(Tutorial) Export from Zbrush to Substance Painter

This is a tutorial on how to export a model with multiple subtools from Zbrush and import it into Substance Painter. We will also bake several maps, (normal map, world space normals) in substance painter.

[@MsUndertaker99]

Thank you a lot, you can't even imagine how helpful this video was for me. I've being working in Zbrush for 2 years and all my models were absolutely raw with no textures because i simply couldn't export them into SP. There always were some bugs during and after baking, but now i finally did it. The model was imported without any problems. Thank you very much!

[@bshukrallah]

No problem! I'm glad this video helped you out, thanks for watching & letting me know!

[@hotbergina]

hello do you have discord please ? just to send pictures of my layers etc. I am a bit lost on what to do.... thank you very much

[@speedfreakpsycho]

0:28 his toe looks awkward, if you know what i mean:)

[@bshukrallah]

Oh mannnn lol. Thanks for pointing that out...

[@MoroNada]

i have a model where i can't make it low res, how can i fix this?

[@miladep7240]

Finally.. a simple and complete tutorial exporting from Zbrush to Substance Painter. Thank you very much Ben

[@bshukrallah]

No problem! Glad it helped!

[@hotbergina]

i have a model low poly from z brush imported into substance painter. I baked maps with the high resolutions and everything is good. But when i need to export the mesh from substance to blender, this is the low poly version. How to get the high one from substance ? I can not import the high from ZBRUSH because it does not match the uv

[@carlosmartins-h1x]

Hi, i did the bake in substance painter from low poly to hight poly map and the model dont show in viewport hight poly only,the model show mix low poly and hight poly together.the model show the edge and no smoot edge on viewport why?

[@JJulio17]

same!

[@shoshaka]

Thank you so much for this beginner-friendly video. It's exactly what I needed. :)

[@bshukrallah]

You're welcome! Thanks for watching!

[@GoopyGoblins]

THANK U SO MUCH 2 Hours later and a harry potter movie in the background I finished this tutorial lol.... and it makes sense.... too many people try and go WAAAAAY too detailed for how to bake a model etc.... U earned my sub lol cant wait to see some more helpful tutorials thanks dude!

[@bshukrallah]

Thanks! I appreciate the kind words, and glad it helped!

[@jakebuckley123]

When I morph UV it splits by individual polygons... what's the deal? 😂

[@kaito9330]

Is it okay if we just sculpt in z brush and ..texture entirely in substance painter. ...i acutally dont have any lower SUBd levels after finishing my sculpt...How do i approch the export then.

[@norikaGilbert]

Hello I have a question. I have a mesh in Maya, I applied some material in it. do I export into Zbrush as FBX o oBJ file in order to keep the texture? I found it really confusing to unwrap UV in maya...

[@funchidor]

What if i dont have SDiv enymore? i deleted them .... i have to make 2 Ztl files ? One for High and one for Low?

[@bshukrallah]

You can duplicate your tool, zremesh to low poly then add higher subdivision levels. After that project the high poly details from the original model to the new one. Then you'll have a single model with low and high subdivision levels with your details.

[@funchidor]

@@bshukrallah Thank you very much.

[@bshukrallah]

@@funchidor no problem!

[@tanphan.3d]

it's useful for me thank you so much if you know the way what i can make meny subtool in Zbrush but i UVW in 3Ds max or Maya, so i can't import to substance painter where don't separate many Layer for me do texture how can i import to substance painter, but it can spilt to many Layer like in many subtool in Zbrush

[@Harindu101]

hi ben can you tell me if is there any bridge plugin kind of thing for this purpose, I mean like Goz/Gob

[@nevil2512]

how to export fibermesh into SP Please reply...

[@rob7ho]

Thanks this is great. Curious was there a reason you baked the normal and displacement directly in SP? I noticed some prefer to do it in Zbrush but Im not sure why the difference.

[@bshukrallah]

Hi! Thanks for watching! And to answer your question, I've done both, but honestly I feel like substance painter gives the best result. Also, if you bake in Zbrush you'll just have to import into substance anyway, so I just do it all in substance.

[@rob7ho]

@@bshukrallah Couple of other things. Does it make any difference to UV after you posed your model or before or makes no difference? Also if you have several subtools with very high poly count, would it be advisable to decimate each subtool separately or merge them all into one subtool then decimate?

[@bshukrallah]

Hi, it does make a difference when you UV your model. I suppose the correct answer is to UV unwrap in T-Pose, however I'd also say it depends on the use case of the model. For me personally, if it's going to stay in the static pose, I UV after it's posed. If it's for animation, I UV in T-Pose. For your second question, I leave separate pieces of my model in separate subtools, at least where it makes sense. For example, the body may be one piece, but the shirt is another subtool, pants is another subtool, etc. If anyone else thinks differently let me know!

[@chloeallensae]

hya, im new to this stage of the pipeline and have a question. At what point do you texture the model? the video starts from when you imported the low resolution topology from Maya right? Then u exported the low and high to substance for baking. When do you texture in this process? after baking?

