I am trying to use Pixol>Pixel to get my character scaled properly before entering Zapplink for painting. Every time I attempt to use it, my character shrinks to the point that I cannot even see it any more. I only know it is there because if I keep pulling up on scale, it eventually comes back into view.
My character has tiled UVs, and I was wondering if maybe this might be causing the issue. If so, is there a better way to ensure that I am painting at the proper scale?
Thanks!
You didn’t specify which version of ZBrush you’re using, but I know that plugin is pretty out of date. It probably doesn’t work in your current version.
The pixol-to-pixel rule also doesn’t apply with polypaint because with polypaint you’re painting directly on the model’s points rather than transferring to texture. You don’t deal with the texture transfer until AFTER you’ve done all of your painting, at which point you simply choose a texture size that best suits your model’s polygon counts.
When using ZAppLink to help with your polypainting, you’ll get a clean transfer of what you’ve painted automatically. The only time you’d see pixelation is if your model doesn’t have enough points to support the details you’re painting. In that case you simply divide the model again. (Although this may require splitting it into multiple SubTools, or using HD levels.)
Aurick,
Thanks for your reply. I am still using V3.1, so I thought that the plugin should still work.
The model I am workin on is a nude full-body character, with no major seams or breaks. I have found this to create some challanges when I want to create very hi-res textures.
My model is currently at 3.5M points. My machine will let me divide one more time, but it is painfully slow to work with (at 14M). I have to admit that I do not fully understand the process of splitting the model into sub-tools. I tried this, but then when I sub-divide, I get visible seams between the sub-tools. Is there something that I am doing wrong here?
I think I figured out the seam problem. Just needed to turn off smoothing before further subdividing, eh? THis looks like it could be a good solution!
Turning off smoothing before subdividing is good for some situations such as retaining the shape of a building but for organic shapes you should probably try using the Crease function before subdividing.
Pressing Tool > Geometry > Crease will add tags to the open edges of the current subtool, where the neck is seperated from the body, for example. The strength of the tags varies from 0 to 15(default) and prevent the contraction of open edges when subdividing, but still allow for subdivisional smoothing of other parts of the geometry. You can see which polygon edges have crease tags applied while in PolyFrame view mode (Shift + F).
Thanks for the tip about “crease”. That makes a lot of sense!
I am starting a new thread about the workflow of texture painting, so if those of you who have been so helpful would like to check it out I would appreciate it.
Thnaks!