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Here is the complete workflow for creating a high polygon model starting in Maya and sculpting in Zbrush exporting to Xnormal for baking, texturing in Quixel and then importing to a game engine Unity.
This covers all the aspects of something I haven't seen demoed in the industry and remains a looming question people have after creating a dense model in Zbrush. This will help you take that model and get it ready for use in Game Engines, background in films or anything you can imagine.
Software needed:
- Maya (Any Version)
- Zbrush (costs)
- Xnormal (free!)
- Knald (optional + costs)
- Quixel (texturing solution + costs)
- Unity (free personal)
If you get stuck or need help just let me know, I'm always happy to help!
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/ filmstorm - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Thank you for doing this. Great pace of tutorial too: no waffle, straight to it, explained why you were doing things. 👍
Thanks for the comment, really appreciate it! Glad it helped :)
OMG... Finally a tutorial that takes you from point A ---point Z. This is been so beneficial.(especially with Quixel and Maya / ZBrush and ending in Unity.) Thank you so much for putting this together. Beyond Perfect. Love it and Please keep more coming. Thank you.
+Greg Money You're very welcome! Happy to help!
A damned 6 year old video teaches me more than I've learned in the past month trying to find good high quality information or courses on how to do this. This was really all I needed, but people just aren't releasing properly informative stuff on this workflow in 2022. Sure, you can find a bunch of long course that you have to rifle through for an hour, and there are 12 different ways 12 different people tell you to do it. But finally, I feel like I got what I needed today. Now I can move on with all my projects I was kind of stuck on for a bit. Good work on this one!
Six years later and this still is one of the clearest tutorials about the subject, thanks a LOT ! :D
A video with so much information shouldn't even be free. I'm paying for 3D school, and I've learnt more with a free 30 min video tutorial on youtube than months in an expensive school. Shows how shit education is right now. Thank you so much.
Thanks for the great comment, it’s kinda why I started making these tutorials in the first place. 👍🏼 Keep up the great work and if you have any questions along the way I will be more than happy to help.
same
Thanks for watching! 👍🏼
Uh, it is free because he is modeling a lump of poo rather than the uncanny Jenni Lawrence.
Thanks to mix and jam I found this gem of a channel...thank you for creating this tutorial 3 years old and still relevant....!!!!!!
Thank you so much! I've been taking a 3D modeling class and it's so hard to find good and informative videos like this.
That’s great to hear! 👍🏼👍🏼
oh my god! you fell from the sky dude! Nobody says the complete method how to prepare any 3d model to use in game engine or whatever job, but finally I found this! thank you very much!
Awesome! Thanks for watching 👍🏼👍🏼
I have been struggling for awhile to make high to low poly and keeping the great detail in low poly for Unreal Engine 4. I didn't understand how to do it But this video help me SO MUCH to understand how to do those things now. Thank you for this great and super helpful video! :D
Wonderful! Thanks for watching!
Best high poly > low poly on YT. Well done, mate.
Thanks Jan!
Great tutorial and very cool principles to use for workflow from Zbrush to exporting low poly versions with normals etc. Well done dude!
+John Kotsiovos Thanks John, glad it was helpful :)
Woow.. This is a giant workflow.. I use only Cinema 4d and Xnormal (for the Unity) and I think my workflow is super fast and results are very good. I now that C4D isn't nearly that good for sculpt that Zbrush is, but it is good enought. And time is money..
BUT!!! This is fantastic tutorial. Thank you!
OH MY GOD I FINALLY FOUND A TUTORIAL I NEEDED! YOU SIR ARE A LEGEND, THANK YOU!
You're most welcome!
Finally I understand the full workflow. Thanks a lot! Ended up with a huge mesh in unity though.
Awesome glad to hear it. With the large mesh, you can adjust the sizing on import in Unity or alternatively adjust the scale settings in Maya or ZBrush to make Unity scaling. :) Hope that helps!
Wow i have always wanted to know how to make a 3d turd.