[@bshukrallah]

I generally do a mixture. I prefer to paint in zbrush, then move the texture maps into substance painter as a base to keep painting materials. But you can do it either way, you don't have to paint in zbrush.

[@hotbergina]

i have a model low poly from z brush imported into substance painter. I baked maps with the high resolutions and everything is good. But when i need to export the mesh from substance to blender, this is the low poly version. How to get the high one from substance ? I can not import the high from ZBRUSH because it does not match the uv

[@bshukrallah]

It doesn't matter if the high poly matches the UV. You can export it, it might be slow though. If it's huge (millions of polys) you may need to reduce the subdivision levels. The detail from the high poly model will be used to project the details onto the low poly model's normal map, which uses the low poly's UV map.

[@user-mu2fb4hf6d]

Skipped over the other texture maps

[@Papy1s2]

i saw some people say that you should not baking in subtance if your high poly have more than few milion points, so what do you think about this? can we still do baking in subtance like the video? thanks

[@wervil]

This video is a life saver, very well explained video, for information that for me was weirdly elusive to find out elsewhere. Thank you

[@bshukrallah]

No problem! Glad it helped!

[@tkhsm7208]

Failed to load 3d

[@pomidorkaL]

Thanks!!

[@cedrycjohnrex1748]

thanks man this is a struggle for me but you made it very clear

[@bshukrallah]

No problem! Feel free to ask any questions!

[@BlackroseXX9]

Thank you so much, this helped me a lot. I'm just starting to get into Sub Painter

[@bshukrallah]

Substance is an awesome tool! Glad the video helped, thanks for watching!

[@hotbergina]

hello do you have discord please ? just to send pictures of my layers etc. I am a bit lost on what to do.... thank you very much

[@hassinesouissi7202]

will the UV like your character causes problems later for animation ? Good work tho !

[@DBiggerz]

Great job explaining things thank you very much

[@kitvey]

This video is awesome. I’m a complete newbie, so I really appreciate the help. Thanks for making such a simple and straight forward video!

[@bshukrallah]

Glad it helped!

[@MrYipYep]

Thanks for this video ! Very helpful

[@Sportsman134]

Your ID Map is all one color, so your polygroups didn't work

[@mhd112211]

Beginner friendly, nice. Thanks a lot Ben.

[@bshukrallah]

No problem! Glad it helped!

[@hotbergina]

i have a model low poly from z brush imported into substance painter. I baked maps with the high resolutions and everything is good. But when i need to export the mesh from substance to blender, this is the low poly version. How to get the high one from substance ? I can not import the high from ZBRUSH because it does not match the uv

[@makentoarts986]

This was extremely helpful! Thank you so much!

[@kurozeitsuki7846]

really life saving! Thanks for the tuto

[@bshukrallah]

Absolutely! Glad it helped!

[@hotbergina]

i have a model low poly from z brush imported into substance painter. I baked maps with the high resolutions and everything is good. But when i need to export the mesh from substance to blender, this is the low poly version. How to get the high one from substance ? I can not import the high from ZBRUSH because it does not match the uv

[@vitaliivanters6583]

thank God I find it...

[@bshukrallah]

Thanks for watching! Hope it helped!

[@bohdanhamor9031]

Hey man! I tried it twice and checked if my subtools are named correctly but it is giving me errors anyway

[@bshukrallah]

Hey, what error are you getting?

[@pclarkson85]

Thanks Ben!

[@bshukrallah]

Sure thanks for watching!

[@sjs2193]

Thankyou this has been so helpful. out of curiosity, how did you make the rope?

[@bshukrallah]

I loosely followed a method by "Lex Art Tutorials" here on youtube. It's called "Make braided rope in Zbrush / Zbrush Tips" kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6HRpqmmZ92ffpY Thanks for watching!

[@GauthierSOGNY]

Thank you for your precise and clear explanation :)

[@hotbergina]

hello do you have discord please ? just to send pictures of my layers etc. I am a bit lost on what to do.... thank you very much

[@anqou1467]

what could be wrong ... when I export a separate subtool, all the cards are baked, but when I try to transfer the entire character,(about 64M) it gives an error on most cards "[BakingProcess] Highpoly scene was required when baking Normal Map from Mesh but could not be loaded."

[@bshukrallah]

Did you specify the high poly mesh in substance painter? If so, then the high poly model could be corrupted.

[@anqou1467]

@@bshukrallah Yeah I did exactly like tutorial, it looks like i need to figure out which subtool it is and fix it...ok i try it, but if any one subtool was corrupted, does this mean that all the others should normally bake cards except for the faulty one, in my case all are faulty

[@sjs2193]

I've followed this guide, step by step, and every single time Zbrush keeps crashing on me, after it says the file has been exported. I load SP and I can't find the file anywhere.

[@bshukrallah]

If Zbrush does keep crashing on the high poly export, you may have lower polys a subdivision level on the subtools with the highest amount of polys.

[@sjs2193]

@@bshukrallah Thank you.

[@CosmicComputer]

quick, to the point and extremely helpful. Thanks a lot for putting this together!

