Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: Zbrush and body part groups

markschum opened this issue on Sep 10, 2010 · 10 posts


SmashStudios3D posted Sat, 11 September 2010 at 10:58 PM

I was working with Mark on this, and he forgot to mention that we're trying to retain the body part groups AFTER subdividing the mesh. I've been able to successfully mask a portion of V4s hip/legs to create an area where I subdivided quite a bit to give more polys in her genital region. The issue at first was, as soon as the mesh was subdivided in any section (in other words, not subdividing the entire V4), the polygroups were lost. However, I figured out that this could be fixed as simply as clicking the 'autogroup' button in Zbrush.

Marks' theory was that, if the general .obj doesn't change shape drastically, it should be feasible that a simple modification of the external geometry call in the .cr2 could call this new geometry with the subdivided mesh, and still retain V4s rigging, magnets, JCMs, etc. It's a good theory, anyway. Haven't gotten it to work yet.

The issue has been that all polygroups are not retaining their name. Mark wrote a quick Python script that reads all the polygroup info from an .obj. The polygroups are being renamed to numbers. Below are two sample lines that are exported from Mark's script, denoting a polygroup within the geometry. The first line is the .obj before sculpting and subdividing, and the second is after:

ef31ef31 -   1152 facets -   1279 vertices - group Figure_1 hip

82d8993b -  16451 facets -  16806 vertices - group Group8815

If there is a way to parse the correct group names into the new, altered .obj file, I think this could work. As it stands right now, once you edit the .cr2 to call the new geometry and try to load it in Poser, it loads... nothingness. Poser sees a model there, and the model has it's materials intact and everything, but the canvas displays nothing. It's as if it's loading the model data from the .cr2 but not it's actual geometry. Very strange.

Anyway, I think Paloth may be on to something by using UVMapper to keep all the group names and then reapply them to the .obj. I have no clue how to parse this information into an .obj at all though. Thoughts?

And DarkEdge, thanks for the email reply to my PM over at the Pixologic Zbrush forums and here. I tried that method, but the problem with reimporting that geometry into Poser in pieces is that the pieces are off ever-so-slightly from the model, even when zeroed, and I don't see how it will be possible to rig the pieces together and not have to worry about the seam breaks.

Any input on the best way to get the group names back into the .obj? If anyone wants to see .txt files of the exported group info from Mark's script, I can show you both before and after the sculpt in Zbrush. Thanks in advance!