Omg dude. Epic burn :)
I make a 3d turd at least once a day. It's easy.
Well the guy does sound a bit more relaxed the less phallic it looks, but I very much appreciate the video!
LOL
Super informative. This should have more views!
Wow, thanks so much for this great tutorial - exactly what I needed! I love how you add in what you do personally in each program. It helps so much!
Good vibes and happiness to you~
Thanks Pika, glad you enjoyed it! If you have any other things you need covered just let me know :)
thank you so much for the comeback... been waiting for new vids.. love your tutorials ;)
Thanks Kross Fire! It means a lot! :)
+Filmstorm Studios all my progress is inspired from your vids check out them when u find time :D
I sure will! Thanks again!
+Filmstorm Studios you're most welcome man... :)
+Filmstorm Studios Will there be a tutorial series on the uncharted system as well ? I would love to see it if u would do such a series.. and even on continuing the FPS system..wow such wonders without using code..dreams come true.. :D
I was looking for a tutorial exactly like, lol. Great stuff as always, man.
+HelloDolly Thanks HelloDolly!
Good stuff mate! You literally just saved my life! Worth my subscription
Thanks buddy.
so this is what they mean by 'workflow'..... Awesome awesome awesome tutorial! 😍😍
You're very welcome Supernova12034!
Thank you so much for this. I'm pretty familiar with maya but I'm iffy with Zbrush.
Hey bro nice to see u back wish there was a 3dsmax like this :)
It should not be too much different for Max. I work with Max, but I'm an absolute beginner in it. I prefer starting my models in Zbrush, with the basic templates it provides.
there's tons of max tutorials on here! I even was searching for "maya low poly rocks" and I got... max and blender tutorials mostly before I found this one lol.
thank you man!! very good tut ,short and sweet.
hope to see more from you
its extremely useful tutorial.Thank you for your time and sharing your knowledge
Thanks for watching!
Amazing tutorial dude! This helped me loads. Way to go!
+alex thomas thanks Alex!
great tut my friends building hes own engine atm and im doing the modelling this is great!
That's great Chris! Glad to hear it! Good luck with the modeling.
Thank you very much for a well throughout and clear tutorial.
Casual Nerds You're very welcome!
Such a wholesome video! Awesome!
finally what i was looking for. thx mate
Really aswesome tutorial, could have been a bit slower so we can follow more easily but not complaining, this really helped me with my 10+ rocks kit I'm doing for a game. Thanks !
+Antoine Morin-Prévost Hi Antoine, thanks for the comment, I really appreciate the feedback on how to improve my tutorials. Thanks again and I hope you rock kit turns out great!
thank you so much saved my project and my life too
That was a great tutorial man THANKS
You're very welcome!
So nice, thank you so much!
Thank you! 🧸
Damn you are the only video tutorial that full on this subject, thumb up, putt it in my favs!
(Can you make a tutorial on how to make a simple street on maya/Zbrush? :3)
Thanks Swipyduck!
And yes!
Maya tool kit is awesom tool for retopology. I use that tool often,
That’s great! 👍🏼
Fantastic, glad to have finally found a channel showing a useful workflow keep it up man. Would there be any chance in the future of you making a basic human character with this sort of workflow just to see the process again?
awesome tut man!
Thanks!
Thanks a lot, bro! It's most usefull tutorial. This video helped me to defeat the Zbrush))
I learned allot from this, I love this video!
thnaks a lot mate. you taught me a lot of new thing for a single day. Subbed liked faved!
16:50 zremesh & project all = for better topology
then export the highest subdiv level as high poly.obj
and the lowest sub div level as low poly.obj
then bring borth into xnormal
Thank you!
14:40 have low poly selected and
the eye turned on, for the original high poly mesh
This was really helpful!
Thanks so much!
Brilliant tutorial dude, Im so happy I found your channel and ill spread the love. One question though. How do you do LOD's for the rocks? Does Unity have that built in tessellation or something?
