Blender to Zbrush guide

Tips and tricks using GoB addon

www.p2design.eu

Table of content

Introduction
Installing GoB
GoZ
getting GoB addon
installing GoB
testing GoB
Import/Export
Export from Blender to Zbrush
Export Zbrush Ztools to Blender
Choose your workflow
From Blender to Zbrush
Exporting a sculpted model in blender to Zbrush
Exporting displacement maps in Zbrush
Exporting normal map in Zbrush
From Zbrush to Blender
Exporting a sculpted model in Zbrush to Blender
Recovering subdivision
Conclusion

Introduction
Most of you may know Blender and if you have any little interest in CG and 3D you may have
heard about Zbrush.
Blender, is a versatile 3D software with an incredible node based render engine CYCLES.
Beyond behind ultra versatile and complete, its open source, so its totally free and you can
dive into the code by yourself or find tones of usefull addons amoung the web. Further more,
the community is of of the most helpfull and respectfull Ive ever met, you can see total beginner and super professionnals discussing freely.
Also, Blender is evolving super fast and thousands of enhancements are developped every
years.
You should have a look around blenderartist, blender nation, Cgcookie and of course
blender.org.
Zrush is The sculpting software.
Im a pretty new user, so I cant tell exactly all can be done in Zbrush, but if you sneak around
the best 3D galleries on the web or if you read about Cg industry, youll see that Zbrush is
one of the most used software in the world.
Blender has also nice (very nice actually) sculpting tools but suffers some engine limitation
when it goes to high frequency details (upon milion of polygons) while Zbrush can handle
billions of polygons (with geometry HD) using what they have called pixols. Instead of calculating realtime render of a 3D viewport, it uses pixels with an additional depth value saving a lot
of your CPU use and allowing you to get incredibles details like skin pores.
When it cames to high frequency sculpting, RAM is pretty important. having 8 Gb is a must
but if you can get up to 16 or 32Gb, then youll be able to handle incredible sculpts.

Installing GoB
GoZ
Zbrush features the GoZ addon that allow you to communicate between most of the 3D and
2D software....but Blender.
Thanksfully, a fantastic addon has been released and you can find some information about it
on the wiki.blender page.

Getting GoB addon

You can download the full addon (base and update) here.

installing GoB
From the zipped folder, extract the Blender directory contents at this path:
on Windows
C:/Users/Public/Pixologic/GoZApps
on Macintosh
/Users/Shared/Pixologic/GoZApps
Extract the GoB_2-69.py file somewhere outside of the zip file. Open the addon panel, then
click Install From Files... button at bottom. Select the GoB_2-69.py file. This will install the
addon inside the correct folder. Check the GoB box and save the User preferences to launch
it at startup. (works fine with blender 2.7x)

installing GoB
In Blender, In the information pannel, click on the blue icon on the header (on top of Blender)
to acivate autoloading.
The icon is green for autoloading activated.

In Zbrush, go in the preference pannel on top of the screen and click GoZ.
It will initialize goZ upon all of your installed 2d and 3D application that are supported.
It will probably not find blender, then you can set blender path manualy when proposed.

Testing GoB
In Zbrush, open the lightbox and double click on the earthquake model.

In the subtool pannel, select the main charater Ztool, then in the tool pannel, click GoZ. It will automaticaly export the lowest level
of subdivision model to Blender with the same naming.

IMPORTANT : Zbrush can handle multiple subtool with the same name while Blender cant. It is super important that you name your objects properly in Blender and in Zbrush

Import/Export
Import Zbrush Ztools from Blender
Lets make a try exporting a blender model to Zbrush.
I advise to start blender with an empty file. Create a mesh, suzanne for exemple and make sure rotation and scall are applied and
that you have no modifiers. (they will be ignored when exporting). and then click the export buton.
Suzanne is now loaded as a new subtool in your canvas.

You can now save your suzanne model as a Zbrush subtool.

In the tool pannel, click save as and youll be able to save it as a Ztl file and load it as a subtool
in any of your Zbrush project

IMPORTANT : Zbrush saving system is pretty different from other software, if

you want to save a model you are working on, you have to go in the tool pannel and click save as. Whenever you change the name of your saved file, it will
create another Ztl file that will be handled as a new subtool. subtool includes
subdivision levels, polygroops, materials etc....
If you want to save your whole scene, with all deatured subtools then youll have
to go in the files pannel, click save as. It will allow you to save the whole Zbrush
project (Zpr file) including all subtools and so, subdivision levels etc.... as like as
you were saving a blender file.
With my insane artistic level and incredible sculpting accuracy, Ive made some sculpting in
Zbrush on Suzanne to make it even more awesome. Lets click GoZ, now sculpted suzanne is
in blender.

