Hi all, I am in the process of creating some custom morphs for one of the Poser characters (undisclosed at this stage as I would like to create a set - don't want to say anything yet just in case it all falls through). It would be really useful if zBrush could recognize material groups from Poser, but unfortunately it doesn't. In my case I need to be able to distinguish the lips in zBrush, but they are just a material group in Poser and therefore don't get recognized. Does anyone know of a workaround to this ? thanks, Andrew

Hmmmm... Well, I have THOUGHT of experimenting with something. Paint the vertices on the model in Zbrush as a texture that are the lips and then begin morphing. The painted areas would help you keep track of where the lips were while you were morphing and then remove the texture before exporting. Now I have not TRIED this yet and don't know the specifics around applying a texture and removing one and if this impedes your work later in ZBrush when you reimport it, but it might be worth a shot. I understand your pain on this one. While doing the Apollo RKane_1 morphs, I was trying to increase just the size of the mouth AROUND his lips and misjudged where the line was. Needless to say, he looked like a collagen implant gone bad when I brought him back in. I wound up just getting a snapshot of his wireframe with the lips material highlighted and kept it by my computer for reference to "eyeball" where the lip line was. It was the simplest solution at the time to try and get the job done quickly. I was trying to finish before Christmas...and I DID!....well...for the first draft of him, amyway. smile Hope this helps!

This is an excerpt from a message I sent mathman but I thought it might also be helpful to those Poserites who might be thinking of buying ZBrush: ----------------------------------------------------- I only read two tutorials and began morping like mad. I haven't even BEGUN doing full body morphs with it yet! It does have its limitations like not being able to work with multiple objects at the same time but I have figured the workaround for that is to fuse objects together in another app like Wings 3d and then bring them back into ZBrush. I am experimenting with making a figure like that. Let me know of any tricks you learn with ZBrush and I will do the like. Here are some good tutorials I have found... http://www.daz3d.com/support/tutorial/index.php?id=33 http://www.daz3d.com/support/tutorial/index.php?id=32 http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/general/tutorials/17-kroot/kroot.htm http://www.kurvstudios.com/free_tutorials/login.php http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/general/tutorials/tutorial.htm Do a search for Glenn Southern. His are very good for work with ZBrush itself. ---------------------------------------------------- Hope this helps all those who may be thinking of using ZBrush. It truly is a great app.

Nice thread. Will post relevent links to tutorials when I come accross them

Open the head template of your model (or an actual texture) in your paint program. On another layer (so you can see what you are doing) flood with black and paint the lips white. flatten and save. Import just the head into Zbrush. Import the saved image as an alpha and flip vertically. Apply as an alpha (tool>masking>alp). Zbrush away. SWAMP

RKane_1 and Swamp, Thanks for these suggestions. I will get around to giving them a go (bit hung over from New Years at the moment). This is a tough one :) regards, Andrew

Swamp? Does the procedure you just mentioned actually prevent the mesh from being disturbed or does it just help give you a guidepost to steer around. I thought I heard somewhere that there was a way you can paint vertices and make them less responsive to the brush but I never picked up on it at the time because I didn't have ZBrush then. Thanks for all your help! RKane_1

SWAMP, I love you. Marry me. I'm sure my family will have a lot of questions, but you've made me a very happy man. P.S. Can i keep my girlfriend? RKane_1

Attached Link: http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=023149

Rkane, Yes a mask prevents the masked parts from being effected by sculpting, painting, or whatever. You can paint a mask directly on any mesh with the brush by just holding down the ctrl key when in edit mode (the brush will turn from red to yellow). The only reason I suggested using an alpha mask for the lips as apposed to just painting directly on the mesh is (in this case) it is just more precise. Masking and Alphas are very powerful tools in Zbrushlearn all you can about them. Hell you can easily make tight fitting clothes by just painting a mask on a figure then delete the masked areas and inflate the remaining mesh. Or you can get really crazy and do stuff using alphas and masking like the artist Meats Meier does (link). Have fun, SWAMP Edited to make sure the image in the link is not on Rendos newest hate list, and add the Nudity flag.

Well thanks for the offer but being a guy that goes out with a girl with a frightening Latin/Cuban temper.... Ill have to pass. PS: sorry my post got bumped below yours but it vanished when I was editing it.

Well, okay....and I had a gown all picked out. sniff That's me....always a bridesmaid. Never a bride. cry Thats Meats Meier stuff is intense! Awesome stuff. ZBrush is such an awesome tool! Is there a way to combine and fuse two mesh models in ZBrush or do I need to take that to another app to do?

"..and I had a gown all picked out"oh now thats a different storyI thought you where talking about some cheap weekend thing (snicker). Anyway in answer to your question Zbrush only works on (edits) one mesh (.obj) at a time so the answer to that is no. That is really not such a big limitation though as all one needs to do is, in any 3d program (even Poser) import mesh A and mesh B then export both meshes out together as one mesh C. What Meats Meirs does basically is to bring in one mesh and do what he does with alphas, then drop that to the canvasbring in another mesh and repeat,etc,etc. He is in affect building up a scene with many 3D meshes, but to create a 2D image. If starting from scratch in Zbrush you can build a very complex mesh using Zspheres, then use another app to split that mesh up or create new groups (for boning or rigging). (Note: I havent looked into it much, but with the new release of Zbrush 2.5 due out soonsupposedly you will be able to do some rigging right in Zbrush.) Actually how Ive been using Zbrush lately is to set up a posed scene in Poser (sometimes with two figures,hair, etc.)export that out as one obj, then import into ZB for shaping and refining. That does require a quick stop in UVMapper before and after Zbrush, to save/reapply the UVs. Hope that helps, SWAMP