Thanks man, You can create LOD's by changing the level of remeshing that occurs. Continue to export the same model at different polygon counts but with the same UV's. Then you can import the different models into Unity and assign them to the LOD levels.
oh brilliant man, ill be sure to try that out for sure !. This workflow can be applied to a lot of environment objects like cliff faces or caves
Do you have a tutorial for how to do the same thing with characters? That's what I need the most
13:38 - I'm don't know, but my logic says to me that possible you need keep "Enable Control Painting". Without the "Enable Control Painting" the Zbrush ignore this function. But..it is Zbrush, made by UFO for UFO =))
p.s. very good the tutorial, thanks!
If you turn off that microphone effect that makes you sound like you're on stage, you have another subscriber!
+Nick Pangburn haha sure thing!
As I promised, I came back and subscribed. I will share this video with my friend who is good with Blender, you can do almost ANYTHING with blender, and its open source and free. Thank You!, and Yea that echo effect was bothering me the whole video!
Thanks Nick, yes funny thing is after I finished the video I noticed my mic was in the wrong mode - supposed to be in Omni Recording but it was in full 360 making it sound really echoey :/ rookie error.
Amazing tutorial!
Awesome video man. Thanks for uploading
Side note..I would adjust your mic levels slightly. Clicking of the mouse was a tad loud.
Other than that, I'm definitely going to be using this for my low poly game
Awesome, thanks for the feedback! I should invest in a pop filter.
Well done, mate!
19:28 knald enhances normal map to give more def
Damn, that brilliant tutorial of yours helped me finally make a workflow between Maya - Zbrush and Substance Painter with a nice and clean materialID in the end!!! Thanks a ton!
Btw, since you are that good, maybe I can have an advice on what's the best way of making something like modular apartments?
I imagine the exterior walls , holeways, appartments are all made separately from each other. So, I make, lets just say all the exterior walls in Maya first, split them to something like front,side,back and export one by one to Zbrush , making some details.
What's next, how do I make them fit their topology once they are out of Zbrush and make it to a game engine?
Or maybe it's much easier not to use Zbrush and vertex paint them in Unity? Thanks ;) Sorry if that's messed up ;)
It would be better to sculpt the walls seperately.. but the best way is to use seperate boxes and geo in Maya and make a simple modular house / apartment. [so use separate geometry per wall not extruding etc.] then sculpt each wall with nessecary details following my tutorial and texture it. Now you reimport the new models into maya and reassemble them into your apartment... :)
I had same question.!!
Hey thanks for this magical recipe! Btw what beastly computer did you have back then?
Why would you use the XNormal instead of ripping the normals out of Zbrush itself? I believe you can set it up with the low poly version grabbing the high poly version right out of Zbrush.
You can but that would mean retopologizing the whole model which can be difficult in some cases. XNormal is also a good way for reproducible results that’s easy to introduce into a pipeline for a lot of assets.
Amazing Tutorial, Thank you so much. Im currently a broke student and was wondering if I can use Substance painter instead of Knald?
Thanks a lot.very very helpful.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for this amazing tutorial and explanation. Helped me a great deal in understanding how retopology and normal maps work.
Quick question: I haven't gotten started with Zbrush yet. Using Maya and Mudbox. I'm working on a character, and I modeled my basemesh in Maya, then exported it as an OBJ and imported that into Mudbox to sculpt on. The topology is more or less clean for animation, and doesn't cause any problems in Mudbox. Model's unwrapped too. From here, I'm thinking, once I'm done with the sculpt, I'll export the level 1 subdivision of the sculpted mesh as the base, and then use a normal map with the details of the level 5 or 6 mesh on it. To smooth out any hardness, I might use soften edge or something like that.
The result will be a bit too heavy poly wise for games, but will it be all right as a functional model for an animated movie? Is this workflow in general OK? I do know there are better ways (including the one you demonstrated), and want to use them soon once I get a bit more familiar with 3d work.
