Vladislav Georgiev

April 2015  Gouken. Character of one of my favorite games Street Fighter.

 

I had most of the model done in Mudbox since 1012 but it was unfinished. So recently I had some time to spend on the model again.

 

And I finished the accessories, fine surface details and textures. This time everything was done with Zbrush.

 

As you probably've noticed here you can download  the model ( for free ).  

 

  Underneath are you can see some base instructions about how to use the included files :  

 

    If you have ZBrush 4R7 (SP3) you will have no problems to open the ZPR file which have a polypaint and separate subtools with subdivision levels.

 

    How to use the OBJ file if you dont have ZBrush 4R7 (SP3) or newer ? The OBJ file is quite large ( 1.4 GB ) because it contains all sub tools at their highest

 

subdivision level ( in total 18 Mil. polygons ). So make sure your system can handle  that much polygons. After imported in any version of ZBrush you will see

 

the model as one subtool without any textures or polypaint. But if you want with a  few extra steps you can restore the polypaint as it is still in the vertex colors

 

of the model.

 

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     1. You will need to separate the model of separate sub tools and then export one by one at their highest subdivision level. And save at some place at your

 

hard drive as an OBJ files. 

 

      2. Then for each subtool reconstruct the subdivision levels by selecting them one by one and and clicking ( Reconstruct Subdiv ) button in the Geometry

 

rollout untill you get a message that you have reached the lowest subdivision level.

 

      3. After you are done with this for all the subtools you will have to export them all again but this time at their lowest subdiv levels. Again store them all on

 

your HD properly named and organized so you can recognise easily what is what. 

 

     4.After this is done you will have to create UVs for the low poly geometry you just exported out of ZBrush. You can make separate UV layouts for each piece

 

of geometry or you can combine the geometry in logical poly groups. For example you cen split the UV layouts for the whole model in two UV layouts ( Body

 

and Accessories ). Or any other way it does not really matter as you are going to need this UVs just to bake the polypaint from the high poly into the low poly so

 

you will be able to see the textures. Because of that even a separate UV layout for each low poly will do the job just fine. Maybe even better because if they are

 

separate you will have a better texel density and higher quality of the textures which latter you will use to import to Zbrush and copy as a polypaint.

 

     5.So once you have the UVs for each low poly peace. You will need to bake the vertex colors ( polypaint ) from the High poly to the low poly geometry.

 

 You can do this in many different applications but the one that I use for this is called xNormal. It is a free program that you can download from internet. 

 For baking the polypaint you must import all the high poly and low poly geometry into xNormal and make sure that you click off the tick beneath ignore per

 

vertex colors in the high definition meshes.  Do this and then you will be baking depending of your UV layouts. Each UV layout must be baked separately and

 

also the pieces of geometry which intersect with each other must be baked separatelly and then the textures combined in Photoshop. Please note that in this

 

case you will need to make some decisions on your own how to make a proper UV layout. If it is easier for you you can make separate UV layouts and for each

 

sub tool and then there is no need to worry about that just you will need to deal with more textures after you are done.

 

     6. After you have the textures you must import the UVs you have made for your lowpoly into ZBrush. If you have not changed the topology of the meshes

 

you can import the UVs straight to your previous subtools. But if you have changed the topology you can import the new low poly geo and project the high poly

 

surface details on to the new geometry that comes with UVs.

 

     7.After you have the surface details and UVs simply import the textures you baked in xNormal in to ZBrush ( flip vertically ) make sure you have Mrgb button

 

enabled and in Polypaint dialog click on button ( Polypaint From Texture ). You must do this for each subtool. After you are done you can get rid ( Delete ) of the

 

old high poly as you will have each piece of geo twice which will increase your file size unnecessary and it will slow down your system.

 

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This is how you can restore the polypaint from the OBJ file. I know it's a bit of a headache if you have not been doing this before but is a good practice and

 

opportunity to learn something new. So have fun and don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions.