ZBrushCentral

confusion about using materials &the color swatch

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi everyone,

So I’ve tried looking on the forums here and whatever tutorials I could find.
Here’s what I’m confused about:

I understand that the material swatch determines what base material will be applied to your model and the color swatch allows you to choose the colors you’d like to paint on your model.

What I don’t understand is how to paint something white!? For example I chose the Reflected Red material as my base material. When I paint different colors on top of it it works great except for when I choose white. It seems like white just means no color. When I paint using white it looks like it just erases whatever other color I’ve painted to allow the base material I applied to show through.

If this is the case does it mean I need to start with a white base material if i want any part of my model to actually be white?

Also what if I like using the Reflected Red material as my base material because of its properties…can I still change it’s color to white ?

I don’t see anything under the Material-Modifiers menu that lets me change the color to white…

If this is possible does it create a new material or change the properties of original Reflected Red material that comes with zbrush? Obviously I’d want to create a new material and not mess up the original.

#2

To work with a copy of the material, use the Material>CopyMat button, select a different material, then use PasteMat. You really don’t have to worry about messing things up, since materials always revert to default when you relaunch ZBrush. You should simply save the material you’re working on when you’re happy with it, then load it in any session where you want to use it.

As for the ReflectRed material, it gets its color from the texture patch that is in the Material>Modifiers. In this case it’s a red sphere with a bit of reflection applied to it. If you replace that texture patch with a texture of a sphere of your liking, the material will change to the color of the new texture patch. You can see that in effect when you compare ReflectRed and ReflectYellow. The only difference between them is the texture patch.

Of course you could also just use the ReflectedMap material and tweak its settings. In the S1 channel, set Sub Reflection to 29. Then go to the S2 channel to set Ambient to 93, Diffuse to 34, Specular to 5, and SpecularCurve’s Focal Shift to -60. That will give a pretty good approximation of the ReflectRed material, but without the red color.