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Solution to Poser and DAZ stacked/overlapped UV's in ZBrush

Bonnie2001

Extraordinary
Okay, this has bugged me for a while (months and months actually) and I've finally worked out why and found the solution, which might help others.

The problem? Well the problem is when one sends a DAZ or Poser character to ZBrush and tries to add multiple textures to separate parts (face, arms, legs etc.), the overlapped/stacked UV's prevent the textures going onto the parts properly. This is because ZBrush only has a single texture channel, so stacked UV's won't work.

My solution which I'm very excited about (there may be other solutions I don't know about, such is the huge and wonderful program ZBrush is) is this:

1. Send your model to ZBrush from DAZ/Poser either via GoZ or by manually saving out an OBJ and importing it into ZBrush.

2. Then in the Polygroups palette, click "Auto Groups With UV" and then click "Merge Similar Groups". These two actions make all the polygroups follow the texture template patterns of the character, including symmetrical ones (Merge Similar Groups does that part).

That's the actual solution. Obviously the character will need to be subdivided as much as your computer will handle, before applying the textures.

3. With the subdividing done, select Polygroups one at a time by Ctrl+Alt clicking on them, which will make all the other Polygroups except the clicked one become invisible. Now go to the Texture Menu at the top of your ZBrush screen and import the texture for the clicked Polygroup. If you manually imported the character you will need to Flip V (vertically flip) the texture, but you won't have to flip it if you GoZ'd your character from DAZ/Poser. The texture will now appear in the Texture tab on the left of your screen, so go to "Colour" at the top and click on "Fill Object" and the texture will be placed correctly orientated and scaled on the visible Polygroup.

4. Ctrl+Alt click on a blank part of the canvas to bring all the other Polygroups back, then Ctrl+Alt click on the next Polygroup and repeat the instructions in step 3. Do this for all the remaining Polygroups.

5. If you intend painting on the textures after they have been added to all the Polygroups, go to the Polypaint palette and click on "Polypaint From Texture" to enable seamless painting (you won't need to do this step if you aren't intending to paint the textures). With all your painting done, you can use step 3 on the Normal and Displacement Maps as well.

6. Click on ZPlugin at the top of your screen, then select Multi Map Exporter and choose which Maps you want exported.

That's it. I know this might seem complicated, but all you really need to remember are the instructions in step 3. I may add to this later with some pictures or a video.
 
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Thalek

Inspired
Brilliant! I remember having similar problems for the Argile software. I don't know if Argile was capable of a similar solution or not.
 

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
I use a similar process and use the autogroup uv's also. These textures were done some time back in Zbrush...
Do you want to be my dentist.png
Sora Fae Green close up2.jpg
 

Bonnie2001

Extraordinary
Brilliant! I remember having similar problems for the Argile software. I don't know if Argile was capable of a similar solution or not.

I just Googled Argile. Looks very promising, but development of it stopped a long time ago. :(
 

kobaltkween

Brilliant
Contributing Artist
Or you could use Blender, and have the software handle it and not do anything. Just sayin'...:)

Seriously, though, this is really useful information. Zbrush is a powerful beast, and anything that makes it easier to use is a boon to the community. And it's not just DAZ and Poser figures that split UVs into multiple maps, it's pretty much any model that needs to support both closeups and wide angle shots.
 

Bonnie2001

Extraordinary
I think i will try this workflow and see if i can render in Keyshot via the zbrush bridge.

It should work fine. You can use one of the Keyshot Skin materials and keep the texture map by holding Alt when you drag the skin material onto the model. Then play with the skin translucency to get a very realistic skin.
 

Ghostman

Adventurous
Contributing Artist
It should work fine. You can use one of the Keyshot Skin materials and keep the texture map by holding Alt when you drag the skin material onto the model. Then play with the skin translucency to get a very realistic skin.
Already tested. Need some tweaking on the material.
 
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