Projecting detail from hi-res to lo-res meshes in ZBrush

If you lose your subdivision levels or would like to take a DynaMesh sculpt and get a lo-res, animation-friendly mesh out of it, you could retopo the whole thing, or just make a duplicate and project the detail onto to new, lower-res version.

[@raphaelprotti5536]

Really well done tutorial of proper workflow. Concise and yet thorough walk through of exactly what the title says.

[@aoibluevi]

Its work! tysm ❤‍🔥❤‍🔥

[@Ghost-27X]

So basically take a Texture Map "Snap Shot" of the Hi-Res model and cover the Lo-Res model with it?🤔

[@BradGroatman]

In a sense, yes!

[@recursivedreamer3149]

Very concise and to the point. Thank you.

[@user-fv9gt8yf4x]

why when i do bake my modl low poly my model transfer detail from hight poly but the model dont stay softing edge,my model mix detail hight poly and low poly togethers?i bring the model from zbrush

[@SeanLake3D]

Which version of your newly zremeshed mesh do you export, I mean you have a high active points. so don't you still have a really high mesh? Little confused.

[@BradGroatman]

Now that I have a version with clean topology, I can make UVs for it and generate a normal map that contains the hi-res information in it. I can then export the lowest-res version but retain the detail from the higher subdivision levels by applying the normal map in Maya, Blender, etc. I hope that makes sense!

[@SeanLake3D]

@@BradGroatman Thanks! You could also decimate and then retopo in 3dCoat, for example, to get clean game/animation ready meshes, then bring back to Zbrush for final work!

[@VisionsGames139]

i dont understand, if you wanted it low poly yk for animation or wtv why would you put it back to a high poly?

[@BradGroatman]

Because back at the high poly level you can sculpt more details that could then be baked out into normal maps or displacement maps that you could apply to the lower-res model in animation, etc. best of both worlds 🙂

[@blanketparty5259]

this method is also better for sculpting in high detail because its using a lower poly version technically

[@sjoerdmpfrgh]

maybe you want to export the normal/displacements maps from the highest subdivision level and the mesh from the lowest subdivision level? then add the maps to the mesh in the animation/game software so that the high res details are visible but not actually part of the mesh? ..im trying to understand as well

[@bernhard.design]

But don't you need to re-uv again, after you subdivided? Or is it fine to create the UV's only on the low res mesh?

[@BradGroatman]

You only need to create UVs at the lowest level of subdivision (higher levels don’t change the topology, they just subdivide existing faces, so it stays the same!)

[@BradGroatman]

And even though the shape of the mesh changes with the projection, the actual faces are still the same, just “sculpted” by the projection into a more accurate shape.

[@bernhard.design]

@@BradGroatman Thank you very much Brad, appreciate it man!

[@Rikitangoable]

is this like a pseudo retopo?

[@BradGroatman]

Yep, though ZRemesher is definitely not going to give as clean and exact a topology as you'd want for a game or film model, it's great for at least giving you some lower-res levels to work with!

[@Rikitangoable]

@@BradGroatman thanks for the help.