Zbrush to Unity Questions

[system]

Hey forum I need your help with selecting the best books I can study from, I need a small/large list of really good books for zBrush, I’ve been reading Scott Spencer’s Character Creation book and I’m loving it, but it’s kind of out dated so I need something even better.

That’s my request but I also got some questions.

1. In the book, he talked about gesture and the importance of it for sculpting models. Is gesture still important if it’s for game production? and if I sculpt a model in a certain stance/gesture, won’t it effect largely on animation?

2. What is the best way to sculpt and in the end have a very low poly model but with a very high resolution normal map? I mean, what workflows do you use? and what guides/tuts/books can you link me to that teach that? I simply start from zspheres, turn into adaptive skin, then start from a fairly low poly count, in the mid 1000’s, from there after I have sculpted the foundation I subdivide and add more details. I find this workflow very simple because I can simply go back to my lowest subdivision level easily without having to zremesh>project or use decimation tool (I don’t like tris).

3. Last but not least, are there any efficient custom UI’s I can use as a pen user? I always used to use a mouse and found navigation very simple, but now that I have moved on to using a pen (intuos 4 ptk-640, is it any good?) I find selecting my most used brushes and using the tools I need difficult, that’s why I tend to have my left hand on a side-ways-placed keyboard, and I use my right hand to sculpt with the pen.

4. How does one sculpt hair for a game character? For an example, spiky short hair, or long wavy hair?

Thanks a lot for your time.
/newbie out.

[_4Z4R]

Sorry i can´t help with books. But i can try to answer your questions

1. T pose for game characters. If you want your character to be rigged probably the best is the T pose

2. Well there are lot of workflows. But in essence you can create in Zbrush your character without caring about polycount restictions. Then you can do the retopology over your final model. Then i would recommend to use XNormal to bake all your high polycount model to the low poly one. For this you will need UVs in your Low poly model.

3. UI is the best part of Zbrush. Just customize it as you like!!

Hope this helps

[system]

[-][4Z4R][));1073069’]Sorry i can´t help with books. But i can try to answer your questions

Alright, I still need someone to give me a list of good books though.

[-][4Z4R][));1073069’]

1. T pose for game characters. If you want your character to be rigged probably the best is the T pose

Okay, so no gesture for game characters. Form, rhythm and proportion are still important though correct?

[-][4Z4R][));1073069’]
2. Well there are lot of workflows. But in essence you can create in Zbrush your character without caring about polycount restictions. Then you can do the retopology over your final model. Then i would recommend to use XNormal to bake all your high polycount model to the low poly one. For this you will need UVs in your Low poly model.
Hope this helps

Do you do auto retopology (zremesh) ? If you do it manually, what software is the best for easy and efficient topology (I know there’s no best, but the keyword is easy here) ?
If you zremesh it, how do you keep it from not loosing too much weight/form ? Sometimes I’ve zremeshed my characters and their fingers disappeared!

[-][4Z4R][));1073069’]
3. UI is the best part of Zbrush. Just customize it as you like!!
Hope this helps

Yes I know I can customize it, but I was asking if there are any downloadable UI’s that increase productivity for pen sculpting.

Also another question, I’ll edit the original post:

4. How does one sculpt hair for a game character? For an example, spiky short hair, or long wavy hair?

Thanks in advance.

[system]

bump

[_4Z4R]

Alright, I still need someone to give me a list of good books though.

1. Okay, so no gesture for game characters. Form, rhythm and proportion are still important though correct?

2. Do you do auto retopology (zremesh) ? If you do it manually, what software is the best for easy and efficient topology (I know there’s no best, but the keyword is easy here) ?
   If you zremesh it, how do you keep it from not loosing too much weight/form ? Sometimes I’ve zremeshed my characters and their fingers disappeared!

3. Yes I know I can customize it, but I was asking if there are any downloadable UI’s that increase productivity for pen sculpting.

Also another question, I’ll edit the original post:

4. How does one sculpt hair for a game character? For an example, spiky short hair, or long wavy hair?

Thanks in advance.

I´ll give you my point of view

1. T Pose. No expresion but of course all proportions and weights correctly done

2. ZRemesher is amazing tool for using inside Zbrush. So you can produce fast pieces with workable topology that you can subdivide. But for production you will need manually retopo. Zbrush has good tools for retopo small pieces. But if you want to create a full character retopology i would recommend Topogun or 3Dcoat. In other hand you can use any other 3D package such as Maya, Blender, Modo, 3DSMax etc for creating the Lowres model over the High-res decimated model

3. All Zbrush UIs are perfectly valid for using a pen and tablet. It´s just a personal preference. I use to moddify as i´m working. So you will notice what buttons you use more oftern and you want to have in your UI.

4. Hair for ingame. Usually planes with hair textures and alpha.