Trying to understand texturing in Zbrush...

[dragotron]

OK, so I modeled my character, sculpted him, it got too heavy so I went to HD Geometry… which worked good for sculpting… now I want to texture him.

I’m having a hard time getting any paint to go on him. He has a UV map as I UVd him before importing the OBJ from Maya. I click create new texture. (which sometimes makes his body disappear entirely) Then I select a color and fill object. Ussually this does absolutely nothing, sometimes the eyes change color (even though in the Subtool pallette I have the BODY and not the eyes selected.)

I’m used to texturing in Maya and Photoshop obviously this is a lot different. Can someone explain what i’m doing wrong here…? cheers

[system]

I’m kind of new with Zbrush too but I’ve managed to start getting a grip on texturing lately…

I’ve watched some old tutorials on texturing where they continuously use the “fill color” method… But trying out stuff I found out I can go straight to the “Polypaint” tab and hit “Colorize” on my current subtool… It’s saves me some time from having to go through the steps in the “fill color” method…

I’m not sure if this feature is exclusive to Zbrush 3.5 R3 since I haven’t worked with previous versions of Zbrush…

But if you’re on 3.5 R3, hitting “Colorize” in the “Polypaint” tab at the right panel will work for you (or if it’s available in previous versions).

Don’t know what might be causing your mesh dissapearing issue, but I have the notion that Polypaint is a more stable method for those means…

After hitting “Colorize” you can paint straight on the mesh and the texture will be ready to be grabbed in the Texture tab…

Hope that helps.

[TVeyes]

Basically there are two methods for painting textures; projection painting and polypainting.

• Projection painting

Projection painting requires that you have a model with UVs assigned, a texture map selected under Tool > Texture Map and the Projection Master plugin to paint the texture (shortcut ‘G’).

Using the Projection Master plugin is described >> here << but the general workflow goes like this: Rotate model, activate plugin to ‘drop’ model, paint colors/deformation, activate plugin to ‘pickup’ model. Repeat.

• Polypainting

Polypainting, like regular sculpting, relies on high polycounts to get fine details and even polygon distribution can be important if you are not able to subdivide enough times (although in 3.5R3 you can polypaint HD geometry). If you assign UVs to your model you can convert the polypaint into a texture map (Tool > Texture map > New From Polypaint).

To start polypainting simply enable Tool > Polypaint > Colorize or press Color > Fill Object which also enables Colorize.

Color > Fill Object has no effect on the assigned texture. What it does is fill the currently visible and unmasked polygons with the currently selected color and/or material (depending on the M / RGB / MRGB switches in the Draw palette).

I would strongly recommend polypainting for creating your textures. Apart from the added controls and flexibility afforded by using the regular brushes for painting, the workflow is much nicer. UVs can be updated at any time without destroying your texture (simply create a new texture from polypaint), Brush > Auto Masking offer many texturing possibilities ( polypainting by cavity depth is plain awesome), in 3.5R3 the Brush > Alpha and Texture > Polypaint Mode allows standard, colorize, multiply, lighten and darken painting.

As for Projection Master I cannot think of many benefits anymore. The workflow always tested my patience but with 3.5R3 the draw state is no longer remembered between drops and pickups which just adds to the frustration.

Hmm, that turned out longer than I intended