hiya.
i’ve done this object and painted material colours and different materials on him:
now, i’d like to export these material colours to a texture so i can import it to photoshop and de detailwork, but… because i’m a fool slaps himself on the head, i didn’t activate the colorize option under tool/texture, so i can’t export the colours as texture.
or can i ?
hope someone can help! =)
all the best
/plaf
colorize is for vertex colors only. This doesn’t let you paint materials, as far as I know. So in this way, you did it right, already.
Problem is that the materials are more than just colors. They contain shading properties. While in some ways it will export, in others it will not. You should edit your texture in ZB directly, so you don’t lose the material properties, like you will after exporting to photoshop.
right.
so you mean that i can just bring the texture up in a 2d view and do detail work in Z? i mean… the problem i have now is that i don’t know how to convert what i have as material colours to a 2d image that i can edit.
(you may have to explain the process to me as if i were daft, i haven’t done much texturing in Z so far 
thanks for helping!!
/plaf
in ZB an object may only have 1 texture. The texture may have embedded materials, like yours.
To edit the material in 2d view, simply goto the texture pallete and press “CropAndFill”. This will re-size your canvas to that of your texture, and you are ready to paint. when you are done, re-draw your 3d tool, and apply the new texture. It may help to place a marker for your tool before using “CropAndFill” so you can get your 3d object in the same exact place you left it. Also remember that since materials won’t export, you must save your tool with the texture to preserve embedded materials.
There is a way to export material sections, not the material itself.
When you export a texture with embedded materials to PSD, the alpha channel will color each material a diferent shade of grey. This way you can mask areas to be a different material in another app.
right, thanks man.
i guess what i was hoping i could do was export a uv laid-out texture from Z and then do details in photoshop. but then if Z hasn’t laid out uv coordinates, i guess that’s impossible.
is there anyway to make Z unwrap an object when you do the adaptive skin ?
you can’t apply a texture to an object without UV coords. So if you are painting on your object, you already have UV coords.
Also what “CropAndFill” does is unwrapping your UV’s, but without the wireframe.
if you used AUV or GUV in zbrush to create your UV’s, then when you unwrap it, it will be hard to edit correctly, since it’s designed for optimal UV space, it’s not really human readable. More or less, they are designed to edit directly on the model.
generally good planning can avoid your problem. If you know you will edit in photoshop, you should make your UV’s so that you can edit when it’s unwrapped.
Zbrush has wonderfull 2d capibilities. Since you probably can’t change your UV’s at this point, why not use ZB to do your PS work. what do you need to do in PS? somebody can help you find a ZB counterpart.
i wouldn’t mind doing it in zbrush, not at all. i’m just not sure it’s possible. see, i don’t think i actually HAVE uv’s on this thing (or do you always have that?)
i didn’t create any mapping coordinates, i just painted in RGB mode without Zadd or Zsub, directly on the mesh.
but. hmmm… i’m pretty sure you’re right - bad planning is the source of my problems =)
could you maybe tell me, step by step, how i can transfer my material colours to a texture image that i can work directly on instead of painting on the mesh ?
(sorry if you already told me something to that effect, but i’m not quite following how this thing works yet)
all the best
/p
chances are that you have GUV or AUV mapping, which means you won’t be able to edit easily. If you plan to edit your maps externally, like in PS, you have to setup your UV’s in a way you can work with them, before painting. Once you start painting, you are married to your UV. changing them afterwards, alters your texture layout.
So you model 1st, then setup your UV’s, then paint your texture. If you skip UV setup, than you are just taking whatever is already assigned. If you are using a polymesh, you can group areas of the mesh into colored area’s. If you do this, GUV can become somewhat human readable, based on the groupings. GUV will try to keep groups together. If the UV’s are still not good enough to edit, you will have to do your UV’s externaly.
once again, you can’t paint on a model that has no UV’s. Although you can paint the vertex’s by using the colorize feature. All non-imported zb objects have UV’s assigned, so you can paint on them right away. Imported DXF objects don’t have any UV’s, and imported OBJ can have UV’s if the object was assigned with them.
excellent, i’ve got it now. thanks a bunch for helping!!
all the best
/plaf