IMPORTANT : When doing so, former blender model in your blender scene is
replaced by the latest exported one from Zbrush. If you want it to be copied as a
new object, rename it first in the subtool pannel. It will be covered lately in this
guide.

One important thing about this issue and generaly speaking, about 3D project, is that you have to know what you are looking for
and what you are aiming for. If its a character creation for a still image or for animation. If you want it to be low poly for a game or
high poly for a commercial or movie sequence.
This will (must) draticaly influence your workflow. Im not a Zbrush expert asIve just been using it for few weeks so I may not be
super accurate or totaly true in what I will admit later. Im pretty confortable on blender so I believe this part will be better.

Choose your workflow

From Blender to Zbrush
You may have met this problem (as I did), making the best model ever in the world that will lead you to the best recognation and
will make you and your family rich for decades... in blender with nice topology, start multiresolution sculpting and just cant handle
enough deserved details to this model because your computer cant handle enough polygons and you cant subdivide it beyond 3
levels. That sucks.
But in the mean time youre super happy with all the work done on these 3 levels of subdivison and you dont want to rework
everything in Zbrush from the lowest level of subdivision... But when exporting from blender, you can just export lowest level of
subdivision. that double sucks.....
Come on, stop crying, there is a solution. Clue was given to me by Max Puliero, an incredible Blender and Zbrush artist on his
the Beast project.

Before going any further, you must be sure that youre model has nice UVs map as it will allow you to transfer your details through
a normal and a displacement map and whatever other kind of map you wanna use. Here we have our Tyrannosaure_Retopo_base
object.
Duplicate your Blender object, rename it properly (for exemple Tyrannosaure_Detail_sculpting) and then apply the multiresolution
modifier with its preview level at the maximum. You now have a very high poly models without any modifier called Tyrannosaure_
Detail_sculpting. Be sure it is selected and active and click the export buton

We now have our model loaded in Zbrush with the name Tyrannosaure_Detail_sculpting
To recover lower subdivison levels, go in the geometry pannel and click reconstruct subdiv.
In our case, well click it twice to recover our basemesh and 2 level of subdivision.

We can now happily subdivide our model to a level of 4 or 5 without a problem, sculpt details and export our maps to render it in
blender! (think to save your subtool ZTL file oftenly).

Exporting displacement maps in Zbrush

Ive sculpted wonderfull details on my model with a subdivison level of 4 without any laging.
At my side, Zbrush handles more than 18 million polygons without a problem

Now that you have your fine details sculpt, youll need to export a displacement map so that you use a displacement map and
subdivision modifier in Blender for true geometrical deformation and combine it with a normal map for finest details.
First, set your map size.
Go in the UV map pannel, select your resolution (2048x2048 is OK for this exemple), adjust UV map border (its like bleed in
blender painting mode or margin when baking maps) to extend the baking outward the UV limits. For a big map like 4096x4096, a
value of 10to 16 is recommanded.
Reduce your visible subdivision level to level one or hugher (the displacement map generated will take in account the difference of
geometry between current subdiv level and highest one as in Blender)
Then go to the displacement map pannel and click create and export map.
It will open you a saving window where you can set a name, file format etc....

IMPORTANT : Once displacement is exported, Zbrush will ask if you want to export the model too. I recommand to do it as the new base model, based on your detail sculpt may have changed a little. You will lose
the seems in blender but the UV map is kept and probably more relevent than original one for displacement

modifier.
We now have our displacement map. We can apply it our Blender model using the Uv coordinates, a displacement modifier and a
subdivision modifier.
Ive met some bug while working on Carlos friend project
outputing this tyrannosaure. Strange lines appeared on the
displacement map and normal map.
If any one know how to avoid this, please send me the clue so
that I can update this document.
In any case, if you have additional informations, please let me
know so that I can improve this documentation

Exporting displacement maps in Zbrush

Exporting normal map is pretty the same process but there is a last trick.
set your map size, geometry level as for displacement map then go in normal map pannel.

Make sure that Flip Green is enabled or your normal will be like pointing inward your model in Blender.
Seems the Zbrush space and blender space are not the same. this issue has been discussed a lot on the web.
Once normal creating process is done. Click on the clone NM buton. It will make a copy of the normal map in the Zbrush texture
pannel.
Go in the texture pannel, your normal map will be automatically selected and click the export buton in the botom.

You can now save your map in the desired format.

Apply the map to your shading node or to your Blender material and have a test.

