Is it possible to duplicate a material? I would like to duplicate the basic material and others and have them applied to different subtools each with different settings. How can this be done?
I also have a question about importing materials. It seems that whenever you import/load a material, the current material you have selected is overwritten and no longer available. Why is this?
Thanks!
I would like to know this too. Zbrush materials don’t seem to apply with any sense… you want to add multiple matcaps, Zbrush gives you hell. Yes, I Fill object… but that dose not always work when I try to apply a new material to a lower subtool. it changes all the various subtools I have already set a new matcap via Fill object.
I find this rather frustrating.
Nothing? Anyone?
ZBrush references materials by their index number. (You can see that number next to the material name at the top of the Material palette.) There are several reasons for this but one example is that it keeps your model file size a lot smaller. Rather than storing every setting of every material you use as part of the ZTL, it only stores the index numbers.
When you load a material, it replaces the currently selected material. So if you want to load multiple materials you need to select a different slot for each one. Otherwise, the newest will overwrite the last one.
If you have adjusted the properties of the material(s) you’re using on your model you will need to save the material in addition to the model. Then when you open the model again you will need to load your various materials into the same slots in the Material palette that they had been in before. Or you can save your work using the ZPR format (File > Save Project) instead of the ZTL format. This saves everything, including the various materials and their settings. Of course, it will be a much larger file than the ZTL!
If you don’t remember which material slot you used for a given part of your model, drag from the Material thumbnail onto that spot on the model. The cursor becomes a Picker, selecting the correct material slot. Now just load the material that goes there.
To copy a material, select it. Below the Material palette’s various thumbnails you’ll see CopyMat. Click that to copy the material. Now select another material and press PasteMat. Done! Alternatively, you can copy specific shader channels within the material. At the top of the Material > Modifiers there are CopySH and PasteSH. These affect the currently selected channel (S1, S2, S3 or S4). This lets you mix and match shader properties between various materials. Keep in mind that some material shaders (such as for the fibers materials) will only work in the S1 channel.
Hope that helps.
Something else you can try.
Make your changes to the material and save it with a different name to your ZStarup/Materials folder. When you restart ZBrush, that material will be in the Materials palette. Don’t have more than 25 materials at a time in that folder though as it could cause instability.
Thanks aurick! That all makes sense for the most part. I was just hoping that there was some way it would act more node based like maya and let you simply create a new blinn material for example. It’s misleading that the CopyMat/PasteMat buttons would act the way it does. From a usability standpoint, you would think it would copy the current material and paste it to a new blank material slot, not overwrite an existing one.
It sounds like what you are saying and correct me if I’m wrong, but if I want 10 blinn materials and 5 hair materials all with different settings, I need to copy the current blinn material, select a different material that I think I’ll never use such as DotsOmetal1 and paste the blinn to that channel overwriting it? If I ever decide I want to use the DotsOmetal1 for this project later on, I need to select another material that I again think I’ll never use and load the DotsOmetal1 back in from the default Zbrush folder?
If that is the case, that seems a little wonky and hopefully Pixologic will change this for a future release.
Thanks again!
I’ve thought about that and that is probably what will need to be done as a workaround for now until/unless Pixologic comes up with another way to achieve this.
Thanks!
I certainly hope they make this easier in the future as well. This seems overly complicated for a painting process. A script or “masters” Plugin that somehow simulates they behind the scenes of this would be nice. I am guessing most artists that use Zbrush don’t use lots of matcaps to paint their model with. Perhaps they use the mats as a “Primer” base coat, then layer on top of that with poly paint? Like when you paint skin?
Would it be easier on Zbrush to simply paint the matCaps rather than fill object with Matcap? Would this be a different memory process for the program?
Gridlost, you can paint the matcap/material onto the model easily by simply turning on “M” instead of “RGB” or MRGB" instead of filling the entire object so that the same object has different materials assigned to it. If that is what you are asking.
ok thank you! I often try to do things the hard way in Zbrush. I have seen it said that people often try to get a specific feature to do something its not meant to do, when there is an easier feature to work with that was meant for the requested function. I fall prey to this often… Over thinking a problem.
:o