Can we please have a freakin' Zbrush forum? Also more questions.
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,643
C'mon, we've got forums for NFTs and 3DS Max but not for the program that most PAs are using to actually make the stuff that's sold here?
Since we don't have said forum, I'll ask this here. Is it normal for the surfaces of objects that are sent from DAZ Studio to Zbrush via GoZ to be converted to polygroups? I could have sworn that I had an axe come over to Zbrush with its different surfaces converted to polygroups, but I've tried several other objects and figures since and all are coming over with one single polygroup. I'm trying to figure out how to apply a diffuse map texture to objects sent to Zbrush from DAZ Studio, but obviously they won't work if the surfaces are completely lost during transfer. Thanks in advance for any help.
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I think you are looking for Polygroups > Autogroups With UV, if I'm understanding correctly?
That gives varying results, which is a bit confusing. I just tried it with a shield, open simultaneously in Studio and Zbrush. Polygroups -> Autogroups with UV does create nice groups, but they're much more complex in Zbrush than the surfaces were in Studio. When I try it on a human figure, it gives the same result in both programs (maybe it has to do with UDIMs?). Am I right in understanding that you cannot apply texture maps to different polygroups, only matcaps can be set on a per polygroup basis? I'm still trying to figure out what my workflow will be, so, I'm mainly exploring what can be done and can't in my major programs (Studio, Substance Painter, Zbrush, etc). Thanks for the information so far.
ZBrush creates polygroups based on separate UV islands, so how well it works depends on how exactly the islands match the surfaces. You can't diectly textuer groups, but you can hide all but one group, apply the texture to that, hide that and show one of the others to texture, and so on - then reverse the process to go from Polypaint to textures.
for your Zbrush question, I just avoid using overlapping UVs there (unwrapping with UV master if necessary) and use the transfer utility or other means to create maps for the original afterwards.
however
make of this what you will, if you want a cheaper program that paints all the overlapping UV maps simultaneously it's called Carrara
it also sees UDIMs in spite of its age
Although I do agree that it would be cool, I also believe that the amount of questions that actually get asked over here hardly validate this. I'm not claiming to see everything happening here, but I am a bit of a ZBrush nut myself and take interest whenever I see it mentioned over here. Despite that... I'm not too sure.
Besides, there's always ZBrush Central; a forum where many ZBrush experts hang out and are more than happy to help out. Though, in all honestly, seems less activate than the Daz forums.
No, that doesn't happen. When you sent a mesh over into ZBrush using GoZ you do not get separate polygroups, only one. However, as mentioned by others above me, you can try to use the UV mapping to generate the right groups ("Auto groups with UV"). However... this isn't perfect and you may need to subdivide your mesh a few times to get better results. For example.. I'm still a huge fan of Genesis (the first generation) and I'm using ZBrush to expand on this, including... editing skins (poly paint for the win).
The only problem is that skins in Daz Studio ("DS") are split up, so... I import my Genesis figure, I sub-divide by 4 or 5 (depends a bit), then I use the "Auto Groups With UV" option but more than often this isn't enough; nails don't always get sorted out. So then I use "Merge similar groups" which usually results in a set of polygroups which resemble the UV maps in Daz. (offtopic but... I then single out the poly group I want and apply the texture for that single group only, rinse and repeat and you can somewhat easily polypaint your Genesis character).
But that's a bit besides the point here... normal behavior is indeed to have a single polygroup in ZBrush by default. Press Shift-F, you'll see.
Yah, you need my approach above.
See, the problem here is that Daz Studio ("DS") often (not always) divides a texture into different groups, whereas ZBrush ("ZB") does not. Well, not necessarily. But it all depends on context.
Anyway, you mentioned an axe, I looked for (and found) one but it seems this is a freebie I got from one of the "other" websites. Even so, if makes for a good example. I attached a screenshot ("Axe_DS"), notice how one axe has separate surfaces? Make sure you know how to use the "Surfaces" pane in DS so that you can not only identify this, but also know where the textures are located (click "Browse" but don't change anything, instead only copy the current location).
