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ZBrush R6 AppLink -32 bit version only-


Denis S
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3D-Coat to ZBrush AppLink

Description: 3D-Coat AppLink functionality for Pixologic ZBrush

Version: 0.4

Last Update: 13/04/2011

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Installation:

Unzip and run the installer, select your ZBrush folder, press Install.

Restart ZBrush.

In ZBrush new ZPlugin:3D-Coat subpalette should be available with single button labeled Edit in 3D-Coat....

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Usage:

Run ZBrush and 3D-Coat.

In ZBrush, go to Edit Mode with some mesh tool. While in Edit Mode, press Edit in 3D-Coat... button in ZPlugin:3D-Coat subpalette. "Export Type" dialog will pop up. Select type of the export with one of the buttons. After a few moments youll see Waiting for 3D-Coat... note in progress bar.

Switch to 3D-Coat window. A dialog with options based on your 'Export Type' selection in AppLink script should pop up. Set needed options, hit 'OK' and edit imported mesh to your heart content, using 3D-Coat's rich features for Texture Painting, UV Editing, Retopo and Sculpting. When done, select File ->Open in Originall App from 3D-Coat main Menu.

Now go back to ZBrush, there should be Got results from 3D-Coat! note, hit any button to bring edited mesh with textures and maps created in 3D-Coat back to ZBrush, new PolyMesh3D tool will be created and texture maps assigned to the correct tool slots (Texture Map and Normal Map will be assigned, but Specular Map will only be imported into textures list).

You can repeat the whole process as many times as needed.

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Release notes:

Version 04:

"Waiting for 3D-Coat" progress bar replaced with explicit "Get results from 3D-Coat" button.

AFAIK, it's the only way to fix 'ZBrush GUI freezing after Alt-Tab' issue.

Version 03:

BMP textures format and Displacement map transfer to/from 3D Coat is working now, but requires 3D-Coat 3.5.16 or later.

For correct interpretation of displacement map by ZBrush, you should select "8bit + Zero level is black, normalized + BMP" options in 3D-Coat Export options.

UV flipping issues addressed.

Only Windows version available so far, no Mac OS AppLink yet.

Version 02:

To transfer textures from 3D-Coat to ZBrush you should use JPG format. There is some problem with loading 3D-Coat-created TGA/PNG/TIF files by ZBrush.

Displacement map transfer from 3D-Coat to ZBrush is not working for now because of the same problem with loading ZBrush alpha from 3D-Coat-created BMP/TIF.

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Video Demonstration:

 

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//Admin edit

 

Here are the 2 existing ZBrush applink files zipped up in the correct folder hierarchy for Zbrush 4R6. Choose extract files and work your way to your Zbrush install, Use Extract and Replace. For example mine is: C/ProgramFiles/Pixologic/       ...and then just unzip.

ZBrush 4R6 ZAppLink.zip

zbrush_applink_04.zip

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I keep getting the "there is no 3d-coat running!" message when I try to send it over to 3d-coat from Zbrush. Any ideas?

Same here, saddest hours of my day, please give us a solution, this is like the most wanted applink ever :>

I guess that's because of process id not as expected. Changing to the good release version should fix it, but what is the correct version ? XD

Params:

windows 7 x64

3dcoat 3.5.15b dx64 cuda

zbrush 4

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Got the same no 3d-coat running message. Have tried starting them in different order, open gl ect. Can't wait to see this working - it looks like it will be great!

Greg

Edit: Forgot to add

Windows 7, 64 bit

3D Coat 3.5.03 Cuda DX64

Zbrush 4

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On my 32 Bit XP-installation I also failed to get anything back to Zbrush. Neither do I get the popup nor Model/bitmaps (also when set to .jpg)

Will try on my Win7 64 Bit machine later.

Edit:

In the meantime I could check on my win7 64 machine. Here, like the others I get the "No 3DCcoat is running" Error Popup.

I maybe should add that my Zbrush doesn't reside on "C:" (I gave it an own Drive as it writtes extremely large temp-files).

Edited by polyxo
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Still just the first drips of Feedback:

It would be cool if the Plugin could work in the way I asked for here: http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7861

Thus far there's only very few plugins which can start an exchange-session in 3DCoat (using the "Export to" Submenu).

It made sense when at some point all Applinks used that menu.

Also it was good if we could set a common Exchange-Directory for all Applinks - I preferred not to have it on "C:".

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Hi guys!.

Just uploaded new version 0.2.

I've temporary disabled 3D-Coat existence check. Basically it was checking all running processes for "3D-COAT" symbols in .exe name.

Now the rest of the code will work regardless of this check. But the check itself is still in place and I would be really appreciate if you will attach "3dcoat_link_log.txt" file to your previous posts about this problem (it should be written to your ZBrush root folder).

Uncompressed formats support problem is being resolved. I think at least BMP will be usable in near future.

About normal map formats: I'm not very familiar with this problem, will do some research about 'maya style' and 'zbrush style' differences.

