Some GoZ for DS feature requests

linvanchene

Originally this post was placed in another thread. Nevertheless I felt it may derail the other thread so I deceided to create a new topic instead.

It was another post who inspired this idea nevertheless so I post this quote here as well:

TheGreatESCape said:

When I talked to Pixologic about it. Their tech support informed me that they couldn't support the Daz GoZ plugin since it is third party, and basically told me to discontinue using the plugin to avoid the problem. I have to believe that there is a better solution than that, and that the behavior can be corrected.

I was always under the impression that there must be some kind of mutual work going on between DAZ and Pixologic to keep the GoZ up to date.

But if it is indeed DAZ that is alone responsible for the future of the plugin I drop some ideas here:

I would enjoy having a more automated DS - GoZ polypainting workflow in which I could just polypaint on Genesis in zbrush.

A confusing part in the DS - Zbrush workflow is figuring out which DS material zone is part of which map. And then in zbrush the users have to worry about which subtools are part of which map again.

An automated solution could take care of those issues and also save a lot of time.
That way even new users could polypaint without the need to understand on which map the information will be saved.
Maps would be imported and exported and applied automatically.

- - -

- When exporting a Genesis model with maps applied via GoZ from DS to Zbrush it would be great if there was an option to automatically split up Genesis into different subtools and apply all maps automatically to each subtool.

- The plugin might even automatically convert the mesh to a subdivision level that is detailed enough for polypainting

- To polypaint over the existing textures all the subtools could then again be combined to a single mesh.

- - -

- After the polypaint job is done the plugin could then split up the mesh again into subtools and then create all maps automatically and export them to a specific location and / or apply them back in DS.

- - -

A similar automated solution could also be used to create and export displacement or normal maps from zbrush to ds.

- - -

Of course it would be even better if that workflow would work with any kind of model and not only Genesis.

The key functionality of the plugin then would be to detect DS material zones and be able to split them up into Zbrush subtools.

For the reverse functionality the plugin must be able to extract the polypaint information from several subtools and combine it to maps that correspond to a single or a combination of multiple DS material zones.

- - -

I am aware that probably only a few people are using DS and Zbrush but quite a few of them might be Content Creators.

Any tool that makes the work for those few easier might help providing more detailed content for the whole community.

An improved DS to Zbrush workflow might also be able to grasp the attention of more experienced zbrush artists to provide some work for the DS / Poser community.

- - -

My personal motivation is to get a faster workflow myself and also the hope that some more PA start using zbrush and create more detailed DS content.