If you sent that into ZBrush you'll get a single polygroup. So.. use the "Autogroups with UV", which you'll find under "Tools". This should work, if not then you may need to sub-divide your mesh. With a simple prop like this I have no issues, but when working on Genesis, I need to subdivide. Anyway, see "axe_ZB" for an example.
So now comes the cool part... single out a poly group by pressing control-shift and while keeping this pressed click on a group. I went for the shaft, seemed easier. Expand texture map (within the same tool pallete), then import the texture from DS using the location you copied earlier. Repeat this for the other poly groups if needed and... well, the result should be something like "axe_texture", I once again marked the important parts.
Oh, right, be aware that you need to "Clone" the texture if you want to export this back into DS at some given time. A "tool texture" within ZB (as I like to call it) isn't the same as a regular texture or UV map. figured I'd mention.
I hope this can provide some usefull info here.
As mentioned above, this is roughly the procedure I use whenever I want to apply changes to a Genesis skin. I add the mesh, make sure the poly groups match the surfaces in DS, then single out the group and apply the "tool texture". Rinse & repeat when needed.
"but you can hide all but one group, apply the texture to that, hide that and show one of the others to texture, and so on "
That's...weird, but OK. I'll give it a try, thanks.
"make of this what you will, if you want a cheaper program that paints all the overlapping UV maps simultaneously it's called Carrara"
Hate to tell you, but Carrara has as much life left in it as Poser.
Besides, there's always ZBrush Central; a forum where many ZBrush experts hang out and are more than happy to help out.
They would laugh me right out of there if I asked how to use Zbrush in connection with DAZ Studio, that's why I have to ask here.
"single out a poly group by pressing control-shift and while keeping this pressed click on a group. I went for the shaft, seemed easier. Expand texture map (within the same tool pallete), then import the texture from DS using the location you copied earlier."
OK so if I understand, what you're basically doing is manually recreating the surfaces that the original DS model had, but with polygroups in Zbrush? I was going to ask if textures would work if that method was done, so you may have already answered that. I'll need to test some of this stuff and will get back to you. Thanks very much.
Wait, what?
The Forum has already proven that it will continue to support a section with little to no traffic.... HELLO NFT Thread!
The NFT thread was thrust upon us because the wonderful wizard of Daz thought that it was the next big thing...
No one asked for it, boom... NFT Forum.
There are only 10 threads at the forum, and 5 are closed... hee hee... you can't make this stuff up... one was the delightfully titled, "I started this thread so the number of open threads would exceed closed threads."
Sadly, it closed... but don't fret, you still have the "NFT''s - again? You ARE kidding, aren't you?" and the What's popping? The NFT Bubble! threads to play in...
Digression over.
We've asked... and it has fallen on deaf ears. I'd bet my paycheck it would have more posts and OPEN questions than the NFT forum, given the same amount of time.
And I, like the OP, would rather ask my question here first, as most of the folks that are bi-lingual in Daz and Zbrush will understand my approach/where I am heading more than a random Zbrush form member....
Besides, we have the Zbrush Bridge... so it kind of makes sense to have a Zbrush forum that members can participate or not, in.
\Rant
Never understood position "please go to an external dedicated place instead of having discussions with us here as we also use it often ".
In regards to the OP's point... I'm kinda surprised too that there isn't a dedicated forum for Zbrush...
They literally went through the trouble of making a bridge for Zbrush, but there is no forum for it?...
Like somebody realized there was enough interest in Zbrush to create GoZ (pronounced "Goz", right?), but then someone else was like "No, let's give them an NFT thread instead... and while we are at it, someone change the name of the PC+ club to something nobody will find interesting or memorable... maybe the DAZ$ Club or Discounts At Daz Plus other Stuff Too Club... or something tedious like that..."
