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paint on existing texture?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Ok I hope this is not too ignorant a question. I’ve been taking stabs at using Zbrush since the beginning, and never was able to use it much in my workflow – i’m hoping to remedy that, but frankly I find it very difficult to work with… or to find the information I need to make that possible. Just got ZB4, and some of the procedures I managed to figure out for past versions don’t seem to work anymore. I can no longer find any in-program help files, and searching the ‘on-line documentation’ has rarely yielded anything useful. The pdfs are either about basic ZB concepts, or wading through tutorials hoping to stumble upon an answer to a simple question… I’ve also looked at the video tutorials. All this is fine if you want to do everything in Zbrush, but if you have a workflow which involves other 3d apps, they rarely apply. It’s a shame because ZB seems to have a lot of potential.

QUESTION:
I’ve redone my UVs to be non-overlapping and applying to the whole object – simple enough for Zbrush to cope with, and checked out – they work in Zbrush.
I’ve loaded in my existing texture map for the object, and have two questions:

  1. How do I get the loaded texture map to show up on the object? I imported it and chose it under textures, but can find no info on how to get it to show up on the object.

  2. Can I use polypaint to paint on this existing texture?

thanks for any helpful advice here

#2

I can’t believe how much time i’ve spent trying to find out how to simply display my imported texture on my imported object… no success.

This is what I’ve found on the subject of polypainting on a texture:

PolyPainting works directly on the surface of your model.

The ZBrush approach for working with a texture map is as follows:


  1. Bake texture map into PolyPainting
  2. Paint using ZBrush’s 3D sculpting and painting tools
  3. Bake PolyPainting back to a texture map.
Note: If you want to paint on a texture map in ZBrush you must use Projection Master.

[edit]
Baking a Texture Map to PolyPainting


  1. Load the Model
  2. Load the Texture
  3. Divide the model so that its polygon count is close to your texture’s pixel count. If you don’t want to learn the math behind this just divide it as far as you can. If you want to learn the math, here is some info: a 2k texture map has 4 million pixels in it. Your UVs only use 70% or less of that space so the pixel count is close to 3 million.
  4. Press Tool: Texture: Txr>Clr
You’re done.

Um, no, I’m not…
1st problem:
there is no Tool:texture:Txr>clr
There’s a Tool:texture map, but no txr>clr on it
Going to the main texture palette there’s an option ‘clear’ next to ‘main’. Pressing that, it replaced my texture with a white texture. Still my texture is not visible anywhere but in the texture palette.

I really need some help here…

#3

TEXTURES_1.jpg

Attachments

TEXTURES_2.jpg

TEXTURES_3.jpg

#4

Yes that works, SO counter-intuitive… but Thanks!
Also, apparently you need to press Polypaint>Polypaint from texture in order to paint on the texture. Many confusing steps ahead to get this painted and back onto my UVs, unless that has changed too. The steps in the wiki don’t seem to apply any more. I did not have to delete my UVs yet…

Is there any ‘clone’ type brush that can be used in polypaint? Most of the brushes seem to be unavailable unless you turn edit off, which drops the object to the canvas. I need to clone texture areas on the object in order to get my seams invisible. I mean the kind of clone brush that photoshop and so many other pain programs have available.

thanks so much!

#5

Ok I saved That One., Hope U Don’t Mined.:slight_smile:

#6

Originally by illusory:
Is there any ‘clone’ type brush that can be used in polypaint? Most of the brushes seem to be unavailable unless you turn edit off, which drops the object to the canvas. I need to clone texture areas on the object in order to get my seams invisible.

You can use the same texture in Spotlight to paint over any seams. There is an excellent tutorial in ZClassroom on using Spotlight.

#7

I did the steps provided from previous threads.
I loaded up my previous textures, then i clicked on “Polypaint From Texture”.
Still am not able to paint directly on my models. Just gives the over all canvas color.
I tried using projection master, but the colors i select to paint on top of my existing texture, is a different shade of color…
This is frustrating…help:evil:

#8

1 .- polypaint choose,
2 .- Select RGB on top
3 .- Choose a color. And you can paint on your model.
I hope I’ve helped.

#9

nope, didn’t work…
I went over the same step many times.
Now, it seems i can’t even smply paint on it… regardless if i have a texture there or not.
This ever happen to you?

#10

nevermind, I figured it out…
I’m gonna create a new thread ans explain in detail how I fixed it…
I think this is a new issue, does not happen often though.

#11

Originally posted by greenhornet:

nevermind, I figured it out…
I’m gonna create a new thread ans explain
in detail how I fixed it…
I think this is a new issue, does not happen
often though.

I think it would be better, and easier for people doing searches, if you posted your solution in this thread. Why would you start a new one?

#12

My issue is that even though I did all the proper procedure, I still wasn’t able to paint directly to an existing texture on my model.
Mind you, this was an old model that I worked on awhile ago and just recently decided to rework it’s textures. So it already has it’s own UVs and textures…

  1. load my model that has the highest sub-Division level to 4
  2. imported my texture file then applied it on my model via Texture Map under Tool
  3. under Tool in Geometry, set your slider to SDiv 1
  4. then click on the “Divide” button until you reach to Sub-Division level 4
  5. under Tool again, in Polypaint, click on “Polypaint From Texture”
  6. make sure you select the right color tab( which is the Main Color), not the left( the Secondary Color), that is located between Gradient and SwitchColor label on your Left Shelf.
  7. and ofcourse have RGB selected.

only after this step will ZBrush allow you to paint on your texture…

Before I was doing the steps that everyone mentioned on this thread, but every time I click on “Polypaint From Texture”, it would fill the entire model a single color.
Depending which color tab is selected…
And still ZBrush will not allow me to paint on the model.
Only when I started to sub-divide my model again from level 1, even though my model already contains multiple sub-divisions, is when you can paint on to your existing texture.
So you don’t have to implement the use of Projection Master, you can just paint on your model and affect your texture map from here on…
Hope this makes sense to all. I know everyone here is proficient at Zbrush, so I apologize with my redundant 1-7 step program above.