is there a way to have multiple texture maps on one object… for example… i have a character whos head is mapped 0-1… and body also 0-1… but they have different maps for each part… i tried moving the body uv’s to a different sector to create poly groups… but in z2 it still only assigns one map to both… which kinda makes it impossible to fix the seam between the head and body… any suggestions?
Hi Diamant,
Why do you need to make multiple textures for a single object?
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Something like this?
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The only thing I can think of is to texture them seperately. Then you will have to edit the seams in a 2D editor. The fix seems button might help with the seams, if you have the same colors around the edges that will meet.
Hope this helps.
i need this because i am making a game character who has mulitple texture maps per object… the head gets a 512 on its own and the body gets the same…guess zbrush didn’t consider this huh…oh well…
Could you do this by making a polymesh of the head and body (with texture applied) with two extra ‘dummy’ objects?
When you make your polymesh select ‘Yes’ when asked if you want to retain the textures and make the new polymesh texture size 1024x1024.
Because the polymesh has four objects in it you will get a polymesh texture that has four squares of 512x512, one each for each part of the polymesh - this just means that you won’t have to rescale anything.
Then just paint on your model in PM to correct the seams and cut and paste the corrected parts of the polymesh texture into your original 512 colour map.
It is better for game preformance if you do have all the charictors skin in 1 texture…
I use multiple textures only when I am doing a material effect to certain parts of the model with an ingame shader( metal, glass,water ,ECT…)…
I paint my model , then in wings or Milkshape I select the polys that are going to use shader, and then I assign them to other texturemap, and Resize the UV’s…
Hope this helps…
What game engine are you useing?
Diamant…
The above image is a single texture map that is obviously made up of three different textures…
Would that not do the job?
The only thing i can think of that relates to this is that you have a model from Max or another app and you have assigned Material I.d’s to your model…
Doesn’t exactly make much sense as using multiple texture maps on one object is pointless…why not just have one tetxure that can incorporate different textures?
You’ll have to elaborate on this as i can’t really gauge what your trying to achieve here…
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the engine we are using is an in house engine… and as far as one texture on a single mesh being better for game performance…i guess that would depend on the engine… i’ve used multiple textures on single meshes in a bunch of engines without any type of hit…either way… we need to use multiple textures for our game… can’t really elaborate on the reasons… … bitboy… i’m not sure if i am following you completely. what i mean is literally two different 512 maps on a single mesh… the problem is… the mesh has overlapping uv’s… because the ones that are overlapping are assigned to a separate material… but zbrush doesn’t see that…it just puts one material on the object… so trying to paint will paint in two different areas…if you can understand that…
Bonecradle… not sure what you mean… i am importing a obj… isn’t that a polymesh? i assign textures to it in maya…and they dont come over in z… doesn’t prompt me for anything… and what do you mean by ‘dummy’ objects?
I don’t think you understood what I meant. In order to preserve the models UV’s, and to paint on the model, you need to physically seperate the model, and export each piece individually. Since you are using Maya, then a real easy way to do this is to duplicate the faces that belong to the head, and export that. Then duplicate the faces of the body, and export that. Then, import the head into Zbrush, then texture the head. Then import the body Zbrush, then texture the body. Then, in Maya, just upload the textures into whatever shaders you are using, Hypershade-import, and preview how they look. It really is that easy.
Also, you will more than likely need to flip the textures vertically.
wchamlet… i understand what you mean… and that was the only way i knew how to do it…what i was trying to do was to do everything in zbrush at once… so i dont have to do them separately… it helps to see the whole thing no? but i guess there really is no way to do this… oh well…
You could try messing with multiple UV sets in Maya and see how that goes? Like make a UV set, that is identical to the one you have now, but make it fit in the 0 to 1 ratio that Zbrush needs. Paint the texture at a really high setting, like 4096 by 4096, and try to manually move this texture to fit into the two 512 textures in a 2D editor. That might work too, if you need to have the entire model in Zbrush to texture.
Diamant: what I suggested overcomes this problem.
In essence:
You export two different objects from Maya, each with its own texture.
In Z2 you then use the multimarker process to (re)-combine these two objects. At the same time Z2 will combine the objects’ separate textures into one texture - this makes it possible to paint the object/textures as one so you can e.g. paint over seams.
I suggested adding dummy objects because of the way Z2 combines the separate textures (it allocates equal portions of the texture space to each object in the polymesh that are combined at the same time).
Say if you started with two objects each with a 512 texture and didn’t add any dummy ones, when combined into a 1024x1024 texture (Projection Master works best with square textures to the power of 2) each of the 512 parts of the texture would be stretched vertically.
By adding two dummy objects, each of these is also given an equal share of the texture space, so you would end up with a combined polymesh texture with four equal squares of 512x512 each.
Likewise, if your original model was composed of three objects, you would need to add one dummy object.
What happens to the objects doesn’t matter in the long run, because it is just the texture you want - i.e. once finished just cut and paste the parts (squares) of the texture you want into the original 512 texture.
Hmmmmm,no hit on FPS? that is very odd…
hope someone is able to help you…looks like bonecradle has the best idea so far…
good luck…
Polaris… nope… not hit on FPS… not sure why you think it is very odd. technically it is slower…but i doubt you will see any difference…the only thing that is slower is that it has to get a different texture to draw on the polys… but if its in ram already… you’re not going to really see a difference…
Bonecradle… i hear what you are saying… i just dont really understand it… i’m very new to Z2… i dont even know what you mean by adding two dummy objects…is there any tutorials on what you are talking about around? i understand the multimarker thing… just dont really get the dummy part… i appreciate everyones help on this! thanks!
BoneCradle you are Ingenious!
I tried your trick and it works great!
I tried it on a light… the metal parts are just painted on in Zbrush and the rest is a shader in Unreal, I was able to paint the diffuse colors in Zbrush also…
This is a great trick, and I am going to use it next time I need to do a shader on my meshes.
I am working on a big tank for onslaught mode in unreal, perhaps I will use this trick for the lights, the shiney parts of the metal bodie, and for the Dull rusty mettal for the bottom of the tank.
Great timesaver to make all the models first, and then paint… my old way made me go back and fourth from wings/milkshape/and Zbrush 
Thanks for the tip…
Glad it helped Polaris. I don’t make game content myself (I leave that to my brother) but the process seemed logical.
Diamante: a dummy is just what I called an extra object to make the number of objects in the polymesh up to four - it could be anything. I say four objects because with a 1024x1024 texture for the polymesh, this will leave the original textures for your head and body as 512x512.
The diagram below shows two polymesh objects and the textures that Z2 makes when combining the different parts together. When you have only two objects the textures are stretched vertically to fill the space; having four gives four 512 squares.
I hope that makes things a little clearer.
I found this very useful thanks for the explaination.