Why no GoZ from ZBrush to Octane?

[Stealthworks]

I've been watching the ZBrush Summit this weekend and was pretty underwealmed by the inclusion of Keyshot in the next version 4R7. Unlike other plugins here that embed an octane render window within the application, the keyshot bridge just seems to fire geometry and textures over to a standalone version of keyshot (presumably by writing an intermediate file to disk).

So, I was wondering, is there a reason why this can't be done Octane? I don't see any threads here actively discussing an ZBrush exporter that will allow you to do the same thing in Octane. The demos of keyshot didn't even maintain the camera angle set up in Zbrush so it was literally just picking up geometry and textures and presumably mapping them to equivalent materials in zbrush?

Sorry if I'm being too naive here but just wondering if I'm missing something obvious as to why no one is working on this for Octane?

[glimpse]

I might have strange understanding, but seems Zbrush users have long lasting relationships with Keyshot (fast, simple - enough for simple presentations). Anything more & You're left to export into apps like, Max, Maya..for mental Ray, Vray..

As for Octane (I might be wrong), but majority of plugins are developed by 3rd parties - more or less on their own interest with the help of OTOYs developers. So, untill we get very curious developer who will be looking to connect ZB with OR, probably we are not going to see anything (at least I haven't seen any plans or talks in the forum).

It's actually very interesting where Zbrush is turning - would never though it is going to turn this way. New features previewed few days ago seems very promising =) & agree it would be nice to have some sort of connection with OR. Considering the fact that OTOY is building brigade & Zbrush user base (that is connected to game industry).

[gordonrobb]

I for one use Lightwave and Octane for Lightwave. Lightwave has a GoZ, so I can fire a model over to Octane Lightwave to render. It doesn't (as yet) transfer the textures or displacement etc, but that would be a simple case of moving them.

[Stealthworks]

Right now you can just save an obj from zbrush and load it up in octane so I'm sure (though I have to admit i would have no idea how to do it!) that it wouldn't take someone very much effort to write a zbrush script to do this automatically. I guess the trick is to be able to maintain the various material zones on the model so you can apply different textures to different parts of the model from within octane. Every time I've imported a model from zbrush to octane there's only been one node to plug a material into.

When I tried the standalone demo of keyshot I definitely thought octane gave much better rendering results so I'll probably pass on the reduced pricing on keyshot offer from Pixologic in the hope someone manages to make a bridge between zbrush and octane one of these days.

[glimpse]

i'm not an expert on zb, but even if You have one mesh (unwrapped) with one pin for material that totally DOable. Simply need few masks & then You can use those for mix materials inside Octane Render =)

[Stealthworks]

Hmm, not sure I know what you mean glimpse I think I read somewhere that you could apply different materials to different sub tools in zbrush they would appear as different pins in octane but haven't had a chance to try that.

[glimpse]

ok, look this way:

* You have one mesh & one input for material (exported as obj file)
* what You need to have is unwrap.
* then You make a custom map, based on Your object (simple black & white)
* in Octane You plug mix material (for that one pin on Your obj)
* & use the mask to define the parts where what material You want to apply.

is it a bit more clear now, Stealthworks? =)

[Stealthworks]

Not really I've never really used masks in Octane so think I will need to research that a bit more! Thanks for the suggestion anyway

[gordonrobb]

The bigger, and more attractive thing, would be getting displacement to work properly. It works well in GoZ to Lightwave, but it's a lightwave displacement, not an octane one. At the moment, Octane's displacement is sadly lacking when working with maps from ZBrush.

[linvanchene]

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Does OctaneRender Standalone have a way to show the Polygroups / Facegroups information that is stored in the .obj?

When exporting from Zbrush with GoZ to other software in some cases one must first transform the facegroups to surface groups the target application understands.

Only after the facegroups are converted to surface zones in the target application one can assign materials to each surface.

I assume the basic limitations of GoZ are unfortunately the same for most software.
Exactly because of the limitations of GoZ it might be interesting to have an OctaneRender plugin for Zbrush.
Maybe .ORBX export could even add new options to transfer files from Zbrush to other applications?

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When using GoZ from Zbrush to DAZ Studio my basic workflow is:

- Set up polygroups in Zbrush

In this simple example there are only two polygroups. Inside and Outside.

- export to DAZ Studio with GoZ
- The Zbrush Polygroups show up as "facegroups" when using the DAZ Studio Geometry Editor
- Assign the "facegroups" to "surfaces"

- The newly created surfaces show up in the OctaneRender plugin surface tab
- Now you can assign a OctaneRender material to each surface of the object

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In any case I would also welcome an OctaneRender plugin for Zbrush.

Especially because GoZ has a lot of limits it might be very interesting to be able to

- set up a scene in Zbrush
- use the OctaneRender plugin for Zbrush to save the scene as .ORBX file
- open the .ORBX file in either OctaneRender standalone or any other plugin
- Merge the Zbrush .ORBX scene with another scene in OctaneRender Standalone or any other plugin

Could .ORBX be a replacement for GoZ to export a Zbrush asset to a target application with all materials to merge with the final scene for rendering?

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