Development - High to Low Projection

 To create my high to low texture details, I experimented with a new method of ZBrush projection. The reason I decided to do this instead of a standard bake is due to the high oly count I had with my detailed sculpt. looking at 14.8 million active points, I would never be able to bake such details using Substance Painters texture baking as around 3 million polys is usually the max. the projection method is something used a lot in industry for such high poly sculpts.

 

 

To create the projection, I started by importing my retopologised, UV'd mesh into Zbrush with my high poly detailed sculpt. I then Subdivided my low poly mesh to a few million points, giving me enough polygons to add detail to the surface. I then made a Morph Target and a Layer. After this I hit ProjectAll in the Project tab of the subtool making sure to turn down PA Blur to 0. This applied all my high poly detail onto my UV mapped low poly model. 

This method created some inperfections on the surface of my model which I then needed to clean up with both the morph and smooth tools. These inperfections appeared on the neck and behind the ear of my model. This was not such a big deal as I was able to then edit my new high poly detail removing these inperfections ready for exporting texture maps.

I then exported my finished details into a Normal map and AO map.