I'd really appreciate if someone could point me towards a good tutorial or two for ZBrush, with the focus on just what I'd initially need to know to try my hand making a figure morph and a displacement map for (e.g.) V4...

...a nice, concise, step by step guide for a ZBrush beginner like myself would be grand, if such a thing exists?

Maybe, even, someone would fancy boosting their personal awesomeness levels and having a crack at writing these, if nothing currently exists?

I've got the GoZ process to and from Poser covered, I think, that seems to be detailed pretty well in the SR3 revision of the Poser manual.

But if there was a nice step by step couple of tutorials covering:

1. Setting up the V4 mesh nicely in your ZBrush document workspace, once it's imported as a new tool by GoZ, and then applying a couple of facial feature morphs.

2. Adding a sculpted displacement map layer. Taking that back to Poser, without interfering with the base mesh, etc.

Something that just runs through a basic workflow, concisely, step by step, with shortcut keystrokes. It doesn't need to be a nicely formatted video presentation or anything. Just a document listing steps with a couple of screenshots would be great...

That would be a great help to me... and I suspect quite a few others too, probably.

I'm currently, slowly, working through the basic tutorials on the ZBrush learning centre site and generally just fiddling around... not getting anywhere that fast with it, to be honest.

Obviously I don't expect to get anywhere that fast. I am anticipating several months just to get up to a fairly basic level using ZBrush to be honest.

But some sort of (relatively) quick start guide (as far as that might be possible) to the two points above would be a big help to my personal learning curve I think... and so far I've not managed to stumble across anything that seems to deal with these two tasks, in a fairly direct manner.

Maybe I can't see the wood for the trees of course...

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions

check youtube there are tons of stuff on there I've been on them all day check out zbrush central I purchased a couple books by scott spenser he's also has a lot of movies on there too. check out amazon they will be the first one that pop up. One book I really like is Maya and character modeling by jason Patnode very easy to follow and clear. always check out hte used books just make sure they have the cd if  the book has one. it's worth a couple bucks more to get the cd.

Here are some of my go to links, plus as Radar_Foxbat says YouTube has a bunch of very good ones.

http://cg.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/tutorial-roundup-82-earth-shattering-zbrush-tutorials/

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/category/168/Free-ZBrush-Tutorials

http://zbrush.wonderhowto.com/how-to/apply-texture-maps-creature-zbrush-3-184421/

http://www.pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/

http://www.pxleyes.com/tutorials/zbrush/ext/

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/forum.php

Poser to z-brush tutorials are rather few and far between, and since GoZ has only existed since sr3, I doubt you'll find much on the subject as far as tutorials go. They are out there, but they range in age for as long as zb has existed, and a lot of them are very out dated now. 

However there are some who have been working with poser and zb for quite a while now. I ran across a series of tutorials for texturing poser figures in zb not too long ago, I just don't remember who did them or where they were. But again, anything that is older than zb3 won't do you a lot of good, as the software has changed almost completely since then.

But you can ask questions here, since it is poser related. I'm sure the zbrushers here will be happy to answer what they know. Keeping in mind there are many different techniques depending on what you're doing, so you're likely to get several different answers. 

To get maps from ZB back to poser you need to use photoshop, as goZ for poser won't port the maps back directly. It will port them to ps tho, in .psd format. There are some things you need to do in photoshop. I think poser 2012 at least, reads psd files - not 100% sure on that right at the moment tho. 

~Shane

Many thanks Radar_foxbat

Yes, I've been ploughing through... or trying to... a lot of video tutorial material.

Trying to explain in a bit more detail...

...I struggle with video tuts to be honest... a lot of the time I'm looking at stuff late at night and can't have the volume up because my kid's asleep in the next door room. I find a lot of video tuts, for the most part, just too long-winded... even the ones that are clearly very good and well voiced etc. Guess I'm impatient in that respect.... well, I'm just short on time, really.

It's simply that it's hard to speed read a video tut. Maybe getting a good book would be the way to go...

...precise recommendations for anything that covers the two points I listed would be much appreciated.

Would Jason Patnode's Maya and Character Modelling book be applicable enough to Poser with GoZ I take it?

Whilst I'm definitely interested in learning the full process, eventually... building a model from ZSpheres or what-have-you, rigging, modelling a character from scratch etc... initially I'd just like to get to grips with sculpting a full body morph and displacement maps for the existing Poser figure meshes.

