ZBrushCentral

Ken Brilliant Lesson 8 -- UV Mapping

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1041974752sou.jpg

It’s been a while (my fault), but here at last is Leeson 8 in the Ken Brilliant series of tutorials:

<center>
<hr width=50%>
<h2>UV Mapping</h2>
<hr width=50%>
</center>

If you’re serious about texturing, then this is exactly the tutorial for you! Think about it: about 20% of your finished model’s details lies in the model. The remaining 80% is in the texture. So it’s well worth taking the time to learn how to make your textures the best possible.

Like with anything else, a good foundation is the key. You can have a “perfect” model, but if it’s poorly mapped then it will be impossible to get a good quality texture onto it. Bad mapping leads to stretching, jagged edges, seams, and other nastiness.

This tutorial explains several ways that you can use ZBrush’s own powerful texture mapping features. It then goes on to teach how to easily re-map a more complex model for optimal results.

So if UVC, UVS, UVP, UVTiles and UVW is all alphabet soup to you, download the tutorial today!

:small_blue_diamond: :large_orange_diamond: :red_circle:Click Here to Download the PDF (1.48 MB) :red_circle: :large_orange_diamond: :small_blue_diamond:
Note: You must have Acrobat Reader installed to be able to view the tutorial after unzipping it.

Thank you, Ken!

In addition, we’re continuing the tradition of issuing a challenge to all ZBrushCentral members:

Create your own ZBrush model – either using ZSpheres or from a 3D primitive – and then use the techniques described in this tutorial to assign your own mapping to it. You can use any mapping technique that you choose, but you should show the following:

:small_orange_diamond:The model with a grid applied and the default UV mapping
:small_orange_diamond:The model with a grid applied and your own mapping
:small_orange_diamond:The finished, textured model

We look forward to seeing your results!

<hr width=75% align=center>

Other tutorials in this series:

:small_blue_diamond: The Octopus
:small_blue_diamond: The Cactus
:small_blue_diamond: Membrane Curvature
:small_blue_diamond: Unified Skinning
:small_blue_diamond: MultipleMarker Skinning
:small_blue_diamond: Hard-Edged ZSpheres
:small_blue_diamond: Stylized Illustration
:small_blue_diamond: Transferring Textures
:small_blue_diamond: Compositing

you just made my day , thanks aurick and KenB.
and thx for the links in your post too , I seem to have missed lesson 7 :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks KenB and Aurick. I think this will be very helpful as all the tuts are.

Thank you a million times over Ken…this is just the thing I needed!!!

And thank you aurick for posting it!!!

snoogins to the both of you!!!

Snoogins?

:+1: to Ken! Thanks

Just finished reading it in one sitting. They’re all great but this one has got to be the most informative one for me yet! I could never figure out how to fit all those spherical and cylindrical maps together on a body before! lol Now I’m not so ignorant. I might even do a head in my spare time for the challenge you set. Again, my modeling skills are in your debt. :slight_smile:

Ken, your tutorials have been invaluable to me-thanks-and to you Matthew for presenting them.

Thank you, Ken and Aurick!
These tutorials are incredibly helpful!

Aaahh, Ken! I’ve spent a frustrating day doing exactly what you’ve written out here! If only I’d jumped onto the net earlier in the day - and saved myself some hair!
Thanks for putting this together. I’m not the best at understanding UV mapper and I’m having a devil of a time trying to import newly remapped objects back into ZBrush (but that’s another story!).
Thanks Ken & Aurick
Upham :slight_smile:

PS. are you using UV-Mapper Pro?

I do do know if you read this post:
I have experimented with exporting a mesh to Max and than this came into my mind: if you use Draw Polyframe option in ZB you see a perfect wireframe. A good thing would be the option to use this as a texture for the same model in other programs. There should be an option to reduce the number of vertical and horizontal lines - automaticaly. Then the building of low polygon meshes would be easier and also the corrections for the problem mentioned in the first topic possible; because individual polygons (old or new made) could be manipulated. A question - how to make this wirefame texture with optional number of lines?

And question? How did you do this:
http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1042030549hpf.jpg

Thanks for taking the time to put these together Ken, very much appreciated :+1:

Upham: I think he is, see page 15 of the PDF.

User Maat Ra: The picture you asked about is the UV coordinates that Zbrush has assigned. You can’t view them in ZBrush so I guess he has taken the model into another program and taken a screenshot from there (looks like LightWaves default colors)

these tuts are all so surberb ken… thanks matt and ken for all your hard work…

Here is a way to make a painting template of your model’s mesh within ZB. thought it would go with this tutorial.

First, assign your UV mapping (cylindrical here)

1.Draw your model on screen and go into polyframe view.

  1. Make a snapshot (Shift+S)of the model. Turn the smoothing on, and bring the model forward, but make sure it stays in the same position.

  2. Create a new texture. Press 3D copy, and the polyframe is turned into a texture on your model.

  3. Repeat this process for the sides, back and any other view that isn’t covered. I didn’t do any perspective copies, just straight on. Here is the texture applied to the model.

  4. Then, you can fill a layer with the texture (make sure the doc is the same size or ratio as the texture) and it will be a pretty good representation of your mesh. You can paint over this template and then use the MRGBZ grabber to get the new texture and apply it back to the model. You can also export this template to paint over in other programs.

this is an alternate way of painting textures. Hope this helps some.

Yes, this is helpful, but since there are actually lines already there in the viewport, there should be a way to use them directly. Perhaps the people who are writing the programming routines for ZB could comment on that?
Anyway, this helps in creating new polymesh in other 3D packages.

:slight_smile: Another great detailed tutorial ken! uvc,uvp and uvs is all new to me, thanks! I Wont be exporting because I dont have but zbrush to play with at the moment and psp but this tut I will stash in my files for further reference :wink:

thanks both- great reference

Thank you Ken !!

Thanks for this series I am finding them invaluable!
DeeVee.

This is a great tutorial, I didn’t know you could actually re-map polygons so while I’m turning blue here changing from uvc to uvp I remember to read through this texturing 101.

I think I figure that I’m having mapping problems with my texture but I can’t quite manage to rotate the checkers to any different place on the model. It seems they are stuck to the “poles”.
I can’t re-order them, as in rotate by any axis, it just re-positions the model.
Help.

Rotate the model in the little preview window so that you are looking at the top of its head, or bottom of it feet, then re-apply the cylindrical map.