Once again, thanks for the superb tutorial. Peace, and have a great day.
Thanks for the tutorial, would be nice to list all the software used. The title is a bit misleading thinking everything would be done in zbrush itself.
Thanks for the feedback Leticia, we'll be sure to list all the software required in future tutorials.
excellent tutorial, thx for the assist :)
+dimeolas777 You’re most welcome!
Thank you so much 🙏
DISREGARD MY PREVIOUS COMMENTS KNALD IS THE BADASS SHIT support got on and we figured out the issue within 20 minutes was a problem with intel integrated graphics i7 7700 etc. installed the proper driver to let the GTX handle business and its all good
Thanks for the tut. At 14:13 I get a bit lost, you say ''lets work him up'' but I can not figure out what you did there. Could you clarify please?
super helpful!!
Thanks!
Is there a s[ecific reason that you baked the AO with Knald instead of xNormal or any other program?
Because it was faster, I believe. With XNormal it would've probably taken twice as much as it took for the normal bake, as AO baking is slower. I see that Knald has done it automatically when the normal map was imported.
why do we need a high and low for texturing in the first place? i dont get the concept of having both since having more edges all over the model wont affect the texture right? that is all dependant on the quality and pixel rate of itself no?
So the high poly model is for baking the texture onto your low poly. All the details from a high poly sculpt are projected onto the low and the low poly model will be what you use for your game/project. It all comes back to computer performance. The more polys/tris you have on a model the harder your computer has to work so by baking a high poly texture onto a low poly model you get pretty much the same results as just using a straight high poly model in your game and your computer works more efficiently. This is a super basic answer but I hope this makes sense :)
+KiwifruitChickiddi Great explanation! Well done!
grate tutors
Thankyou!
very useful
Thanks bro
Hi, this tutorial is great, but I have a question.
knald and xnormals are still used because snormals no longer encunetro
Now it has been replaced by other software?
Thank you
Thank you so much !!!
+Noxus Gaming You're welcome
nice, so how about characters when you need to focus on animationable bends and combinations of hard and soft edges? just dropping down polycount in Zbrush wont do so how would you make it?
Do I need to create low poly models if it's for stills only -- not a game engine nor animation? For example, I want to create a wooden plank with details created in Brush and import it into Maya for a final scene render. Yet every tutorial I see for that workflow is game-based and emphasizes low poly for that reason. So I'm wondering if it's applicable. I also understand the benefits of lower poly for Maya to handle it easier and for UV-ing. I just wish there was a tutorial for non-game assets.
Hi film storm......i have little confusion did you applied that normal map for the z brush low poly [which is z resmeshed ]or maya base model which u have done initially
holy shit thank you so much
+GrowingObsession You're most welcome!
hey im sorry for asking but , why was there no changes in your wireframe when you subdivided the mesh at 4:35 . When I subdivided my mesh it turns into a heck ton of mini squares, so im wondering whats the difference with yours.
Im also wondering if you have artstation.
Thanks !
Hello, Is there any scale of how many Active Points for which game engine is fine? I went from 5.5 mil. to 1.1k for CryEngine, is that enough? What do you think?
+aaaaJAYaaaard 1.1k should be great for cryengine. Although push it as low as you can get if the model is just a background object :) In most triple AAA games we aim for 500 polys for background objects, (likes boxes, bags, rubble) but exceptions can be made for objects that are more complicated.
Is this a substitute method to exporting from ZBrush to Maya and then
retopologizing it using quad draw? Which of these methods gives better
results?
The other question I had is that after I use your method to
convert the object into low poly and generate the normal map, how do I
texture the model in Maya(,if I don't want to use Quixel). What will the
workflow be in that case ?
How can I preserve smaller details on my model like spikes when zremeshing? The geometry gets a shrunk, faded or even a bit distorted after reprojection.
