Zbrush and neat smoothing.

[Green_Day_584]

Hi. I havent really been back at these forums much lately (iv been making mods, etc, like usual ), and it looks like im crawling back for some help lol.

Iv been trying to model a mesh in Zbrush that i have made in 3DS Max PERFECTLY so I can get nice, detailed normal maps. However, the mesh is a massive segment of a ring (the mesh is duplicated around until you get a ring when placed ingame. seeing Zbrush doesnt support mesh smoothing groups, iv had to do some very ugly smoothing on the curved bits of the mesh using the smoothing tool. it would all be fine, except the normal maps turn out all wrong for the 3DS Max model that is to be used ingame.

i was wondering if any modelers in the community have any tips on smoothing a mesh in zbrush as it looks in max with a smoothing group.

im at my wits end... any help would be appreciated

[Hushpuppy]

dosnt the normal subdiv work? if you have proper topology the subdivs should do the trick.

[Green_Day_584]

no... thats the thing :/. i have the mesh in 3DS Max 9 with a smoothing group applied to only a part of the mesh. I want to be able to create a normal map in zbrush with rust, etc for this mesh, except the only way I can think of replicating this is smoothing the area that needs to be smoothed so the normal maps dont turn out strange. when I smooth these areas, they "suck in", and therefore the normal maps dont suit the host mesh. of course, i could have "smooth mesh" ticked when i subdivide, except that smoothes the whole mesh. its a real pain :P

i know i could always export the reshaped lowest subdiv level mesh, except the meshes need to fit together perfectly in a ring and it wont when i do that .

[Guyver4]

I'm not sure if I understand the exact problem but I'll throw out one hint that might help.

If you are smoothing within Zbrush, before you divide your geometry, click and store a morph target on your lowest res mesh. (in the tools/transform drop down I think)

Divide the mesh as many times as you need.

The mesh with 'shrink' deform. Go back to your lowest division and 'swap the morph target.

The mesh with return to your original shape.

Go up through the divisions and you'll see that it has divided all, with minimal deformation.

This means that the normal map will be applied and calculated to a mesh that has zero deformation from your original.

Hope this gets you closer to your answer.

(oh and when you are done, delete the morph target or it'll 'swell' when you view it in the zmapper)

G