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Simple Question About Polypainting in ZB4

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

I know Nancyan started a thread about “transferring polypainting to the default primitive ‘tools’ in ZB4.” I think I’m asking a simpler question from a noob state of innocence.

I’m just starting with polypaint, following the tutorial in the ZBrush_Starting_Guide.pdf (p.26) that comes with ZB4. Unfortunately, the tutorial doesn’t tell me that if I try to polypaint on an untextured object, selecting a color will just fill the entire object. When I look at other tutorials, some start polypainting by going to Texture>Colorize. Others go to Texture>Color To Texture. However, in ZB4, I don’t see those options or anything I can identify as an equivalent.

If I select Texture 38 from the Texture palette, that seems to give me a “texture without a texture”–essentially, a smooth surface, that I can paint on. Is that the right way to do it?

Doc Pit

#2

Applying a texture map to a model will cover up the polypaint. You need to either remove the texture map or turn it off through the Tool>Texture Map menu so you can see your painting.

Basically ZBrush has two ways of showing color on a 3D model - applying a 2D image (a ‘texture map’) and using polypaint. You can convert one to the other but they are separate things and don’t display together.

Polypainting is by far the simplest method.

The first stage of polypainting is filling with a base color. Until you do that your model will take on whatever the selected color is. So stage (21) of the Starting Guide tells you how to do this.

After filling with color you can paint other colors on to your model.