How may I select sections of my model using their UV Seams so I may apply the alpha channel as well as my texture to them?
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I’m sure you already know what I’m about to say, but to apply one of the ZBrush shaders to a model, (using whatever brush you are currently using) hit the MRGB button (next to RGB, ZSub and ZAdd) and turn off ZAdd and ZSub. After doing this, select “White” as your color (for default shader color) and go into the Color Menu, and Select FillObject, which will apply the shader to the entirety of them model. Conversely, you can keep ZSub and ZAdd turned off, and just paint the material on the model.
I’m not ENTIRELY certain about the Alpha Maps and Texturing along UV seams, but it might help if you gave a clearer description of what you are hoping to accomplish. For example, using DAZ characters in ZBrush means you have to use multiple maps to get them to look right. It’s not a fun process, and requires quite a bit of work. It is do-able, however, and there is a good couple of video tutorials on Youtube that walk through the process.
Edit: Also, you can polygroup by UVs, and hide the portions of the model based on their UVs.
Final note: You may want to cut your screen grabs off the top a bit, since next to the ZBrush title (upper left-hand corner), it clearly displays your product serial number. Just an FYI.
Well, the model I have is composed of multiple parts with multiple material IDs. Basically I have one model that uses more than one material map. How do I select the different model parts and apply the different materials that I have?
Can anybody make out if he’s using the latest version? 
The standard brush is a safer choice when poly painting, however you can sculpt and paint at the same time with other brushes(be careful, sometimes various brushes or actions will enable painting and if you don’t notice, can’t understand why it looks messed up a bit further along). The number at the top isn’t your serial number for ZBrush. You’ll have to split the model into subtools or use groups and assign materials/polypaint as desired. HTH
Nonono. I have already finished textures and shaders and the model is already UV Mapped. I’m simply trying to apply the shaders and textures to their corresponding material IDs yet I’m having a problem with that. The areas of my model that are messed up(the areas that are scrambled) need to have an entirely separate material assigned to them, that’s why they’re screwed up, a different material belongs on that part of the model altogether. The problem I’m having is that I’m trying to assign two completely different materials to my model yet when I apply the first material it coats the entire model, even the areas I don’t want the material to be applied to.
So. Using the already finished UV Maps on the model, I’d like to apply my two separate materials. Basically, my question is this:
One sub tool
two materials
two shaders
It is only letting me apply one texture to my model that requires two textures.
It looks bad and I don’t want it to look bad.
In 3DS Max I can simply select an element on the model and drag a material directly onto the piece of them odel that I want it applied to. Here in Zbrush, I can’t select an element and apply the material to it. Ideally I’d like to select parts of the models by their material IDs only yet I’m not sure if that’s possible in Zbrush.
and as far as the serial number, this is my grandmas copy of Zbrush. I’m just using it.
Is one single object in Zbrush able to have more than one jpg texture assigned to it?
If the polygroup is dense enough to hold the resolution then yes, in theory.
http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/modeling-basics/polygroups/
I think you’re going to have an easier time keeping it to one texture map per subtool.
Yeah, it’s just kind of difficult since my character is all welded together. The picture on top was an example. My character is all one element.
Welds shouldnt be an issue. You can create polygroups based on UV islands, manually group those based on the texture map (both steps use the Polygroup subpalette), and then split the groups into individual subtools based on polygroups (using the subtool palette).
Depending on what you’re doing with the mesh and how many pieces there are, it might even be viable just to keep them all as separate subtools
Oh, so it all needs to be done manually? My main goal is to project the detail from a hi-res original mesh to my low-res mesh since the topology of the original wasn’t very good. If I’m able to get my models to a state where I may begin projecting, is there a way to get the normal maps from the original hi-res onto the lower mesh using projection? That’s the reason I need my model’s texture applied correctly so I may begin projecting it onto my low-res mesh.
Is there a better way to do this? How do I bake my normal into my new mesh from my high res using the maps?
If there is nothing that you would specifically need zbrush for (such as sculpting and painting new detail), then I’d recommend just using xnormal instead. You can load your original model/sculpt (along with their diffuse textures), and bake a variety of maps to your newer mesh.
I may be misunderstanding part of your question, but you can also use xnormal to recreate the normal maps from the old geometry onto the new geometry. Otherwise a tangent based normal map shouldn’t be projected onto a completely different mesh as if it were a diffuse color texture.
Zbrush is great for handling millions of polys and I want the normal as sculpted detail. I want to project the normal map’s detail as a starting point so I may next begin to add on top of that manually. I simply want all the maps engrained into the surface of my model to use as guides. I’m far from done with my model, I have much to add after this. Is there any way to bake the normal into the surface using Zbrush? I already have the normal loaded, I just wanted to know how I get it to stick.
You can’t transfer a normal map to geometric detail; Normals only tell the surface which direction a vertex/texel is facing, they do not contain any depth information that could be used to actually displace the geometry. If you have a Height/Displacement map on the otherhand, you can use the DisplacementMap subpalette to project its detail back onto the sculpt.
If you want to use the color channels from the normal map as a visual guide only, you could apply it as a texture map inside zbrush. The texture map can then be converted to polypaint using the Polypaint Subpallete.
My map looks something like this.
When I put my displacement map into the displacement field it seems to displace correctly. Is this a displacement map? Also, do you have any tutorials on projecting or any words on what I might use in the sub pallet to do so? When I hit “Create Displacement Map” it doesn’t stay and it just reverts back to the way it was. Thanks.
That looks a lot closer to a displacement map. Normal maps are usually a rainbow of colors.
The create button is for creating new displacement maps from your sculpt, but since you already have one, you wont need to click it. Instead you can just load your displacement map in the displacementmap subpallete, subdivide the subtool a few times so that it has enough geometry to recreate the detail you’re about to project onto it, and then click Tool: Displacement Map: Apply DispMap
You can ctrl+z and readjust the intensity if/as needed.
Alright, this was very helpful, thanks a lot. That’s what I needed.
Can I ask one more thing? Is there a way to apply a texture to the model’s polys the way I baked the disp into it? Like, is there an “apply texture” button that works like “apply displacement?”
If there are enough vertices to hold the color information, you can use Tool: Polypaint: New From Texture