[@hotbergina]

i have a model low poly from z brush imported into substance painter. I baked maps with the high resolutions and everything is good. But when i need to export the mesh from substance to blender, this is the low poly version. How to get the high one from substance ? I can not import the high from ZBRUSH because it does not match the uv

[@alalmalal]

How long did it take to export highpoly?

[@bshukrallah]

I don't remember now, but it can take a while if it's huge. If Zbrush keeps crashing you might need to decimate the model slightly to make it work, while preserving the detail.

[@O_rik]

Ben, on 8:00 minute, you open a directory on another screen and drop to main screen Upper_body_skin.jpg? Where did you get this texture?

[@bshukrallah]

Hello, That was the poly paint texture exported from zbrush. You just save it in a folder wherever you want and drag it into substance!

[@O_rik]

@@bshukrallah So, you exported poly paint texture for each subtool and further dragged it into substance?

[@bshukrallah]

@@O_rik Only if I painted the subtool in Zbrush. some subtools I only paint in substance painter, so this step is not necessary. It is up to you as the artist. You could skip this all together and just paint in Substance Painter.

[@raveenazad6512]

Super helpful! Thank you so much for your help!

[@hotbergina]

hello do you have discord please ? just to send pictures of my layers etc. I am a bit lost on what to do.... thank you very much

[@csmurphyvr]

This is a gem of a tutorial. Thanks so much for making this. If you don't mind answering this, how do you prepare the export from SP so that everything you do in SP imports into Blender correctly?

[@bshukrallah]

Hi! Thanks for watching! So I actually have a video that goes over that indirectly. It's called "(TUTORIAL) Creating PBR Skin Textures in Zbrush, Substance Painter and Blender"... you could basically skip probably about the first half of the video. The tutorial just has a sphere where I create a skin texture, but I sculpt in Zbrush, export to Substance, then from Substance to Blender. I believe it will help.

[@csmurphyvr]

@@bshukrallah Just what I was looking for thanks again man!

[@bshukrallah]

@@csmurphyvr No problem!

[@GoopyGoblins]

Hey I have a question probably may or may not find the answer by the time you answer but ill shoot one here just in case...... So I am in the process of slowly unwrapping the model in zbrush and have had 0 problem reducing the subdivision levels.... and suddenly on my highest poly count subtool object it ceases to have the ability to lower subdivision levels its perma stuck at max where its grayed out..... so if you have ran into this issue and know anything about what I may have done wrong that would be a big help THANKS!

[@bshukrallah]

Hi, try reconstruct subdiv (it's under geometry)... Sometimes subdivisions get frozen due to different modifiers in Zbrush. Other than that, it may have accidentally been deleted (delete lower will delete ALL lower subdivision levels) if so, you might want to check your quick save files and see if there is a backup that still has all of the levels.

[@GoopyGoblins]

@@bshukrallah hmmm it appears I am getting an erro that says Reconstruction result: Mesh contains triangles.... so that is potentially a reason (I went to an old file save) So when I imported it was perfect i cleaned up mesh in maya etc and all was good.... so is there a way that triangles would suddenly appear? or is there a way to remesh? to once again to get to the point where I can lower the subdiv... Thanks for your reply :)

[@GoopyGoblins]

@@bshukrallah I think I figured it out just Zremeshed and then just cranked up the settings so some of my detail would remain and would still be usable.... really just doing a test in zbrush for a keg hammer I made... so its looking like I got it THANKS!

[@bshukrallah]

@@GoopyGoblins awesome! Glad you got it working!

[@vladomarkoski6855]

Hello, nice video i want to ask one question. Do we must unwrap the each subtool and make copy in zbrush or we can autounwrap in adobe substance?

[@bshukrallah]

You could try auto unwrap in substance. I think I found that zremesher gave better results...

[@vladomarkoski6855]

@@bshukrallah also i didnt understand why you unwrapt and copy on buy one all subtool, does unwrap on all low poly model is not enought?

[@bshukrallah]

@@vladomarkoski6855 it was just preference. I've personally not used unwrap all much. I like to individually unwrap and focus on each subtool one by one. I also typically edit the uv maps a bit before exporting.

[@oldmanhedges7534]

Just wondering why this is such a high poly model?

[@bshukrallah]

Hi, there's a high poly sculpt and a low poly version which was used for rendering. The high poly sculpt details were transferred to the low poly model. Thanks for watching, I hope it helped!

[@oldmanhedges7534]

I understand that part. It just seems super high for that model. Doesn’t look like it has a lot of details

[@bshukrallah]

@@oldmanhedges7534 lol, sure it's overkill. But good enough for example purposes.

[@GoVocaloider]

Thank you so much! I've always had problems with importing and baking and this video helped so much! I will recommend this video to anyone who asks on how to bring models from ZBrush to Substance! Once again, thank you very much!

[@bshukrallah]

Oh awesome! Thanks, I'm glad it helped!

[@hotbergina]

hello do you have discord please ? just to send pictures of my layers etc. I am a bit lost on what to do.... thank you very much

[@rasdasa]

That was great, thank you!

[@bshukrallah]

No problem! Thanks for watching!