Okay guys, hereās a mini tutorial I thought Iād whip up in the dead of night. Iām very tired so sorry if thereās spelling errors. If you have any questions, just ask BTW. So, anyway, this quick tut is for retopo-ing MD meshes with Zbrush and Blender in a way that preserves the UV islands so you donāt lose the nice neat UV shape that MD generates. Ready? Okay.
You will need:
Marvelous Designer
Blender
Zbrush
Note: This tut doesnāt cover how to use these programs. You have to already know that.
1. Make your mesh as normal and export from MD. Iāve called mine top.obj. Here it is.
2. Now highlight all, right-click the 3D garment and chose Reset 3D Arrangement (selected)
3. Export this from MD. I called mine topFLAT.obj
4. Import FLAT version into Zbrush.
5. Under Geometry tab, ZRemesher, hit the ZRemesher button. Depending on your mesh, yours might be fine to export with the default settings. For mine, however Iām going to lower the Target Polygons Count to make it lower poly.
6. When youāre happy with the poly count, export your mesh. I called mine topFLATretopo.obj
7. In Blender 2.79, import all three obj files. You can go ahead and tick the eye button to hide the original MD mesh and the FLAT version for now. First we will do things to the FLATretopo version.
8. With the FLATretopo version selected, divide the window so that you have the 3D version to one side and the UV/Image Editor to the other side. Now you can ender Edit Mode, Mesh -> UV Unwrap and Project From View to get the same UV island shape that MD generated. With that done, return to object mode.
9. In the Modifier tab chose Surface Deform. Set the target as the FLAT version, turn the Interpolation falloff up as far as it will go (16) and hit the Bind button. Now you can hide the FLATretopo mesh.
10. Unhide the original MD mesh and the FLAT version.
11. With the FLAT version selected, switch to the Object Data tab. Under Shape Keys, hit the plus sign. āBasisā key should appear.
12. Now you must deselect everything, then select first the original MD mesh and second the FLAT version. It is important they are in that order. Once you have selected them, hit the little downwards arrow to the side of Shape Keys and chose Join as Shapes. Another key should appear, named the same as your original mesh.
13. Unhide the FLATretopo mesh.
14. Click on the newest key and slide the Value slider all the way to the right. The FLAT mesh and the FLATretopo mesh should morph into the position and shape of the original MD mesh.
15. Select the FLATretopo mesh and hit Apply on the modifier to confirm the movement. Then you can delete both the original MD mesh and the FLAT version. You donāt need those anymore.
16. Now you should have a final mesh that has a nice topology from what we generated in Zbrush as well as a neat UV map, plus itās still in the shape as the original garment you made. It isnāt finished yet, however. Now you need to close up the seams, fix the UVs for TS4 usage, and make everything pretty.
Note: I personally start this next step by Shading Smooth in the 3D window. This will highlight the seams that need fixing. If the item is symmetrical, I find it easier to just delete half of the mesh and use a mirror modifier while I work on it. It cuts the workload in half. Now I just go around the seams and close them manually. It doesnāt usually take very long once you get the hang of it. I also bind all my repetitive keys to shortcut keys (eg. Merge, rip, cut, loop select, etc) so itās quicker.
When the FLAT version is still flat, you can also edit the topography directly onto the mesh to make sure the seam verts will match up. You can also remove any unnecessary loops easily as well as adding extras.
Anyway, thatās all for now. Hope it helps some people! :) Have a nice weekend.
areudirty
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
origamiaround
vaporwave
kaledo-art
turnnoffyourmind
kianamaiart
