ZBrushCentral

Desperate for help polypainting

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

For the life of me, I cannot get Polypainting to work properly. No matter what I do, it does not work.
I tried this tutorial - file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Pixologic/ZBrush3/ZHelp/Painting_a_Head.htm

the results were that after clicking colorize, my model turned blue, and when I try to change the color or material to paint, the eyes subtool would change automatically, and nothing would affect the rest of the model.

No other tutorial seems to follow the steps I need to take, it’s like I’ve got some special trick version.

I’ve got separate installs for 3.1 and 3.5. I have a preference for 3.1 because I plan on outputting for use in UDK, so I’ll have use for Decimation Master.

I really need some help, I’m about ready to give up if I can’t get this to do something that should be ridiculously simple.

To sum up my issues: I can’t select materials or colors without it automatically changing either the entire model to it, or the eyes subtool.

The options available don’t seem to reflect the options in past tutorials, and even when I follow step-by-step the various instructions it still will not simply let me paint on the model, or paints in a flat, highly saturated bright blue.

Using projection master sometimes works, but then I can’t get back to the rotatable 3d editing view to continue work.

Thanks in advance for any advice! I’m loosing my mind.

#2

In the ZClassroom there is a video tutorial showing how to get started with polypainting. It is under Getting Started with ZBrush / Chapter Essentials / Continue scrollong right until you get to Polypainting. http://www.pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/
You need to fill each of your subtools with a colour/material as shown in the video so they don’t change colour when you change the colour in the colour palette.

Richard

#3

You can paint one subtool at a time. This may be confusing you.

So:

  1. Select the Subtool you wish to paint.
  2. Hide the other subtools by turning off their “eyeballs” in the subtool pallet. They’ll just confuse you.
  3. Turn “colorize” on. In 3.5R2, this is in the polypaint menu.
  4. At the top, make sure that neither zadd or zsub are selected.
  5. The buttons at the top marked “M”, “Mrgb” and “Rgb” set whether you’re going to paint a material, a material & color, or just color, respectively. Make sure “Rgb” is selected and the other two are not for now. You will just paint with color.
  6. Select your standard brush and the “dots” stroke.
  7. Select a color from the color picker.
  8. Check to make sure nothing is masked and texture is “off” (e.g. no texture map obscuring your polypaint and no mask to block your brush.)
  9. Now paint on your model with the standard brush. Color should transfer a bit like a wet paintbrush.

Try this and see if it works.

-K

#4

In ZBrush, you can change the material, or color of a model just by changing the color or material. That is why it changes. It allows you to not commit to a material or color just for sculpting. You can though.

Try this:

Open ZBrush 3.5 which I think has the sphere on start up. If not, load up a primitive and make it a polymesh 3d, or just load a ztl.

Select RGB mode from the top

Go to the color drop down menu at the top, select pure white, hit ‘fill object’. (or that’s how in 3.2)

Now, you can freely change your color and paint on the object.

So you can commit to a color this way as your base color, but also a material if you wish, or even both. You control it with Mrgb, Rgb, and M.

If you had selected M rather than RGB, you would have committed to the selected material. If you had MRGB selected, then the same goes for color AND material simultaneously.

So, go ahead and fill the same object in M mode with any material or metcap. Grab a brush, still in M mode. Select another material, your object wont change. However, now you can actually paint on different materials across one object.

One time I made a warrior with blood running down his arm. I had set his body with a material, and painted the skin. Then I selected MRGB, a shiny material (I think toy plastic) and a deep red color. I could then literally paint streaks and drops of blood on his arm that shined like they were wet against the skin like material.

The only difference between painting materials vs. painting colors is that colors can have a soft edge. At the time, where materials meet only creates a hard line. Still cool though.

Also, for the record, a material is different than a matcap (material capture). Matcaps have light baked in, so you can’t adjust the lights, and trying to will screw with the best render. You won’t see it in the canvas. Materials, however, are dependent on the lights. I bring this up because if I had used metcaps with the warrior, the light on the skin and specular highlights in the blood would not have matched. Using materials gave me control in that case, while using metcaps can make life easier in others.

I hope this clears up some of your questions. Keep at it and you’ll find yourself having a blast in no time.

#5

Awesome, thank you very much for the quick replies. I haven’t come this close to crying since Ninja Gaiden on the NES, and I only have the $1000 computer to punch, not my little brother.

I’m going to go through and try everyone’s suggestions, see what works, and report back with any weirdness.

#6

EDIT: Ok, James’ instructions almost kind of work. I followed it, had some trouble switching materials without changing the entire model to it. Using MRGB, then fill object, I could switch materials and colors with no problems.
BUT, if I loaded a material, it would replace whatever area I just painted. Just weird and unintuitive. But I think I’m figuring it out!

Kerwin, I was able to paint, but could not do anything with materials, the changes were always made to the entire model at once. That seems to be the big issue.
I figure I should be able to select my base material and color, then click Fill
Then change the material and color to whatever I want to paint on certain areas, but I simply can’t get it to do it.

Is there no way I can selectively use materials, or is that just a project-wide option?

This is definitely going to be a problem when I want to use different materials on the eyeballs, because when I select the eyes, then a material, the WHOLE model changes with it.

I think if I knew why materials were being so over-zealous, everything else would fall into place for me. THEN I can figure out normal maps, exporting… sigh…

Please let me know what I can do to make materials my slave, thanks!

#7

If the color or material is switching as you select them, then you haven’t filled the object.

Once you fill object with ‘m’ on, therefore filling it with the selected material, you can select another material and a brush (still with m) and paint a different material. That new material will also be embedded. So you can repeat this to create variance in the material on any object. You have to be in m mode to only paint a material. Mrgb to paints or fills both material and color. Rgb is only color. You will be able to paint countless materials and colors on each object this way with great control.

In other words, if you want to keep the selected material, AND paint color on it as well, then you need to select white, select mrgb, and hit color>fill object. Then you’re off. You can freely paint colors and materials. It won’t change as you select new ones.

Keep at it, you’ll get it :+1:

#8

You are replacing the material from the palette with the one you are loading. By default, it has a limit of 20 matcaps I think, so it will just replace whatever material you have selected with the new loaded one. Once you have replaced it, ZBrush cannot reference it, therefore it replaces the painted material on the model. You have to leave the matcaps you do need loaded in the palette.

So, I think there is a way to put many more materials in your palette, but the quick solution is to switch to a matcap that you aren’t going to use in the project, and then load the new one. Viola. I swear I’ve seen people have tons of them loaded in vids, but I think it can cause memory issues or some crap. Anyone know??

#9

Sweet, It’s really starting to make sense now.
There’s always some little combination of buttons that I don’t get.

I’m going to read up on polymeshes, see if I can understand where that fits in.

This clears a massive hurdle for me. With all these awesome tools like UDK available, I feel like I have an opportunity to finaly make something impressive, and with zbrush I would be able to create damn good looking models.

Thanks everyone!

#10

Polymeshes are, well, just polygon meshes. While the primitives within the tool palette, such as the helix or cool little blade, can be edited using parameters under tool>initialize. Each primitive has a different set of parameters. Some have curves that you can edit, but all have various sliders.

So primitives are what you need to look into. The make polymesh 3d button just commits a primitive to a mesh that can be sculpted, etc., but no longer manipulated using the initialize options.

Try it out, just draw in a primitive, enter edit mode, open the initialize tab and go to town :wink: The blade is badass. You can make countless shapes. Really cool feature.

Check out primitives here:
http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/features/15_3D_PrimitivesInitialize/