ZBrushCentral

Move brush with RGB and Texture from Polypaint issue.

I have an issue with using the move brush when set to RGB mode only. The polypaint moves around as intended but when I go to make a texure from polypaint, the changes made with the move brush are not being calculated.

I don’t know why the move brush works in the viewport with just RGB on but doesn’t translate into a texture map.

Can someone help me?

Thanks.

I think the source of my problem is that even when I have RGB alone activated, the underlying topology is affected by the move brush (as if ZADD is on also). I first became aware something was wrong when I tried to replace the existing texture map that was applied to the same base mesh over in 3ds Max 2012 - this was the process where by I would check to see how changes made to polypaint in ZB would render in Max.

Anyway, because I still had the same identical UV’s on the mesh in both apps, altering the topology along with the polypaint effectively caused the polypaint to snap back into its original position (before using the move brush) according to the UV co-ordinates, defeating the purpose of making the change to the polypaint in the first place.

Does this make sense or have I just wandered off on a tangent? :lol:

What it comes down to is I need a way to move polypaint around without affecting the topology of the mesh.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

…and after all of my ramblings, it looks like I was wrong.

In theory, all I would have to do was create a fresh uv unwrap, export the mesh and apply the texture map in Max.

But the move brush changes to the polypaint are still not showing in the newly extracted texture map.

Maybe there is a simple workaround to my problem?

There is no way to move polypaint around without effecting the mesh. the “polypaint” is vertex paint. Which means that the color is tied to the vertex. so if you move the color, you move the vertex.

Oh, of course, I had forgotten how it worked. But if this is the case, why are the changes to pixols using move not reflected in a new texure map with new UV’s?

It’s a shame because I will lose some work if I cannot extract a map with this information.

Thanks, --E-- (cool name)

UV’s do not typically move when you move verts. Some applications have an option that move UV’s to correspond to vert movement so that textures DON’T move when you make mesh changes. But by default in most programs moving a vert does not move a UV. This is why you aren’t seeing any changes in your texture map.

If I am understanding you correctly, If you want to “move” your texture color around to a different spot on the UV map the best way would be to use photoshop and physically move the color and re-save the texture back out.

Your only other option is to repaint the texture.

Ok thanks Eric. Looks like I will have to do the trick in PS. Bummer.

I guess you could also move the UV’s to match the already painted texture too. But that isn’t really ideal.

Forgive my ignorance, I still can’t wrap my head around why the moved polypaint is not showing up in the texure map when I have just created fresh UVs in ZB after the changes. If the UV’s are mapping the texure to the mesh, shouldn’t what I see on the screen be repoduced in my map?

Can you record a quick video with jing or something to demonstrate your issue?

Think of your mesh as a checkered blanket. Just because you move the blanket around and mess it up doesn’t mean that the checkerd pattern isn’t a checkered pattern anymore. You can distort the mesh/blanket however you want. The checkered pattern is still a checkered pattern, it doesn’t change. No matter what you do to the mesh/blanket.

I have to go out soon, but I’ll se what I can do later :slight_smile:

I think I understand what you mean.

Thanks again.

Ok, I extracted a few images to demonstrate the process and the resulting issue I have found. I don’t know if it will help at all but here goes (the cheap n nasty version)…

This is a render in Max of the iris before I made the changes with the Move brush in ZB:
ii.jpg

This is the iris in ZB after changes made with the move brush:
iii.jpg
I now created (a very basic) UV Map using UV Master and this is a cropped section of it:
iris_newuv_txmap.jpg
As you can see the “moved” parts of the iris are not reflected in the new map.

Hope this gives you a better idea of my situation.

Sorry, I can’t really tell what you are trying to do from the photos.

Your UV’s look pretty odd though for a eye. Why don’t you just planar map it in Max and then run a relax on it?

But again moving your mesh won’t affect your UVs. The poly painting is going to be projected from your verts onto your UV’s.

You could move your mesh a mile away and it is still going to project the color the same onto the UV’s.

What it comes down to is I just want to be able to break up the iris pattern (which was very uniform) by moving the polypaint. This is what I was trying to do in the second image.

BTW: The unwrap is, like I said very basic and was just intended to demonstrate that the changes with the Move brush were not reflected in the texture map. Of course I will do a proper unwrap for the final transition into Max.

Thanks anyway.

Ok, one last thing before I quit -

I understand that if you have an existing set of UVs then try to alter the topology, then export your texure (or whatever else type of) map, because the co-ordinates have not changed then the map will also stay the same.

Soo, the thing I don’t get is why does the map not show changes made even when I have generated new UV’s AFTER I have altered the geometry in question? If the original UV’s are deleted, then a new set made, there exists no original co-ordinates for the geometry to corform to, right??

Am I way off here?

You will never see changes to your texture map after using a move brush. The move brush does not affect color, it only effects vert position. It’s not moving color. So why would your texture color update when no color has been moved? Only the verts have been moved.

Try this, fill an object with white color then select the move brush, change the color to green, turn on rgb and turn off zadd and then make some edits on your mesh. Notice that you are not adding any color, only moving the verts. The move brush doesn’t do anything to color.

Ahhhh, I see. I was looking way too much in the wrong direction. Looks like what I was trying to do is not possible in ZB. I guess I will just have to recreate the effect in PS.

Thanks for taking the time to explain all of this to me!

Simple workaround is ZAppLink to photoshop and bake the effect. All is well.

Thanks again, Eric.