Cheers

Awesome set of links, on a quick glance through... many thanks PhilC :biggrin:

Quote - To get maps from ZB back to poser you need to use photoshop, as goZ for poser won't port the maps back directly. It will port them to ps tho, in .psd format. There are some things you need to do in photoshop. I think poser 2012 at least, reads psd files - not 100% sure on that right at the moment tho. 

 ~Shane

Ah, I see, cheers Shane. That's useful to know in itself...

It was, specifically, how to sculpt on top of the (e.g.) V4 mesh, but then retain / revert all that scultping as just a displacement map, I'd been going round the houses trying to find something on...

Yup, appreciate the new territory we're in to with GoZ. I guess that's part of my issue... although also much of what I've managed to find in the way of tutorials myself, so far, is actually just more comprehensive than I'm initially, I think, looking for.

Well I guess I'll take a tour of PhilC's links later tonight, for starters...

...and yeah, a good book is maybe what I should be investing in, further to that.

ZBrush for Dummies, may be a plan indeed... if that exists. LOL.

Cheers

(bookmarked)

I have that book, and no, not really. The info is so outdated even for maya that it's rather pointless.

Are you looking for something on how to sculpt? or how to sculpt, specifically, a poser figure?

If you just want something on how to sculpt, Scott Spencer is one of the best zbrush artists around, so any of his books will help you. He also teaches classes at the Gnomon online school. I have his first 2 books - and the first, character creation I have a duplicate of if you or anyone wants it. Its the first edition, written around zb3 so it's a bit outdated but the info still applies. Some pretty awesome painting techniques in it.

Ryan Kingslein also has his own website and classes - fact i think he's registering students for another anatomy class that starts next month. He has a book on sculpting female anatomy. It's not the greatest, but it's one of the only books i know of that specifically deals with human anatomy in zbrush (spencer's 2nd book being the other, on male anatomy). Both books cover sculpting clothing. 

If you're just looking to get your figure into zbrush then the directions are on p721 of the poser manual. It's pretty simple and straightforward. 

I can give you some screen grabs of getting a poser texture into photoshop but you'll have to give me a bit to post them. 

~Shane

So to make it easy, I'll go ahead and do a quick run-down with visuals here. I'll try to make it as short as possible.

~Shane

That would be very, very good of you Shane :biggrin:

Some tips on the texturing side would be a good place to start for me... In due course, I'd like to start to mess around trying things like sculpting or painting vein or wrinkle or skin-fold displacements. Probably onto posed meshes to start with, I think.

I've read the Poser manual on GoZ... I think Deecey's done a pretty good job of making that dummy-proof for the likes of me. LOL :lol:

And yeah... its the second question, how to sculpt specifically a Poser figure, I'm looking for the answer to.

A written step by step with the core keystrokes etc... even just some tips on getting the imported mesh tool onto the document cleanly... would be a big help to me.

Beyond that... yes I'd be looking for some good books on the finer points of sculptural technique in ZBrush I reckon.

Given references, I can sculpt a reasonable human anatomy in a lump of clay (or least I could have done some years back... I may be a bit rusty now).

But I appreciate there's a LOT to learn to transpose any of that ability, even with ZBrush's groundbreaking toolset. So some of the books, by the guys you mention, will likely be on my Birthday and Christmas list...

Actually making a figure from ground up like you're doing... not sure I'd ever get to that point. But right now, just being able to tweak my existing Poser figures to a greater extent, or with more fluidity, more sculptural "depth", than I could just with the Poser morph brush, is what I'm hoping to achieve, I guess...

What version of ZBrush are you using? I found out the hard way that for some reason most of the tutorials made the process way more difficult than it needs to be. I use Zbrush 2 (I know, how archaic.) my process is-

Load figure in poser

0 Figure

export wavefont object, single frame.

Click universe to unselect all elements in the poser scene.

Select desired body parts , and perhaps adjoining to avoid distortions if you edit too close to seams.

Tick only include body part names, include existing groups in the dialog.

Export as wavefront object

Open ZBrush

Go to Tool pulldown menu, click Import

browse to .obj, Import

Tool will load, Drag onto canvas

Click Edit (and frame if you want to see the geometries edges and groups, makes it alot easier). Each group will be assigned a different color.

