ZBrushCentral

Choosing UV map resolution sizes?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

If anyone would mind clearing up a little confusing, it would be much appreciated.

-Do you base the size of the UV map relative to the size of the part of the model?
-Is there a rule-of-thumb?
-Should you always go as large as you can that your system will allow?
-Does the size of the map for example 2048x2048 pixels mean if you are rendering out the model - if that portion of the model render is bigger than 2048x2048 - it would appear blurry?
-So should you estimate what resolution you are going to render out your model/scene and base your choice for UV map size on the different size of the parts of the model? For example if you had a character with boots and a belt on - you would create a larger UV map for the boots than you would the belt buckle?

Thanks for any answers or suggestions to any of these question.

#2

Texture resolution should be based on model resolution. Polypaint is one point of data per point in the model’s geometry. This makes it easy.

A 1024x1024 map is about 1 million pixels. So it’s appropriate for a model that’s about 1 million polys.

A 2048 map is about 4 million pixels. Of these, about 3 million are used by most texture mapping. The rest is wasted space.

A 4096 map is about 16 million pixels, with about 12 million actually being usable.

Simply choose the size that’s closest to the number of points in your model. You don’t have to be exact; just be close.

#3

Aurick - thank you very much for your quick response. I am currently working on a samurai sword model for practice - which I modeled in Maya - I am bringing the parts of it (handle, wrap, blade, etc) with GoZ over to ZBrush - and working on the parts individually in there. When I bring the handle in for example I subdivide it up to around 1 million polys which is what my system will handle - when you refer to the “model resolution” - is that the resolution of each piece that I bring into ZBrush? So the sword handle which I subdivided to around 1.3 millions polys - I would probably go with a 1024x1024 map?

Thanks again, for your time - Eric