Thanks .... Great Job , if u have tutorial for how can i convert the high poly to low poly without zbrush , share it plzzz
Oh yes, I have a method for Maya, I'll make a tutorial soon :)
Hey! Thanks so much for this guide. Question, is xnormal better than baking the normal directly in Zbrush? Pros/cons?
Hi Wesley, yes I find Xnormal to have high accuracy with its edge detection, sometimes Zbrush can be a bit off and not provide the right result.
Definitely a thumbs up for Xnormal in regards to its baker- it’s quite fast as well in comparison. Plus if you have a big GPU you can compute the bakes on that with your CPU.
What if you just want to bake the high poly to low poly normals for use in Maya (for a scene and rendering it)? Would it be the same process and use Xnormal and Knald, or can Zbrush alone do what's needed for that?
Great but how do I add all the maps onto the model and add the texture like you did with the paid photoshop plugin? Can I do all that in maya?
Also, I noticed how a lot of people bring their zbrush models back in maya to retopologize by drawing quads directly onto the live model. However you did it in zbrush without doing any of that. Can you explain the difference between the two?
Zbrush has retopologizing options too, I just find this method is a fast way to churn out background assets and other assets. If you are designing say a Main Character asset. I would definitely recommend hand drawing out the retopology onto the the model. This ensures usability when rigging the character and it running smoothly in the game engine.
got it, thanks
Is there a reason you do distance .2 for project instead of default?
Awesome video dude!!
Hey I have a question, i hope you can help me...lets say i have multiple subtools and each one's got its own UV map...If I combine them all into 1 subtool and they keep their UVs...will xNormal create the maps and arrange the UVs into a single texture map? Or do I need to manually arrange the UVs into a single texture map then use xNormal? I hope it makes sense
Thanks!!!
+Enrdz z Hi Enrdz, thanks for the question, what would happen is when you merge the sub tools in zbrush you can then view the texture map and see if the UVs are overlapping if they are what you should do is export the sub tools all at once using the multimap exporter and then again on the different subdivision level but the downside is that you need to do each subtool one by one in Xnormal. Let me know if this makes sense :)
Thanks for replying so quick!!!
Yes the UVs do overlap each other for all the subtools...I have a game character all retopoed with Uvs ready for each subtool and I want to have as many objects as possible into one single map...what would be the best way of doing it? Arrange them manually, bring back into zbrush, copy/paste UVs for each, then merge all subtools and export the combined low poly and high poly mesh, then use xNormal?
Thanks :)
If you export each subtool with the UV's from Zbrush, you can actually take them all into Maya and select them all and then go to UV's and use the Auto Arrange function which will stop them all from overlapping. Then re-export from maya and walla, you don't have overlapping uv's.
(Bonus! - you can combine the models in maya into one mesh (use mesh->combine) in the top menu under modeling tab.) When you do this you will retain each UV layout but all in one Texture... then use the auto arrange uv's from above ^_^
awesome dude!! Thanks, will give it a try!
Thanks for the quick response! I appreciate it
Just touching base- how did you go with the UV's?
Not sure are you still active on youtube or not, but I have one question. So if you go low to high and then bake maps, does the low poly has to be bigger in size than high poly in order to do it, or you can build it up. In snort does the bake register only cracks or also the peaks too.
Hi there, yes usually the low poly is roughly the same size as the high poly because it's essentially a reduced poly count mesh of the high poly model.
When you bake the maps it depends on your raytrace settings on how much detail you want to capture more peaks and cracks with higher detail leads to longer render times.
If you reduce the raytrace count you'll also reduce the quality of the maps hence not registering as much detail as in the longer raytrace maps.
Hope that clarifies it for you 👍🏼
You can do all of this inside Substance Painter which seems much easier and quicker?
Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing!
I have one question : How do u keep that original topology display in Zbrush after importing from Maya? The edges on the white material (3:50) is what I mean?
Thanks for the question Genna. I assume you want to be able to subdivide the mesh in Zbrush while keeping the same shape... not smoothing out the edges?
