ZBrushCentral

My first days in ZBrush and got a question.

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hello folks!

I’ve started learning ZBrush and 3D modeling overall 1 week ago, and found my first gap that I can’t google out.

Currently, I’m painting a texture of photo over a human 3D model, however the photo texture doesn’t appear sharp if the model is not with 3m poly?

Should I create UV first? Is it UV related? I’m still figuring out what the purpose of UV exactly is and how it effects the workflow.

Also what is the overall workflow?

Import 3D model
Paint the photo texture
Then UV or before that I have to do the UV?
How to export the model in reasonable polycount with sharp texture on it?

Any help to figure it out is REALLY appreciated! Thanks!

#2

It’s important to understand the difference between Texture and Polypaint. A Texture is an image that is mapped to the coordinates of a mesh, and the resolution will be determined by the size of the image. If you paint on a mesh directly without an applied texture, you are Polypainting that model. With Polypaint, the color is assigned directly to the vertices, and the resolution will be dependent on the resolution of the mesh. Greater detail will require higher polycounts.

In Zbrush, Polypaint can be converted to a texture, and vice versa. In order to apply a texture, you will need some sort of UV coordinates assigned. Zbrush has a number of different methods for generating UV coords, which you will want to read about in the documentation.

A common workflow is to simply paint your model at high resolution (polycount) with Polypaint, then create UVs for the model, create a texture of sufficient size, and transfer the Polypainting color to the texture for import into different programs.

#3

Hey @Spyndel,

Thanks for passing by to help me out! I know dealing with newbies is sometimes bothering, but you yet did it!

Your post is a little technician and will take me a while to understand, but will give my best rereading it few times and google around.

And to confirm one last thing, because I haven’t done UV before, but I’m afraid, I’ll do the uv, but will have to start over for some mistakes.

Here is the painted texture with 14m poly
http://i.imgur.com/ytgZDsn.jpg

And here is the same scene with only 50k poly.
http://i.imgur.com/KhGCfbi.png

From your post, I’ve found out I can do the UV mapping after the texturing.

And the final result should be anywhere from 50 to 100k polycount.

So, I’ve asked myself. Will the quality and the sharpness of the applied photo over the model will stay even on 50k model after the UV is done?

Thanks a lot for helping me out!

#4

You generally want to polypaint at the lowest level of subdivision that holds the detail to your satisfaction. If 50k polys isn’t enough, paint at a higher subd level.

The resulting texture will hold the detail if the texture image is large enough to hold the detail for the number of polys being worked on. If it isn’t you can:

-increase the size of the image to hold more detail

-optimize your mesh to deliver more polys to areas that need it, and eliminate them in areas that dont.

-optimize your UVs by using a different mapping method, or laying them out in such a manner that makes better use of available image space

These are all more complicated subjects than I can casually cover here, and will take months of experience on your part to get a feel for the best approaches in different situations.

Make sure to read the zbrush documentation:

http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/painting-your-model/polypaint/

http://docs.pixologic.com/features/main-features/texturing/

http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/painting-your-model/texture-maps/

And be sure to watch the videos in the zclassroom:

http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/

Take your time, and just focus on learning how to accomplish simple achievable goals every day. You won’t learn Zbrush in a week, let alone more general 3d concepts like texturing and uv mapping. But if you focus on learning one specific thing a day, you’ll be making sense of things before you know it.

Good luck

#5

That’s one really constructive post there!

Thanks a lot for throwing so much light in that maze puzzle! I’ll dig in and start reading/practicing!

Help appreciated a lot!! Ty

#6

TheOne wrote: …So, I’ve asked myself. Will the quality and the sharpness of the applied photo over the model will stay even on 50k model after the UV is done?

Yes it will. Once you have your UV’s and you have textured (looks like you are using Spotlight?), you will be able to save out the texture maps from the high poly version. 14 million polys is way plenty of mesh to get a detailed texture from. Around 4 million polys for the head part should easily give you a nice 4k head texture.

#7

Thanks @Dillster,

Now I can do the UV without worrying, I’ll have to start them over again if something goes wrong.

#8

The whole philosophy behind polypaint is that you don’t have to worry about UVs until you’re ready, so don’t let that bother you. You can use polypaint to convert to texture and back to polypaint, you can use it to transfer color information to a different version of the same model with entirely different UV coordinates. You can change UVs at will, as long as other aspects of your workflow allow it.