DO NOT move the Tool in cartesian space, only brush and edit the topology. Although you CAN use the move brush as this is just editing the topology.

Finish your editing.

Go to Tool pulldown once again, scroll to bottom (NOT the top export option) to export. tick only Obj, Grp, Qud and scale setting should be set at 1. click export. do this for each individual edited body part separately or the multiple body parts will all export as one object and won't be usable as morph targets. you can selectively hide and unhide the various body parts on the canvas of Zbrush by clicking control+shift in the canvas area or the object parts. If a body part is hidden on the canvas it will not export.

Load as morph target on zeroed figure in poser.

While in Zbrush you might want to save that edit as a Ztool so you can do some more editing more readily. I usually have Wings3D, Poser, and ZBrush open simultaneously as my workflow.

Again, this is for Zbrush 2. Never once had to use any scaling utilities with this workflow, despite all kinds of tutorials saying that I would. Who knows? This method has worked perfectly for me for years now.

(cont'd)

Thanks Primorge.

I'm on Poser Pro 2012 SR3 (so with GoZ) and have now upgraded to ZBrush 4R4.

With Poser's new GoZ integration the import / export is more direct, I guess.

But I suspect the middle part from "Tool will load, drag onto canvas..." through to "Finish Editing" is more or less the same?

So thanks for putting it nice and succinctly... if that's all your doing there then I guess what I'd figured out so far maybe isn't too far off the mark then! I guess it's the core DOs and DONT's I'm after, on the Poser-derived mesh tool sculpting side... to start me off.

Cheers

EDIT: Crossposted with Shane... sits back to watch

Oh-oh... Yeah I'm on a power mac G5. have alot of software but can't really afford too much upgrading right now. make do with what I've got. Basically Poser 7, corel painter, Photoshop CS, ZBrush 2, and now carrara 8 (used to use Carrara 5)... oh yeah and my beloved wings 3D. Good luck in Zbrush!

Oh, and you never know when you might have to use Poser and ZBrush the Old Fashioned way!

Quote - Oh-oh... Yeah I'm on a power mac G5. have alot of software but can't really afford too much upgrading right now. make do with what I've got. Basically Poser 7, corel painter, Photoshop CS, ZBrush 2, and now carrara 8 (used to use Carrara 5)... oh yeah and my beloved wings 3D. Good luck in Zbrush!

 

Oh, and you never know when you might have to use Poser and ZBrush the Old Fashioned way!

Definitely good to know those basics... I'm lucky to be on the latest software purely by merit of just having got into all this really. Current version of Poser is my first... same for ZBrush. Now I'm going to be staying put where I'm at for a while I suspect (well likely updating ZBrush as long as my hardware specs hold out and updates are complimentary).

Many thanks Primorge

EDIT: Right... sorry... no more talking from me at the back of class just now... already Shane has answered a load of stuff for me! :biggrin:

They added a section and documetation on zbrush goz in the manual when you upgraded poser.

Wow, thanks so much Shane... your slide content is spot on so far!

Just the kind of quickstart info I was hoping for! Very much obliged to you :biggrin:

I'll detail sub-dividing and textures in zb later today.

When sculpting, if you're doing a morph, if you divide the mesh at all in zbrush, it may or may not change the vertex order. It seems to be hit and miss whether this will happen or not. 

So the best approach is to not divide the mesh at all. 

IF you do divide the mesh in zbrush, be sure you go back to your lowest subdivision level, and then delete higher subdivision levels BEFORE going back to poser. 

Your morph may still cause the model to explode in poser. I have had both happen at various times, so it seems to be random whether it will happen or not. 

Best method is just don't divide.

~Shane

ROFLMAO :lol: at those last three... now that's what I call a full body morph

Quote - I'll detail sub-dividing and textures in zb later today.

~Shane

Awesome Shane. Eternally grateful for your taking the time out to put all this down like this

Shane, export GoZ from Poser by material would also be based on the UV islands, I think... I mean, I guess it depends on the figure but for me that is usually the case. So, one less step inside of ZBrush. :D

Fantastic, ExistentialDisorder.

Really looking forward to the displacement part, which has had me totally flummoxed.

Quote - I'll detail sub-dividing and textures in zb later today.

When sculpting, if you're doing a morph, if you divide the mesh at all in zbrush, it may or may not change the vertex order. It seems to be hit and miss whether this will happen or not. 

