**Help With Materials

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

After finally making it right through the quicklinks section, I'm pretty confident with ZBrush. However there is one thing I still don't understand, no matter how many times I read the breif description.


Just say I make a model. I apply a material to it. Is there anyway, to JUST alter the material in one section (i.e the lips) And not in the other?

I tried masking the object after the material was applied, then altering the specularity of the material, to make JUST the lips look wet. However as you may of guessed; It didn't pan out.


I've also read the posts about applying two materials to one object. I must say; that I don't understand what's going on there :confused: It may be because I'm new to the program, it may be because I'm easily confused =P

[Slosh]

Try this, Cal. Apply texture to entire head (whatever). Then save the material under a different name. Select a totally different material that you will not use in your picture. Load the saved material in it's place. Paint on what you need (lips, etc.) Then, tweak the "new" material.

Hope this made sense.

[aurick]

Slosh's answer is the way to go, Caliban. (Although you may find it easier to do the tweaking on the second version before painting it on so that you can see your results while you work.)

Materials remain "live" throughout a scene. If you make a modification to the material properties, it will ALWAYS affect every case that the material is used throughout the scene, on every layer. The only way that you can avoid this is by baking, which effectively removes the material from the baked layer -- but you can't bake only part of a layer. It's still an all or nothing kind of thing.

However, as Slosh said you can copy the material and make modifications to the copy. The material copy is treated as a new material, and since it's not used on the canvas nothing will be changed by modifying it. When you paint it onto the places where you want it to be, use the M setting in the Draw palette so that you only paint with the material and turn ZADD off. However, it is still important to keep the changes small -- too much of a change in the material will cause the edges where you paint the new material to become obvious.

[banez]

this works on two differnt material .
draw a head for a sample then use the (simple brush) to apply another material zadd on or off try each to your liking.
Then on the far left go to (material)>Modifyers.....
the material you applyed to the lips will change when modifying it with out touching the other material.
no masking needed..
i beleave you can only do this when selecting another material do not chose the same or you will be modifying the same material and the lips and head will change togeather.

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Ok thanks guys :) I'll give it a whirl and post my results :) Thanks a million once again

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

I've played around a little; and I'm afraid I really dont get this whole material thing :confused:

It's not so much about "painting" on the material. It's more about altering sections of the material, the lips being an example.


Is it possible to apply a material to an entire model, then change its attributes (i.e specularity, diffuse etc.) in just one specific area, i.e the lips??

I don't really understand what you guys are trying to explain :confused:

And its not your guys fault; it's mine ;) I'm just not able to get my head around it as of yet, its very very confusing to an airbrush artist =P

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Actually I ended up doing it another way altogether, using a trick with photoshop and blending the layers :) Turned out pretty well; although there was more messing around than I would of liked, but here is a first effort.

I added a glistening look to certain areas of the face, where it was normally a flat-lit surface, as well as a glistening look added to the lips.

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1019111271gvw.jpg

[drjjwow]

well i think they did a great job explaining it however if your confused still ill give it a try ok... create one material for your image,then save that material in your folder giving it a name... now choose a different material in the material panel so that you dont erase your base material.. now reload your saved material...now you should have a pair of materials that are the same...take in mind that if you change the diffuse or the ambient on your saved material you might alter your material so much and it will let you know by diplaying a tiny little black line...around your brush stroke try only increasing the spectular,color bump and so forth... also take in mind that your material effects the lighting so try not to disturb that part of your material... hope this helps

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

ahhhh I finally get it :) Thank you.

lol, sorry I didn't get it before; It was just this whole materials concept which was eluding me from day 1. Thank you guys for your help; I now finally get it :p

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

argh, still im clueless.

I'm really starting to feel like in an invalid here =P

I just don't get it.

From what I can tell; Your telling me how to make one material, make a copy of it and save it under a different name, then I have two version of the material???

I don't see how that allows me to make the lips look wet. I've followed the guidlines, however I still don't get how to make a small selection of the models material, use different attributes than the rest of the models material.

Call me crazy =P

:( :( :(

[Nova]

Hiya Cal,

Let a newby try :D
OK... lets go.

1. Model a face
2. On the draw panel deselect zadd and select mrgb (matterial+rgb)
3. Choose a base material and color for the face.
4. Go to color panel and click fill object. This fills the face with the color and matterial you selected.
5. Save the material you used as the base material, use any name (flesh1.zmt)
6. Select another material, one you are not likely to need in the current project and load the base material (flesh1.zmt) into its place replacing it with a copy of the base material.
7. Increase the specularity of the loaded (replaced) material
8. Select m (not mrgb) on the draw panel and make sure that zadd/zsub/zcut is turned off.
9. Select the required draw size and "paint" the new/modified/replaced material on areas that you need to look wet.