Note that when exported from Zbrush, all mesh inherite a material that can be found in blender. These are the matcap of Zbrush,
you can delete them freely. You will also find vertex group and vertex colours that are generated during your Zbrush sculpting.
They wont be usefull so you can also erase them from the relevent pannels. (at least, I havnt found any use yet).

From Zbrush to Blender

You can use Zbrush to create your own model.
One of the workflow I like is using dynamesh ( same as dyntopo in Blender) to set a base model, and then use the incredible Zremesher to obtain a base mesh.
Unfortunately, for the time being I havnt study Zremesher enought to output a relevent topology for animation but I believe we
can get to a super result combining the retopo curves and polygon density brushes. I will just show you some steps, free to you to
learn more as Im super limitated here.
For the time being, I create basemesh in zbrush only for undeformed object or character for still render (like our dynosaure).
The tyrannosaure was made this way.
Launch Zbrush, start from a dynamesh or a Zsphere armature and turn it to dynamesh.
Sculpt your model roughtly without detailing to much to get a good pose and main volumes.

Once youre happy with it, select the topology brush and start creating curves following the ideal topology you want.

In the geometry pannel, select Zremesher.

Again, I dont understand every options but what I can say is that the curve youve drawn will
influence topology construction based on the Curves strenght factor.
You can choose to end up with the same polycount enabling same.
You can choose to end up with half quantity of polygons enabling half.
You can choose to end up with double quantity of polygons enabling double.
Or you can choose to enter a value using target Polygons count slider or a percentage of
polygons kept by using adapt buton and set the adaptiveSize slider.
Make some test and click Zremesher buton. After tweaking, trying a few times youll end up
with a nice topology that would have taken hours in Blender.

Again, for the time being, I havnt experienced this enough to end up with a very nice topology with different mesh density as it
should be for a good animated character, but from the presentation on pixologic.com and with some training I think you can rich
an incredible accuracy of topology and nice edge loop.
This is why I do separate a workflow from Zbrush and Blender because, at this time I prefer to make my accurate topology with
blender.
Once youre happy with this, you can export youre base model to blender and start sculpting, Uv unwrapping etc....
Or you can go ahead and start sculpting in Zbrush.
Once

Exporting a sculpted model in Zbrush to Blender

Once youre happy with your Zbrush sculpt, click GoZ to export the basemesh in Blender and change its name in Blender like
Tyrannosaure_base.

Then, to export your sculpting detail to a multiresolution modifier, go in the geometry menu and set your subdivision level to the
highest Blender can handle. Here, Ill choose level 3. Then click on del Lower, you will lose the above level of subdivision.
Then rename your subtool, its very important.
Click GoZ and the high resolution model will be exported.

Recovering subdivision

In Blender, we now have 2 mesh.Our base mesh and our detailed mesh. The best way Ive found for the moment is to add a
multiresolution modifier to the base mesh, subdivide it 3 times as our HD mesh was and use a shrinkwrap modifier targeting the
Tyrannosaure_HD.Finaly, apply the shrinkWrap modifier. We end up with a nice projection of our Zbrush sculpture that can be
baked in blender.

IMPORTANT : Please not the result is never perfect and youll find some artefact youll have to smouth or
some detail youll have to rework but globaly it will be very close to your Zbrush sculpt.

Conclusion

As told before, this documentation was about showing some tips based on limitated experience. But, this small experience allowed me to drasticaly increase my speed and also open new possibilities in detailing models. Also, Zbrush layer manager will be
of great use to create different level of muscle and facial deformation of a same model.
I will prepare a new video where I hope to show you how to create advanced face expression and body muscle action based on
normal map and driven node shaders. I think Zbrush/Blender combo is super powerfull.
If youre a complete beginner in 3D and in Blender, I truelly recommande to start by exploiting blender sculpt tool wich is awesome till you get experienced enough to feel its limitation before diving into Zbrush.
A good knowledge about maps, topology and general 3D is better to learn Zbrush faster.
Unfortunately, Zbrush is not a free tool, but I believe, if you want to make use and abuse of it, it really worth the money and its
really cheaper than a lot of commercial softwares.
Give the trial version a try (sound ridiculous), just try to give you a month with hours on it and youll know what youll b saving
money for this year.
I would like to add again in addition of what was said before as a completion of what could be said later but that we dont know
yet as it is now, (try to read this high without breathing, thats challenging). If any one as any good, bad comment about it, wanna
add any information, please send me an e-mail on p2design@outlook.fr so that we can all make this documentation as complete
as possible and maybe push Pixologic to create a core version of GoB.
For any other things like thanks giving, love showing, admiration giving, gramatical lesson giving, you can writte me at
pierrickisthebestartisteverandwillprobablyruletheworldandbuydisneystudiobeforetheendof2015@itdoesntexist.com