Theres a 3ds Max forum, but no Zbrush?... there are like 55 threads there, that's forty five more than the saddest forum ever... the NFT forum... and in my thirteen or so years here I've never seen anyone deliberately ask a 3ds Max related question... as far as I know... maybe once... but I'm pretty sure it was a cat pretending to be a human and phishing for people's credit card info... regardless, I've seen more people ask SketchUp related questions than 3DS Max and yet that got its own forum while Zbrush users are left out in the cold wilderness of the forums to beg naked and alone for scraps of information or to share their troubles with any stranger who will listen as they search restlessly for somewhere to call home...
Okay, that was a bit dramatic... especially since most of us are probably naked right now too... am I right?... no?... whatever, it was a pandemic, I just assumed everyone was doing that now... judgy much?... jeez...
Anyway, I don't get it.. if it's a lack of moderators or something, I'm sure whoever is moderating the NFT forum has lots of free time... aside from having to delete the occasional "questionable" post I or someone who is opposed to homeless polar bears makes over there, it's not like that is a rocking' happening place and if a Zbrush forum does get a lot of traffic, I'm sure they could just clone one of the other moderators.
Not that I'm suggesting I don't value the moderators or they are all clones or something... I'm just saying a Clone-A-Tron is like what $1700 now... and a new cartridge of meat byproduct to print a full clone is like $50... come on DAZ, throw the poor Zbrush people a bone here... (and not the leftover bones from those cheap knockoff Clone-A-Tron cartridges)... maybe make up for that god awful NFT thread and try and balance the scales a bit, yeah?
Whatever... just say'n, that's all.
I finally hid the NFT forum
This isn't a thread about NFT, so lets leave it at that and continue with the topic of the thread, Zbrush.
Can we still talk about cloning and pandemic related nakedness?
Just asking for a friend.
Okay, I lied... I have no friends... just an old pine cone I glued googly eyes to... his name is Mr. Pinus... which is the scientific name for pine trees... but I just realized that if you say it out loud, it sounds like something else...
So now his name is Stanley.
So... that question was for Stanley...
No ZBrush forum for you. Come back. One year.
I'm not waiting another year for that soup, Diomede. ;)
Update: I can't seem to apply different textures to different polygroups like Richard said, I can only do it if I create new subtools from the polygroups. I did that for one arm and the torso of a male G8 and the textures did apply properly. I also read a forum post from 2018 that said Zbrush is not able to use multiple textures on a single subtool. Is this accurate and the only way to do this, or am I missing something? Thanks.
Here is an old thread from 2014 discussing a similar issue on the 5th page.
- might be helpful?
- might be out of date?
- might be the answer. I hope so.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/35962/daz-and-zbrush/p5
EDIT: Never Mind - if this would have been useful, I think ShelLuser would have covered it more clearly and more up to date.
I too would love a ZBrush forum as there is virtually no real discussion on how to use ZBrush with genesis figures, especially not on the pixologic forums where we're considered second-class artists in spite of "legitimate" ZBrush artists using a base mesh such as a fully-formed figure to start a sculpt, ya know, the same as Genesis!
Just look at our PAs: RawArt/And you know, that guy with the impossibly spelled H name that does all those amazing monsters is the very definition of professional artists, I for one would love reading some tips & tricks from these amazing literal Pros in the field!
Now, before I continue I'd like to stress out that I'm by far an expert here. When I mentioned "ZBrush nut" above I somewhat meant that literally ;) I just love the software and for me it quickly became my #1 support tool for Daz Studio (the second being Bryce 7).
Sorry for not being clear enough above, re-reading my post I see I kinda glossed over this part. You're right, Polygroups only go so far, they don't actually divide the mesh and you cannot apply different texture and/or material settings; for that you need to use subtools, as you also discovered. My skin edits which I mentioned above mostly evolved around specific areas so I could simply apply the texture to a polygroup (using that "tool texture" I mentioned above), edit it, get the updated texture from that and import that back into Daz Studio.
