Texturing my first model with Polypaint, abit confused. Please bare with me I'm new

[system]

Hello, I just entered the texturing territory for my first model and I have a few questions you could probably answer farely quickly. So I was messing around with Polypaint yesterday got my model painted to a point I was happy with it, and I decided to call a quits and hit the hay, saved my model with the textures on it as a ‘’.Ztl’’ ( Well I thought I saved it :X ) and when I started working on itthe next day the model was there but the textures were gone . What is the proper way to save your model with the textures on it?:idea: I went through some of the tutorials on ‘’ Gettig Started’’ but I found that alot of the information was out dated. I did learn that I had to make my Polypaint into a texture map ( Still confused about that ) it started out saying I needed to set the width and height of the texture which confused me cause I’m not sure how to determine what width and height I need for my model It would be much appreciated if someone could tell me a dumbed down version on how to keep my polypaint on my model when I save it. Thanks in advance for putting up with me

Mr. Muggles

Here is a screenshot of my first model

[dimwalker]

As far as I know polypaint information is stored with your tool(*.ztl).
Try creating new tool(simple sphere or something like that), paint and save it. If the problem remains, then describe what you are doing step-by-step.

P.S. Your screen is really huge - it captured your second monitor.
I would suggest you crop that image, leaving only meaningful information.

[system]

That is strange, so I just made a basic sphere with paint on it saved it, and the Polypaint is staying I’ll explain step by step what I did when I was creating my first model (Spider thing). Started out with Zsphere made the basics of my model then made it a ‘‘unified Skin’’ and stared moving,smoothing, and detailing my spider, made a seperate mesh (For the eyes) and soon later combined the two together using the ‘‘merge visible’’ button under subtools, after that I went into Polypaint and hit ‘‘colorize’’ and started painting using ‘‘basic material’’, and a whole wack load of colors and textures. Was happ with my model and hit ‘‘Save As’’ under the Tool section, saved it as ‘‘Spider.ztl’’. So I’m confused now

Thanks for the reply, very kind of you
(Sorry about the screenshot, didn’t catch that it captured my second monitor )

[dimwalker]

Followed your steps and polypaint were stored with the tool.

1. It shouldn’t matter at this point, but from your steps it seems your model doesn’t have UV coordinates.

2. There is a bug when zbrush doesn’t update its … err… “knowledge” of polypaint info until you move subdivision slider. Again, it shouldn’t matter unless you are creating texture from polypaint, but who knows, it might as well forget about colors while saving.

[system]

I’m pretty new to the modelling world, so bare with me here. :3 I’m not a 100% keen on UV mapping, I know a little bit about the topic but not enough to say I’m knowledged with it. Do you assign it through zbrush:qu: and if so do you know of any tutorials (Videos/Articles) that you could link me:qu: or if it’s simple enough explain it yourself

I’m asking for to much, sorry.

Thanks for the reply again.
Mr. Muggles

[dimwalker]

No problem. I found many useful info here and trying to give something back.

As for UVs, here is a quick and dirty way to do it
Tool / UV Map
hit AUVTiles button
though it would produce unwrap consisting of a bunch of little tiles not suitable for editing by human being in external 2d packages.

Also, there is a plugin for zBrush called UV Master. I never used it, thus can’t help with it. But I’m sure there is plenty of tutorials on the subject and the tool looks really promising.
http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/features/UV-Master/

[system]

Thank for the help Dimwalker I’ll look into UV master this weekend

[Zeddicus]

UV’s shouldn’t matter for poly paint. Did you make sure colorize was still on after loading your spider.ztl file? The state of that button is saved with the tool, so if it is off when you save, it will be off when you reload. Same with the texture on button.

Edit Reason: Wanted to make my post clearer.

[system]

Hey Zeddicus, Thanks for the reply Um yes I had colorize on when I saved (and I double checked to make sure) but I recentely made another model to test on and it did save the polypaint, and that was without hitting the ‘‘AUVTiles button’’ ( Still confused on the UV’s). I don’t know if you guys can answer this question (if you cant it’s fine), if I wanted to export my model to the UDK engine ( Of corse with rigging and all the other stuff) would the polypaint that I put onto the model export aswell:qu: ( This being a new saved file as example ‘’ .psk ‘’, ‘’.dae’’ ect )

Mr. Muggles

[Zeddicus]

If the UDK engine can display vertex colors, then perhaps, but unlikely. The problem with the polypaint feature in Zbrush is that it relies on mesh resolution. Paint only looks good if your mesh has a high quantity of polygons, and you don’t want a lot of polygons when creating game assets. This type of painting doesn’t rely on UV coordinates like texture bitmaps do.

You can convert your polypainting to texture using the menu item Tool:Texture Map:New From Polypaint, but bitmaps require UV coordinates prior to doing that. If you plan on creating any sort of texture maps, setting up UV’s first is an absolute must. After you’ve painted your bitmap(s), you’ll want to make sure you don’t radically change the UV’s (like pressing any of the UV buttons in Zbrush). If you do, the texture will no longer overlay properly on your mesh. Think of textures as a skin for the model. UV’s tell the displaying application how that skin should fit onto the model.

There are different presets you can use under the Tool:UV menu to create your UV’s, but the UV Master plugin is the best in my opinion. Or you can take your model to an external app (like 3ds Max for example) that allows you to create and tweak UV’s prior to painting.

Hope that helps a little. If you messed up your UV’s after creating a texture map from your polypainting, it definitely won’t display on your model correctly (if at all). It is possible fix them manually by hand, so they once again match up with your texture, but it will require patience. If you’re still confused, try checking out Youtube and Vimeo for more how to’s on UV mapping.

[system]

Saved me alot of time! thank you kind sir. Yeah I’m still confused about the whole thing but I think I get the basics of it all now ( thanks you ) I’m gonna take your advise and go searching for some tutorials, my biggest problem with these tutorials is that almost all of them are out dated so it makes it hard for someone new with Zbrush to understand

Thanks again Zeddicus

Mr. Muggles