So the best approach is to not divide the mesh at all. 

IF you do divide the mesh in zbrush, be sure you go back to your lowest subdivision level, and then delete higher subdivision levels BEFORE going back to poser. 

Your morph may still cause the model to explode in poser. I have had both happen at various times, so it seems to be random whether it will happen or not. 

Best method is just don't divide.

 

~Shane

This is fantastic! Thank you, Shane.

You should also store a morph target in ZBrush as soon as you have the model in the app, so that if needed, you can morph back to the original using the morph brush or a switch morph target. I usually do this on layers, masking one side and morphing back to the original on the other for assymetrical morphs. Just putting that out there.

Quote - You should also store a morph target in ZBrush as soon as you have the model in the app, so that if needed, you can morph back to the original using the morph brush or a switch morph target. I usually do this on layers, masking one side and morphing back to the original on the other for assymetrical morphs. Just putting that out there.

Thanks Teyon

Google tells me this option to Store / Retrieve a Morph Target is in the Morph Target subpalette of the Tool Palette?

I should get a chance to run through the process per Shane's slides once my kid's in bed later this evening.

But even without ZBrush in front of me now, I can see how clear Shane's walkthrough is... I can see light and the end of the tunnel now!

:biggrin:

Yup that's where it's at. :) It's nice to see the community helping each other out.

Following this thread with interest

Quote - Shane, export GoZ from Poser by material would also be based on the UV islands, I think... I mean, I guess it depends on the figure but for me that is usually the case. So, one less step inside of ZBrush. :D

Yes Teyon that's correct. 

However, if you export by body part, and then switch to UV islands in zbrush, you have both options to work with. 

Exporting by material from poser will leave out the body part grouping in zbrush.

If you're just exporting from poser to do texture painting and aren't going to do any morphing, then you can choose either option really. I'll test it to see if it really makes any difference anywhere.

Shane

Yep. Sorry I left that step out. It's not mandatory but it can be very helpful. I rarely ever use MTs or layers tho, so I just forgot to include it. Here's a couple of brief rundowns.

~Shane

Many thanks Shane 

Well, I followed the first set of slides and got everything so far to work just fine, I think... and my copy of Tate's Michelle figure now has a "pregnant alien pixie" morph option added to it... he he :biggrin:

Its amazing how, with just those key pointers you've given so far, somehow, suddenly everything in ZBrush is starting to make a lot more sense to me...

I believe there was a recent version of ZB that had a problem when exporting the mesh back for use in poser.

What version was that?, and was it fixed by a SR or a newer released version?

Watching and reading with rapt attention

I have a couple of questions and a comment, as alot of the info that is being provided by both Shane and Teyon is relevant to the version of Zbrush I'm using...

I've always been a little dissatisfied with the "vagueness" of the painting or Marquee selection/masking process of ZBrush. Is it possible to somehow tighten a mask to where it doesn't bleed in intensity over the edges into adjoining polys?... More like the selection process that you find in core vert/edge/face modelers. I haven't ever been able to locate a way of doing this and have kind of accepted this fact as ZBrush is intended for super high poly count models and thus isn't assumed a necessity. I'm using ZB 2 so maybe this behavior has changed?

I've never really used the store morph target feature as I usually just undo, or clear the layer if I really mess something up. I can see it's usefulness though, and I'm going to try to incorporate it more into my process. Thanks Teyon.

My last question is about the current version of posers ability to handle high poly models. I'm constructing this set piece and frankly it's starting to get rather heavy in poly count, heavy enough that if I don't selectively hide parts of it in Poser 7 during testing it begins to cause some lag (plus my PowerMac G5 is far from a Doomsday Device in ram at the moment).

I would actually like the various parts of the set to become more detailed and I'm cutting as much filler geometry away as possible but I'm worried that the object's heavyness may be a detriment to it's viability as a marketplace candidate. This is something I've been working on for a while and I kinda hate to compromise my vision at this point. Are my worries unfounded in this area as most people doing their Posering are running higher spec machines?

Thanks.

You can sharpen and blur your masking via the masking menu. There are several different ways to mask an area actually, including alphas and rgb intensity. just depends on what you're trying to do.