MAC OSX support is planned to be added after resolving most of the issues.

Regards,

Denis

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Hi Denis,

thanks for the Update - unfortunately I still don't get the transfer back to Zbrush going (on XP32 now).

I took the Default Sphere like in your example. Sending to 3DC no problem though.

About normal map formats: I'm not very familiar with this problem, will do some research about 'maya style' and 'zbrush style' differences.

This has basically to do with Colour-Channel inversions. 3DC offers writing them with two different methods for the demands of different Render-Engines.

They are available in Edit/Preferences. Others and of course also Andrew can tell you for certain - I'd guess Maya-Style is the right one.

My Log-File is attached.

3dcoat_link_log.txt

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One more thing (xp32) - when sending Geo over to 3DC the Script keeps looping although it has already written the file (regardless of chosen mode).

It says "waiting for 3DCoat - press Escape to cancel" and the Progress-Bar keeps starting anew...

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Like polyxo it's looping and there is no open in original app menu item. Only 3dsmax and voidworld so I can't open it back in zbrush.

Sure? I can see "Open in original App" Menu (which I believe should better called "Open in initial App")

But what I can't see is "Export to" (which I believe was better called "Send to" - indicating that this is no normal Export-Process...

Andrew: When using "Send to" one only needed one Menu-Entry" for the Applinks.

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Aahha ok, it's a bug, if I switch back to paint room (any other room than voxel)then back to vox room the entry reappear:

130088599113.jpg

(don't mind the weird naming, it's a translated string missing)

[EDIT]And now it works \O/

There's still that looping message though. NIce work Denis S, thank you so much !

Ho, is it possible to use dense quads instead of tri mesh ? This is so much nicer in zbrush :x

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OK, I'll stop this bad habit, but my major question is, why do you need applink to export a dense quad mesh.

I also would favor Quads (as an option) Michelis because I made good experiences with them in Zbrush.

I agre with Beat, your workflow recommendations really don't make sense for anyone...

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Everything perfect with the second release a part the known limits (for now I hope) with ZB 4 and 3D coat last beta version 64 CUDA..

Windows 7 64 bit.Thank you very much Denis S!

Wonderful and very useful..New and comfortable way to create..Quad poly also for me for importing from voxel to ZB.

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I've a few things to say about the applink. It's great but we need some tuning.

Right now:

1-zbrush subtool: polysphere

2-3dc: cool vox volume

If the polysphere has not been exported to 3dc first, the cool vox volume cannot be sent to zbrush. This means every mesh you want to bounce back and forth needs to be first exported from zbrush. To do that, you have to export anything (a polysphere for instance) to 3dcoat, merge it into the voxel volume you want to exchange, then you're good to go.

It would be nice if we could export a vox volume from the beginning, replacing the active zbrush subtool if it's not yet linked to a 3dcoat volume.

And more:

Wen you export from zbrush to a voxel object, it's created in a new layer. That defeats the whole purpose of exchanging quickly datas. What the applink needs to do is erase the currently selected vox volume, and replace his content with the exported mesh from zbrush. Otherwise you have to do all that manualy and it's actually the same as importing an obj :/

Zbrush does it naturally when he receive the associated mesh, but 3dcoat has no recognition of the links.

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Seems that this is a new version - I re-downloaded and now it works bidirectionally. Very cool!

Some remarks: It seems that Y-Positive gets Y Negative when exporting to 3DC.

This needs to get flipped in the Applink...(probably also Textures need to get flipped).

I see that there is no Zbrush-Subtool-Support yet. Only the active Subtool gets exported

(true both for Painting and Voxel-Editing).

Hopefully one can make Voxel-Layers of them and transfer them back as Subtools again

and create objects from them in the Paint-Workspace.

When playing with the "Demo-Soldier" Zbrush btw. always crashed after exporting of the main body

(active by default) See attached - also illustrating the axis-inversion.

I agree with Beats comments.

post-575-0-44940600-1300916258_thumb.jpg

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Thanks for this applink , very usefull and fast way to work using both zbrush and coat.

Small request would be to import and export multiple objects and i have a problem exporting(voxel) from coat to zbrush,i dont see the message inside zbrush .Unless i m missing something.

michalis ,I think its because zbrush can sculpt even dense meshes and if they are quads they re smoother :)

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Something I don't understand about this forum.

I simply asked "why do we need an applink for exporting dense quads?" Is it so difficult for you to answer this simple question? I'm on a mac, I haven't try the applink yet.

You keep explaining to me why zbrush likes dense quads, but it has nothing to do with my question.

But you found the opportunity to clearly explain that you're not interested on the workflow I suggested. Answers like these:

"but could you please stop trying to force everyone adopt them ?"

"I agre with Beat, your workflow recommendations really don't make sense for anyone... "

made it clear, that I have a bad reputation in this forum. At least.

So bad that you don't even answer a simple question.

Thank you.

Let me try once more, this applink is for those who like to construct a personal workflow. Its not for dense quads exports. Am I right?