In Zbrush goto Geometry -> Dynamesh -> Set a resolution if your importing from maya try 64 or 128... the bigger the number the more resolution.. and then click on Dynamesh.. and if a popup opens say no.
Walla... you now have a high res mesh with the same detail you imported from maya. :)
Yep, that was it, THANKS AGAIN!
Hi , if i have many different parts of high res subtools , should i merge them all together and retopo them all as 1 low poly or separated like the high res for baking normals?? :D
+Paxton Ong It depends... will your subtools
overlap each other... like does your model have a body and then armour that sits on top of it?
If this is the case you'll probably have to do it one at a time ... as the normal map will be really weird and hard to work with.
But you can always give it a try with merging them together and see how you go?
Filmstorm ahhhh i see, thank for the reply :D
Zbrush has the option of baking your Normal Map, why do you prefer to use Xnormal?
How did you manage to get the Facebook Notification thing to work on windows 10 ?
Never worked here
+iplaybose Not sure, it always pops up no matter what I do, seems to do what it wants haha.
That's weird because it worked for me too on Windows 7, but I never got it working on anything above W7, 8/8.1 and 10.
So does that mean, zremesher is the lowpoly tool?
+Oink ards Yes one of the many low poly tools :)
I got a problem, maby u can help me. If i export the my zbrush model as obj and import it in unity+ normal map, its look nice... like my highpoly.... But if I import it into maya ( to chance stuff) and then export it as obj and then inport zo unity... it looks not right. normal map works but I see the lowpoly and not the 100% from the normal map. Its hard for me to explain xd
+3D Davis Yes this is because Maya alters OBJ files upon import - you'll need to import your model into Maya as a FBX file for best compatibility or just use the inbuilt Zbrush to Maya plugin- just google that to get the plugin :)
I found it out, "soften egge" in Maya and its fine :)
Before importing the model into unity, could you take the low poly into something like blender to animate the model, then bring that into Unity to have a fairly high res model from zbrush?
Of course - that is completely okay to do.
I am new for Zbrush , just wondering why you need to export the high and low obj both to a third part software to bake normal . I learned some tutorial that they just turn the subtool to low division mode and get the normal map in ZB directly ,then export the low division polygon directly . Can I know the reason you did for exporting ? thanks
Hi there, great question, the main reason is once you start to get complicated subtools the built in normal baker in Zbrush isn't that great. You need an external program to handle pushing all the polygons through quickly and that's what Xnormal is so good at.
Side note: Yes you can still do this all inside Zbrush but I guarantee it will be a big time waster in the end and it's much simpler to do it this way. Plus it's a good workflow as well as you get to keep your high quality model and low poly together after you finish.
how i can get rid of normal map seams
Hi Miruna, in the tutorial where we unwrap the low poly model - the protect and attract settings. To get rid of the seam lines try to repaint different areas of model in areas that will blend nicely for normal seams (like the side or underneath model). Then re-unwrap it again. You'll find the more you do it the better results you'll get. :) If you are still having trouble let me know.
great tut!! Is it better to bake with xnormal than with zbrush? Cos every single time when i bake with zbrush, the normal map in 3dsmax looks so weird... so jaded, faded and weird lines
I recommend using Xnormal! Much better results than the inbuilt Zbrush baker.
Perhaps you could help me with this? How come one of my scenes crashes every single time when i try to generate a normal map despite the fact i have deciminated and retoped it? It crashes with 1M poly and still crashes even with 200k..... Got 64 gigs. Any ideas?
Hi, I am a little confused about, doubling the poly of the high poly on the low poly and then trying to add normal map, I do not understand as the low poly is higher than the high poly and it looks better so why and what does the normal do? currently, on a Mac so cannot follow the tutorial fully :P but just a question thats been bothering me, thanks! great tutorial by the way!
The normal maps simulate depth details on flat surfaces, that's why whe do normal maps: to emulate complex shapes in places where hardware limitations would normaly stop us.