I'll see if I can share a more thorough guide for this on the forum later on. I once wrote a blog post about this procedure but that too was more focused on the mechanic itself (that it was possible) and I didn't really cover the details (for example: importing materials back into DS from ZB isn't always a good idea, reasons for that are shown in my blog post).
Can't make promises on a 'when', my time is a bit limited at the moment.
Thanks, don't worry about it though. I'm probably going to end up sending it back for rendering in Studio anyway, so I don't need to worry too much about textures in Zbrush. If I can ask a couple of semi-related questions though: 1) do you have any idea *about* how many polygons Studio can handle before you risk crashes (or is that entirely dependent on each user's machine)? I brought in something that was about 250K polygons and it didn't have any trouble, and 2) do you know the differences (if any) in the subdivision methods of Studio and Zbrush? I'd just like to know if I should expect a different result when something is sent from Zbrush and then rendered with Studio's subdivision.
Thanks again for the help so far.
studio can handle Mandelbulber3D fractal exports with millions of polys
(as long as you can convert the stl to obj which is often the harder part if too big, Zbrush can do it)
so it's pretty forgiving
Blender and other programs struggle with those
texture size is DAZ's bugbear,
be nice if they added vertex colours as an option wouldn't it then you could just use the polypaint (and my fractals wouldn't need UVs which is often impossible)
Thanks, yeah it does seem to be handling the higher polygon tests I'm giving it fairly well.
OK, another question (since there's no forum yet). ;) I'm not having any problems using GoZ between Studio and Zbrush, but it does seem like a lot of details aren't coming over. In this example, two copies of the same morphed Zbrush mesh are brought over to Studio, the dark one is through GoZ and the light one is a .dae export of the full resolution Zbrush sculpt. I understand that this is normal behavior, so that really isn't my question (unless I'm missing something that will bring that higher-res detail over through GoZ).
I'd like to know if there is a way to retain the original DAZ item's UVs when exporting a 'solid' OBJ or other format from Zbrush. In this example, I was not getting the GoZ error message that said the topology had changed, so the UVs should have still been intact (the bulge detail just wasn't coming over). When I exported this .dae though, all of the surfaces were deleted. I tried saving an OBJ from Zbrush and importing that into Studio, but when it was loaded, nothing appeared. Just not sure exactly what is going on here and what options there are for creating a non-posable high-res model that keeps the old UVs so that textures still work. Thanks in advance.
GoZ simply doesn't carry grouping - if you want to keep the surfaces (or groups, but not both as far as I know) then you need to go via OBJ and when importing there is an option (from memory) soemthing like mats as groups which you want to load the surface names as ZBrush groups.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean, are you talking about exporting an OBJ from Studio to Zbrush? I'm actually looking to export an OBJ from Zbrush back to Studio, but I think for now I will just see if I can get the results I want using standard GoZ. I did get a displacement map from Zbrush to Studio that looked alright, and I can always use Substance Painter for very fine detail. I guess the next thing I need to figure out is how to UV map items created in Zbrush so they can be textured in Studio or Substance Painter. Tried the UV plugin already but couldn't get anything to show up when exported, guess I need to watch more tutorials. Thanks again for the help so far.
If you want to preserve the original groups then you have to use OBJ rather than GoZ - if you are happy to regroup in ZBrush then you can certainly use GoZ to send the mesh across.
Thank you. Can you confirm something though, when I first realized this, I thought I just wasted $800 on Zbrush. If you need to work on an item over multiple work sessions (closing Zbrush/Studio and reopening them again later), is the necessary method to keep sending the fixes from Zbrush back to Studio and then saving the Studio file, which you will later reopen and send the item back to Zbrush again for more work? It's pointless to save the work-in-progress in Zbrush if you want to retain UVs and any rigging back in Studio because Studio won't remember that the saved Zbrush file came over via GoZ.
Hopefully I'm understanding that correctly.
That isn't somethign I've ever had to try - I am surprised that it doesn't work, assuming you have the original figure loaded and selected in DS when you GoZ back from ZBrush, but if you've tried it an it doesn't work I'm not aware of a step that you could be missing.