Windows XP SP3.

#3

Yes, the wording is confusing and should be amended shortly. What it means is that Poser Scaler is no longer necessary. ZBrush now imports/exports OBJs with much more accuracy (much more accurately than Poser Scaler), so simply import and export your Poser OBJs directly.

#4

Hi! I hope you guys can help me…I contact Pixologic but they told me to try here, ha ha.

After I upgraded to 3.5r3, I can no longer import .OBJs exported from Poser.

When I try, I get a very vague dialogue box saying I should check with Pixologic support because Poser can’t work with the file.

Here are the export settings from Poser 7…any help at all wopuld be really appreciated!

  1. Load the figure (V4)
  2. Turn off IK
  3. Go to the Joint Editor and Zero the figure
  4. File-> Export-> Wavefront OBJ
  5. Export Range: Single Frame
  6. In the hierarchy I de-select ‘Universe’
  7. I select the top level of the V4 figure, and it selects all of the sub groups
  8. I select ‘Include body part names…’, ‘Include figure names…’, ‘As morph target…’
  9. I give it a name, and save it to a folder in My Documents

In ZBrush:

  1. I go to the Tools palette, click ‘Import’
  2. Select the fig I exported

This is when I get the error from ZBrush

#5

What’s the error message you get? Please post a screen shot. Also can you post an example OBJ that gives the problem? ZBrush shouldn’t have problems importing OBJs from any program.

Thanks,

#6

I am interested in knowing if this in fact a problem or not before I buy. The reason is I am using 3.1 with the Poser plug-in and it works great. It is something that is a major part of my workflow for sculpting exported OBJ files from Poser and I can’t do without it.

Please post some screen shots and what the exact problem is or if it is just that one OBJ file. I would also like to hear from others that have tried this as well.

#7

Sorry, I got frustrated at the problem so I uninstalled and went back to 3.1. Now I just need to redownload the poser scaler (anyone know the link?) but the OBJ import is working fine again.

As for a screenshot, it really was just a generic box that said what I typed before. There was no useful data. I tried it with a lot of different OBJs and none worked.

I reverted back to 3.1 and it works again.

I hope it’s an issue they resolve, 3.5 looks pretty awesome!

#8

3DJeff,
OBJ handling in 3.5 is considerably more accurate than in 3.1 which is why Poser Scaler is no longer necessary.

syrinxiii,
Without sufficient information we can’t hope to provide a solution and it is surely up to us to decide what’s a useful error message or not? The problem you have has not been reported by other users. Also please note ZBrush 3.1 and its plugins are no longer supported.

#9

So I wanted to get a screenshot for you (I agree, you should get the chance to see it…it really is useless, ha ha) so I uninstalled 3.1, and reinstalled 3.5r3.

For no good reason, importing the .obj worked. Couldn’t even tell you why.

So now I just have to get my head around the changes in 3.5.

Problem solved, and 3.5 is looking awesome!

#10

syrinxiii,

Good and thanks for letting us know.

#11

So judging by the post from the other user saying it now works and what you said above, I assume that importing/exporting my OBJ V4/M4 Daz works just like it did for 3.1 with the Poser Scaler plug-in? If so, that is good to know and I will certainly buy ZB if that’s the case. I just can’t live without a sculpting program that can accurately work with Poser.

When you say “more accurate” above, do you also mean you have gotten it to look the same in Poser now as it does exactly in ZB. What I mean is before, those of us that have done custom head morphs using Daz OBJ imports/exports in ZB 3.1 found there to be a slight “rounding” of some detail. It’s not a major flaw that is highly noticeable, but it did at times make the sculpting you did in ZB look a bit different inside Poser. This was true and more noted around the eyes when you have done lots of work on them to look a certain way.

Thanks for letting me know, if this works now and has been improved then I’m certainly a very glad future ZB user.

#12

3DJeff,

ZBrush 3.5 R3 exports OBJs with greater accuracy than Poser Scaler (using more bytes to store the values). Poser Scaler avoided rounding errors by scaling up on import and down on export. ZBrush provides an ‘export scale’ value in the Tool>Export submenu which should be left as it is for export to Poser.

As for models looking the same in Poser as in ZBrush, you will need to ask someone who uses Poser for comment on this. It may be that there is some improvement, though note that different render engines will always produce slightly different results and if Poser introduces some smoothing then that is not something ZBrush has any control over.

HTH,