ZBrushCentral

Retopology & UV's

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

After doing some retopology, do you have to remake the UV’s when you are done??

If so - how do you do it without losing the current colors used in the ZTool?

#2

You can keep all of your sculpt detail and color information. The process is pretty simple.

1a) If you are keeping everything in ZBrush, you will have to unwrap the retopologized mesh using GUV or AUV tiles. Save the tool. Go to step 2.
or
1b) If you are going to export the retopologized to another program for UV work, do so by exporting as an obj. UV it, reexport as an obj, import that into ZBrush, go to step 2.

  1. Load your ztool (from step 1a) or your obj (step 1b). Now load the initial painted sculpt. Draw it to the canvas (be dure to be in Edit mode, blablabla).

  2. Open Subtool under the Tool menu. Select the initial model and hit Append. Select the model from step 1 (a or b). It should now appear as a subtool with the initial model. (Note: If you created the initial mesh with ZSpheres, the appended subtool may come in smaller than the original if you are using the 1b method. Just scale and reposition it to match the original.

  3. Under the Texture section in the Tool rollout be sure that Colorize is checked. This is essential to getting your painted work onto the new model.

  4. Subdivide the UV’d retopologized mesh to be close to the polycount for the initial mesh. While you have it seleceted go back to Subtools and hit Project All. The detail and the colors should be projected onto the new mesh.

  5. There may be some artifacts. No big deal. Use the Smooth brush to…smooth…the artifacts out. Now use the ZProject brush to get the original detail back. I recommend turning RGB off for some of this. It depends on the artifact.

That’s it. Save the tool and life is good.

The threads referenced at the bottom of the page are also all spot on.

#3

you do have to re UV the model. Follow the above steps to get the mesh detail and color information off of the model.

If you have a texture, and not polypaint. apply the texture as polypaint to the original model first…at the highest subD.
tool>texture>“txr>col”