The idea that zbrush is limited to high poly modeling is really not true. Hasn't been true for quite a while. You can move individual points if you need to, insert edge loops and extrude faces. Make edges crisp, select individual faces, etc. There isn't a true edge/vert selection exactly - that I'm aware of at least - but it's really not needed in terms of how the software works. With the latest version you really don't need any other modeling program. Another modeler can make some features faster/easier, but the process of exporting and importing back kind of defeats the point of going to another program just because something is easier. It may just be a matter of not understanding how to accomplish the same task inside zb.

I'm kind of wondering why you're still using zb2, considering that version is a good 5 to 6 years old now at least, and all upgrades are free, unless there's something specific about zb2 that you prefer over the more recent versions. I think there's been something like 6 upgrades to zb in that time? somewhere around there. It's not even really the same program as it was back in 2.

As for poly count in poser, you're description is rather vague. p9/pp2012 can handle significantly heavier models. I don't know of exact numbers on count, but I know there are people working with figures that are several hundred k in polys. No reason to really need that much, but it's possible. Depends a lot on what else you have in the scene.

I'll continue this tutorial theme soon - been working on some other things I need to get done but I haven't forgotten it.

~Shane

@ Shane,

It was a gift from a sculpture professor of mine, along with Carrara 5, poser 6, and shade ... never got into shade though. Funny thing is he's an AutoCad guy but seemed to have a penchant for software he would never use. Up to that point I had only ever played around with poser 3 I think it was. I was totally hooked when I realized that I could sculpt things with these apps and then render. Played around with that software for a couple of years and then moved from california to the east coast. Kind of fell out of interest but now my interest is renewed as I don't readily have a means of doing ceramic work. Hoping to make some nice things and become a productive member of the community, Unfortunately my income doesn't allow alot of non-essential items in my life right now so I've got to make do with what I've got. Carrara 8 and poser 7 are the only new toys I've been able to afford, although I've been looking to upgrade to ZBrush 3. I deliberately purchased an older mac so that I could run my software collection  (specifically Photoshop CS). Hows that for a story?

Thanks for the info on my questions, Shane... You've set my mind at rest on that.

Oh, and the figure your working on is coming along brilliantly, You've got some serious sculpting chops there, man.

Addendum... Extruding in ZBrush now, huh?

But at least I seem to have figured out how to make the adjustments to the GoZ imported mesh symmetrical...

EDIT: Although some of them might not look that symmetrical in this render... it's just the lighting, honest

Quote - But at least I seem to have figured out how to make the adjustments to the GoZ imported mesh symmetrical...

Pressing the x key before starting to make changes will turn symmetry on in ZBrush.

Is there are way to make a morph symmetrical on import into Poser from ZBrush?

Yes, figured out the X keystroke... there's Y and Z keystrokes too I think? (not needed for a figure mesh)

The other Symmetry tricks I discovered, playing around with Michelle, were using Resym and Smart Resym in the Deformation palette...

Quote - > Quote - But at least I seem to have figured out how to make the adjustments to the GoZ imported mesh symmetrical...

Pressing the x key before starting to make changes will turn symmetry on in ZBrush.

Is there are way to make a morph symmetrical on import into Poser from ZBrush?

No. 

You can split a symmetrical morph and if you make a morph using the morph brush in Poser, I believe you can mirror that to the opposite side but, as far as I'm aware, we have not implemented a way to make an asymmetrical morph symmetrical upon loading into Poser.

Quote - Yes, figured out the X keystroke... there's Y and Z keystrokes too I think? (not needed for a figure mesh)

The other Symmetry tricks I discovered, playing around with Michelle, were using Resym and Smart Resym in the Deformation palette...

Ah, I understand what you mean. I had forgotten about those. I have just re-discovered Mirror which I think is just what I need right now. Back to experimenting.

By the way, really good work on your morphing experiment. I looks like you are having great fun too.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - But at least I seem to have figured out how to make the adjustments to the GoZ imported mesh symmetrical...

Pressing the x key before starting to make changes will turn symmetry on in ZBrush.

Is there are way to make a morph symmetrical on import into Poser from ZBrush?

 

No. 

 

You can split a symmetrical morph and if you make a morph using the morph brush in Poser, I believe you can mirror that to the opposite side but, as far as I'm aware, we have not implemented a way to make an asymmetrical morph symmetrical upon loading into Poser.

Thanks for the info, Teyon. It might be a great addition for a future version of Poser. GoZ is a fantastic addition to Poser. I am loving just playing around with it and learning ZBrush along the way.