Umm sounds complicated but isn't

Any questions :D

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

ahhhh finally :) Bingo! I get it now.

Geez I feel pretty stupid =P

I guess I'm still overwhelmed by the power of Z

:D

[The Namek]

Paint your model with a material and save this material. Now load the previous material in another material's slot (that you arent going to use). Now adjust things like Specularity and Noise a bit , dont overdo it because if the values are too different from the original material you'll see some kind off border where the 2 materials collide. Paint with the adjusted material on your model (using the single layer brush , Zadd off , RBGM On, and with an alpha of your choice). For example if you want to have wet lips , paint with a normal material (single layer brush) at first and then paint with the modified materialon the lips using the dot alpha for example (you can also turn Zadd on and use an intensity of 1.

I'm sorry for my english ;)

[Nova]

Woooohooooo.....

I am starting to get usefull around here :D

It is really nice to be on the giving side and I hope to be here more.

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Thank you so much guys for all your help. Sorry if it took a bit =P

With all your help things are running smooth again - almost ;P

I've run into another problem. I'm able to add a wet look to the lips and all is great.

however Once that is done, and I'm happy with the adjustments, I cant drop it into texturemaster, without the model taking on ALL attributes of the copied material.

For example, just say I've modelled a head, done as you guys directed, and I have this fantastic wet look to the lips. And I decide I want to use texturemaster to tweak my model up even more, add even more details to the skin. For some reason the model suddenly becomes TOTALLY wet and shiny, not just the lips anymore.


To try and overcome this I applied a material to the model first, used texture master to paint onto the material + model to create the effect and colors I wanted. Then I thought I could just go on, load up the other copied material (With the added specularity etc) and all would be well. However it does not work that way, as most of you probably already know. Instead I lose all the painted effects I did in texturemaster and it becomes completely covered by the material instead.


Is there anyway around this? Or is it a case of either use materials and get a wet look, or use texturemaster ??

Thank you so much for all your patience, it's very much appreciated, as I understand it's not always the easiest to explain what is easy to you, to someone else. I appreciate it

[WingedOne]

After dropping the object on the canvas while using texturemaster, apply whatever different materials you want to the object. Before picking up your ojbect, make sure the "M" button is pressed in texture master along with the color buttons. Now you should have an object with different materials.

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Thanks for your help man, but my problem still remains. It's really really hard to explain also. It's ok, thanks anyway, I guess I'll just spend some time with the program and see if I can work around this...

I never knew there was so much to doing a decent texture. Much more to it than I thought :(

[Mentat7]

This is where planning comes into play Cal. Create your model, create the texture in TM. AFTER you have finished with texturing and are happy with it then apply your materials. Now if you want to use TM again after had applied the materials you can repaint the material back on afterward easy enough. You'll have to go through your material application process all over but there is no real harm done. I always apply my materials last. They are the very final thing I work on before dropping the object. Hope this helps.

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Mentat, thanks... that actually does help. I just felt that I was all over the place, with so many different things to do, and not sure what order to do them in. Thankyou, you certainly cleared things up for me.

[upham]

Hmmm..... this thread has fired up ideas for a skin making ZScript ... just an idea at the moment and if anybody wants to take it on, please be my guest ...

1 load a default skin material.
2. press the "make wetter" button for a wet-skin material. This automatically makes a new material.
3. Click the "make bumper" button to make another new material with a turned up bump map.
4 And then how about an "make intermediate" skin material where you choose one starting material and then choose a second material and when you click the "Make Intermediate" button it will make a blend of the two material settings to make a new material that you can use to paint on the model inbetween the your applied materials... ie your first material has a 0% gelshadeing and material 2 has a 100% gel shadeing - so the new intermediate material has a 50% gelshading applied.

Anyway, that's my brainstorm. Appoligies in advance if this is already out there.

Upham :)

PS. Happy Birthday Mr Stewart! :D

PPS. Young Mr Southern has a couple of good material tuts on his site ...
Check em' out! (http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/general/tutorials/tutorial.htm)

[Stonecutter]

Hey Upham, nice to see you back here...
Workin' your butt off on the masterwork of gems from the Forum, probably! :tu:
Reading this reminded me of something Pix has mentioned about there being multiple shader deals in the next version, which I think might produce similar capabilities in Z... ;)

[WingedOne]

Seems we've all got skin textures on the brain today. :) See my below post on my thoughts regarding skin and the mysterious material that Pixelator posted in this thread Sneak preview : Indirect Illumination + Soft Shadows (updated Dec 28, 2001) (http://www.pixolator.com/zbc-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=002807&p=3)

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

Upham, that's an awesome Idea. I just may have to start reading in on how to program ZScripts :)