I have looked around for advice about whether or not it is possible to successfully import a hi-poly count Zbrush object with textures into Vue. So far, I've only found threads describing no success. Does anyone have practical experience about this and willing to give some pointers?

Thanks.

I don't own ZBrush, but I made some test with Zbrushcentral's sword and head models. These are low poly models with GUV displacement maps. The displacement works extremely well on the sword, but I had to subdivide the head in Cinema4D to get good results. Still, the head didn't look as good as in other renderers, maybe because of the subdivision messing with UV's.
I haven't tried importing a hi poly model, though, as I said, I don't have Zbrush.

I imported a 900K object from ZBrush into Vue and it choked on the import but to be honest I wasn't entirely surprised at that.

I often import things in the 100-250 K poly range and Vue seems ok with that.  I don't use ZBrush textures though because I prefer to do the texturing in Vue but I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work - if you are using AUV or GUV mapped things, that might cause problems though because I'm not sure Vue would understand those maps

Thanks for your reply.

Do you import a low poly ZBrush model and then somehow detail and paint it in Vue? I did not know Vue could do that.

No, you can't paint in Vue, you can apply materials, either those that come with Vue, or ones you create yourself in the different editors.

Sorry, but these materials are, for example, a color or a bark texture or reflectivity?

you can add colour, texture or reflections in Vue quite easily in the material editor

Thanks. One last question, which file format do you export from ZBrush with?

The format is obj.

I do have good experiences with Zbrush and Vue together. Of course, high poly count will choke Vue, as said before. I managed to successfully import objects up until 700K or 800K polys.

To texture, I normally use one of two options:

After the object is modelled:

1. In the tools palette, texture group, activate "colorize"
2. paint your object with any color you like, how you like
3. when you're done, click on "Col>Txr", in the "Texture" group in Tools menu. This creates a texture with your paint job.
4. Go to Texture menu (not in the Tools menu, but the Texture menu itself) and click on Flip H. If you don't do this, the texture appears mirrored.
5. Export your object
6. Open the obj in Vue. Make the material a mapped picture and point to the bmp that Zbrush generated when you exported the obj.

Render and see. It should work.

You can also apply any material in Vue. If you want to apply several materials in one single object, one easy way is to create several polygroups in Zbrush (with your favourite method, there are several ways, see below my preferred). Then export the obj. This will come in Vue like an object with various sub-objects. To each one you can apply a different material (including bitmap based materials, of course).

The method I prefer to generate several polygroups in Zbrush is to mask, apply transparency, leave on screen just the polys that you want to be part of that group, click on "group visible" on the tools palette. Do this for each group you want to apply one material in Vue.

A guy over at ZBrushCentral will try it out since I don't have either of the programs yet. 
Thanks for the great explanation. I'll post back here with the result. 

The thing with importing objects into Vue is that they are triangulated at import, usually resulting in a double amount of polygons compared to the original.
I don't think you can switch it off! Bit silly....

Cheers!

www.charm3d.com

Tablesaw uses Zbrush to make some of his freebies and he makes them into vob's.  So it must work.  How poly-heavy the model is an entirely different story.  But I know it does work based on Tablesaws testimony as well as others.  So there you have it folks.

Just to confirm you own suspicions, check out what formats Zbrush is capable of exporting to.  If it is obj or 3ds and others, then Vue will definately import them.

The main issue I've been reading is Vue crashing importing ZBrush. One person reported that he saw improvement by switching from an nVidia 8800GT, I think, to one of the QuadroFX cards. I assume then, the more powerful the OpenGL support the better. But, holy moly, them things are expensive!. Any comments on going with QuadroFX or any other hardware advice tailored for Vue?

Does Tablesaw have a webpage?