Imported Bitmaps aren't right! any help?

[Tazman]

Bitmaps that are imported are black-N-white garbage... what am I doing wrong?

[upham]

How are you importing them?
What program are you using to save as PSD or BMP?
If they are PSD's - do they have an alpha channel in them? Actually, I think this is your problem! I had that happen to me once, and it was the alpha channel that was screwing things up.

Upham

[Pixolator]

Hi,
One more possibility…

The image is converted to gray scale when using the import function in the ALPHA menu. In order to import a texture, you need to use the IMPORT function in the TEXTURE menu.
-Pixolator

[Abadona]

How would I export layers with alpha channels from zbrush to photoshop

[upham]

You can't. This is where the concept of ZBrush layers and photoshop layers are a million miles apart.
Sorry.


Upham

[upham]

To remove the Alpha-channel from a picture I would use another program such as photoshop or Paintshop Pro7 (or GIMP?) but I use the freeware app - IRFANVIEW (PC only!) to save it as a high-quality BMP. Then you can load the BMP file into ZBrush via the document palette or texure palette.

IRFANVIEW is an excellent must-have application!

[Nikko]

I think I figured out the problem with the black and white imports. Go into Photoshop and open the bmp that's not importing into Zbrush in color. If it looks fine (in full color)in Photoshop, go to Image:Mode and see if it isn't 8-bit indexed color. If it is, click on RGB 24-bit and save it again. Next time you try to import it into Zbrush, it'll be in living color just like you want it.

I was playing around with some fill textures on the Xara X cd and when I converted them from the .tif format into .bmp's, I didn't notice at first that they were 8-bit indexed color. When I tried to use them in Zbrush, no color! I searched around Zbrush to see if I had switched something, because I knew I hadn't tried to import using tha Alpha menu. Then it occurred to me to check the mode in Photoshop. Voila! Problem solved.