Michalis,

micro 26 has already answered this. Dense quads perform nicer than Triangles when the plan is to just rough out a shape inside 3DCoat and

then to move it over to Zbrush for Refinement. You prefer very early manual remeshing - that's cool - but I believe this is not always necessary.

Of course Zbrush suffers from limitations of Mesh-Modeling (Stretched Polys - which may make further editing difficult - even impossible).

But it also has great tools to bring a ruined mesh in a better state again (Clay-BuildUp-Brushes which don't introduce much Stretch to begin with,

a whole array of smart Smoothing Brushes, Remeshing with Reprojection (much faster as in 3DCoat!), Storing Morph-Targets, the list could go on).

If at all neccesary for the Project in question one could also Retopo at a later Stage and for this Task push the Geometry over to 3DCoat.

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Let me try once more, this applink is for those who like to construct a personal workflow. Its not for dense quads exports. Am I right?

if i get the question right , this pipeline is when u dont care about topology or making something that has uvs .Its just to make a high res model to be used for baking normal and ao etc to low poly cage.A process useful in game content

Hope it helps

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One more thing got obvious when testing the Applink:

3DCoat doesn't like Polygroups when merged to Voxels. It leads to great errors, both when trying to merge Solid and as Skin.

I believe this is something Andrew had to address first - Polygroups seem to get interpreted as not welded in the Voxel-Workspace.

Interestingly - everything does get treated as welded in the Paint/Sculpt-Workspace. When Mesh-Deforming seams stay closed.

What should be the Solution now?

I think the first step should be ignoring these Poly-Groups when Merging to Voxels (in order to make it work at all)

But in later steps I believe two other Modes made sense:

1) Merge each Polygroup as a Solid Volume (so that in the Case of the Rhino we had separate Voxel-Layers for each Polygroup)

2) same as 1) but not Solid but with a Wall-Thickness (merge as Skin)

Further testing is difficult as Zbrush freezes each time after I moved something over to 3DC...

post-575-0-18224000-1301169346_thumb.jpg

post-575-0-98084600-1301169359_thumb.jpg

post-575-0-82586100-1301169370_thumb.jpg

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Hi Denis,

thanks for the Update! I see the Axis-Remapping fixed.

I could not test the support for other Bitmap-types as this version again doesn't send back to Zbrush (neither Model nor Textures).

Also the Script started in Zbrush still loops here and it still makes Zbrush freeze. Only when pressing Escape one can kill the Script

and keep Zbrush going - but I'm afraid by pressing Escape one also cuts the Connection between the Programs. This is on

XP32, will check Win7 64 later.

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Hey polyxo!

Please verify the version of 3D-Coat you are currently using. If it's feasible, please update to the latest 3.5.16.

I'm using Win32, Nocuda version on Vista32 for development and testing.

This infinite looping in ZBrush after sending mesh to 3DCoat is by design. It's supposed that after sending info to 3DCoat, ZBrush enters kind of "waiting state" until it will get results back from 3DCoat (which is done by pressing "File -> Open in originall app" in 3DCoat).

Pressing Esc while ZBrush in waiting state, will cancel whole export-import sequence, and you will be unable to get anything from 3DCoat without re-exporting from ZBrush. Unfortunatelly, in waiting state, ZBrush UI sometimes freezes after Alt-Tab to another window. But inside it's still working and waiting either Esc or results from 3DCoat. I will try to somehow address this issue (maybe it's possible to force ZBrush to redraw it's UI properly after alt-tab), so ZBrush won't look "freezed" when waiting for 3DCoat.

Regards,

Denis

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Hi Denis,

Please verify the version of 3D-Coat you are currently using. If it's feasible, please update to the latest 3.5.16.

I'm using Win32, Nocuda version on Vista32 for development and testing.

Hi Denis - I was indeed still on 15b. I upgraded and got the link working again.

This infinite looping in ZBrush after sending mesh to 3DCoat is by design. It's supposed that after sending info to 3DCoat, ZBrush enters kind of "waiting state" until it will get results back from 3DCoat (which is done by pressing "File -> Open in originall app" in 3DCoat).

Pressing Esc while ZBrush in waiting state, will cancel whole export-import sequence, and you will be unable to get anything from 3DCoat without re-exporting from ZBrush.

Yep, that's what I assumed already...

Unfortunatelly, in waiting state, ZBrush UI sometimes freezes after Alt-Tab to another window. But inside it's still working and waiting either Esc or results from 3DCoat. I will try to somehow address this issue (maybe it's possible to force ZBrush to redraw it's UI properly after alt-tab), so ZBrush won't look "freezed" when waiting for 3DCoat.

Ok - Alt+Tab is the reason! Thought that the Looping at some point screwed Zbush. I of course use Alt+Tab all of the time on my Laptop. Tuning that up was very welcome.

More testing tomorrow. Thanks!

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  • Carlosan changed the title to ZBrush R6 AppLink -32 bit version only-

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