Hello there,

I've used a CC3 to Blender, back to CC3 workflow here:

https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost456949.aspx

Let me know if you have any questions. I'll subscribe to this thread to monitor posts.

I would like to see Reallusion implement a plugin for Blender.

Yep, that's how it's usually done. It is not a trivial process, though. There are caveats for choosing projection strategies and right levels of subdivision and settings etc.  XNormal is a free tool often used for this process. Tutorials on Blender and xNormal might be helpful, there are a few good ones on Youtube.

Then there's also the question of combining the normal maps correctly. E.g. I apply normal maps from some skingen preset and then I want to add some more specific details and wrinkles, so I export the model to Blender... and now there's a problem - I don't have the original high-res mesh for the skingen normal map. So, to be able to combine my sculpted details over the skingen normal map, I need also to import the normal map into Blender and make it effective while sculpting on my own high-res mesh. I'm not quite sure, how this would work in practice. If it doesn't, then I will have to reproduce the skingen normal details from scratch in my own model, which might be lots of work and not match the skingen result (because average CC users are not professional sculptors).

Even if I manage to sculpt my own details in addition to the skingen preset normal map, then I have to bake both normal maps together. Not sure if xNormal can do that.

As you see, there are so many caveats and ways to shoot yourself in a foot during Blender-sculpt-bake-CC pipeline process... That's why it would be great to have some "official", supported guide to do it properly. Something that Reallusion would support themselves and ensure compatibility with every CC upgrade, like they do with Unreal tools.

However, once you start going to external tools, after some time you will find that actually you can do everything you need using Blender and other tools and do not need CC at all. So, that's the "dark side" for CC. It's still not all-in-one tool enough to do everything you need. Built-in detail painting & baking and custom morph creation would be awesome to avoid users going away from CC when they realize its limits.

Blender does not have any problems with CC3+ related to Rigify from an OBJ. You must be doing something wrong.

Possible, but Blender seems to be loading other FBX models now- I don't have many, but I can check again. There also seem to be some problems with CC3+ meshes exported in OBJ format which weren't present with CC3 meshes. They import to Blender okay, but there's some kind of issue that prevents Rigify from rigging them. Probably some vertices overlapping, I don't have it nailed down. I haven't had time to sit down and work through this methodically, with notes- just had some problems and had to move on to other stuff.

One thing that either Blender or CC could do to make life easier on people would be to have a rescale option in the export and import for OBJ. Blender goes small, CC goes big- by a factor of 100. I know this particular issue is pretty common with different programs and OBJ, so a setting would be widely useful.

Before you blame CC, maybe the Blender's FBX IMPORT is broken? Being a proprietary format, Blender's Open Source philosophy had problems with that in the past.

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Sculpt the details on a high res mesh and bake it as normal maps for the lowpoly mesh.

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This looks helpful, thanks! CC3=>Blender pipeline was the whole reason I bought CC3, but it is seriously not working, and in fact the latest update seems to have broken it more.

I'm even willing to work with a CC3 export OBJ to Blender, but now this doesn't seem to work correctly either. For some reason, CC3 meshes upset Rigify and it can't resolve auto weight painting when parenting the rig to the mesh. And of course, FBX exports are completely broken. Seriously not good, RL!

My understanding is that you have to preserve not just the polygon count, but the vertex order. 

I’m going to research how to sculpt details in blender without altering the polygon count thanks!!

This will be helpful when creating clothes or accessories for sure! Greatly appreciated. Still looking for the way to sculpt properly going to do some tests tomorrow