about importing zbrush morphs
Sorel
Posts: 1,407
so, I was working on G2, and I subD'd it to level 2 and sculpted from there as I wanted to get some nice muscle striations. Now I'm trying to import it back to studio and...the details are missing even when setting the subD to 2. Is this a limitation of studio or did i miss a step in zbrush?
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Comments
Yes, it is a limitation in Studio.
The best you can do, is use the high level sculpt to bake normal or displacement maps (I usually bake both, when doing similar things in Blender) and use those in addition to the lower level changes with the not subdivided sculpt (base resolution) that will import back into Studio.
Ugh...I hope they eventually make the HD tool available to everyone, I'd pay for it if I had to. I really need it as a morph as I render with octane and the shader I use for skin is quite complex, I would have rather avoided trying to figure out here to plug new maps in.
I thought Normal maps were pretty easy to add in Octane (most PBRs handle normal maps fairly easily...often more so than Displacement maps).
Now the question is...which would take more memory...the large, highly detailed control maps or the extra subdivision level(s)? I haven't done any tests, but my first guess would be the image maps, as to keep the level of details, you can't reduce/compress the maps without messing with details.
I thought Normal maps were pretty easy to add in Octane (most PBRs handle normal maps fairly easily...often more so than Displacement maps).
Now the question is...which would take more memory...the large, highly detailed control maps or the extra subdivision level(s)? I haven't done any tests, but my first guess would be the image maps, as to keep the level of details, you can't reduce/compress the maps without messing with details.
An image to illustrate this specific issue that was mentioned:
The screenshot shows an advanced material node layout for just the "face" surface of Genesis 2 female.
What the original poster would like to do is to simply
save a morph of the higher subdivision levels he created
because
it is the fastest and most efficient way to add detail to an allready existing character.
What the original poster would not like to do is to go trough the time consuming process of creating new maps in zbrush and then to go trough another time consuming process to reasign all the maps again in a complex skin shader layout.
Figuring out the proper settings for displacement, normal or bump maps takes a long time.
Sometimes it can take days of test rendering in different light situations to figure out those settings that look great in different conditions.
After those settings are figured out for a specific character the last thing you want to do is to start over with a new set of maps that were created with a different application.
It is not a reasonable use of the time of customers when they are forced to create a complete new set of maps if all what they wanted to do is to add some detail like scars, wrinkles around the eyes, moles, age lines, smile lines and save those details as a morph that captures higher subdivision levels.
- - -
Think of animations or illustrations of the same character in different projects.
Adding new high detail morphs to the character based on the specific scene is the faster way to work than to recreate the whole character from scratch with new maps for each new scene. :exclaim: