Painting on Avatar mesh in Zbrush! some tips

I wanted to start this thread for anyone out there using Zbrush to paint directly on the SL avatar mesh.
I had the hardest time trying to figure out how I could paint across the different uv groups for seamless clothing, but I kept reading in the forums and zbrush help that having different textures on the diff. uv groups was not possible, that all uv's on an object would use the same texture.
Then I finally found something in the zbrush central forums about polypainting across the uv's instead of starting with a texture!

I am very new to zbrush, so anyone please correct me if I get something wrong here, but I think I finally figured out how to paint with polypaint on the Second Life Avatar mesh Ztool that Jason Welsh provided. Hmm, let's see, there is a link in this forum somewhere to his tutorials but I don't have the bookmark on this computer - try www.houseoftutorials.com. He's got lesson files that include a nicely fixed up SL avatar as a ztool.

This might be old news to everyone else... but if there are any other zbrush newbs out there pulling their hair out trying to figure out how to paint across multiple uvs, particularly for SL clothes making, maybe this will help
I did search,..and search and search! For info on this, but I think what I did find on other threads had an extra step? Most of the advice had you importing the avatar object again, but whenever I tried that, there was no longer an option to "switch" the Morph target.

So I tried something, thinking that maybe 3.1 negated having to do this step.
I imported the AV ztool from Jason's Second Life lesson files, Clicked Edit to put it in edit mode, clicked on uv groups (under polygroups), then brought the geometry down to the "1" level.
Then I clicked on save / create Morph Target. Then I brought the geometry back up to 4. I did not press on disable uv's, because I thought that if I just started painting on it that it would happen automatically - it did.

And I made sure the colorize option was checked.
I then clicked on tool>paintbrush. I made sure only rgb mode was selected, (so turn off zadd or zsubtract and also mrgb) I painted on the model.

Once I finished painting, I did not re-import my object again. Instead I turned the geometry down to '1' again, clicked "switch" morph, brought the geometry back up to 4, and then clicked on the upper body group (shift+control click). You should now see just the upper body.
I then clicked on the "color > texture" button in the texture palette, and there I saw the texture of my painting pop up in the texture window. I then went up to the texture menu at top, clicked on the vertical flip button, and hit 'export'. I saved it as a psd file.
I then went back to the model, control+shift clicked on the bottom portion now, and unclicked any texture that might be showing in the window so that the polypaint shows again. (The polypaint will be there still under any textures)
I again clicked on the color>texture button in the texture palette and repeated the export process.

Again, I am very new to Zbrush so I may have misspelled something or left something out, but I hope this helps anyone out there looking for this info. One of the things to remember too is that if you have a texture clicked, it will be covering the polypainting, but the polypainting is still there under the texture. That really confused me in the beginning! I don't think you can use some of the more advanced brushes with this method, like blur or the like, but for putting down a very basic design and having it match at the seams this is great! Especially for the stripes I was working on today

So, now I'm excited to try more Just wish the projection master would work with multiple uv's, but that isn't possible,... is it? If it is, oh pretty please someone post about it! I have looked thru tutorials, this forum, done searches, but still sometimes the particular info I need is just not easily found.
And thank you Jason (Cannedmushrooms right?) for all your tutorials and especially the nice SL avatar model as a ztool.

*planning next fairy outfit in zBrush and flitting away*

Now, I think it is possible to paint with a texture - but I haven't tried that yet. Does anyone out there know how to paint with a texture using the polypainting?

Aha! I found the link to the tutorial and SL lesson files - when you go to the page, go all the way down to the video that is second to the last:

http://www.houseoftutorials.com/page2.html

Violaine,

Thank you very much for posting this! I'll try your steps later tonight because as many times as I've tried to follow Jason's videos I have failed to produce the same results. I'm a newbier newb than you so I hope I'll be able to follow the instructions on your post.

In addition to painting on the SL avatar in zbrush, have you tried to transfer a texture from an existing picture on the SL avatar or the SL sphere? There's an amazing video on the zbrushcentral site that shows how to do this and was the main reason for my trying out zbrush but it's way over my head and I can't duplicate any part of it myself.

Thanks again!

I think you can paint with textures using this method, but I haven't gotten to try it yet. I had to stop for a bit as I had been on the computer during all my spare time last week trying to figure things out and I was starting to go cross-eyed! LOL

I hope to be able to try it out tonight.
I think, that maybe you use the rectangular selection tool to paint with a texture, but I'll have to investigate some more.
That would come in very handy!

Violaine:

I'll number the steps of your post one by one to avoid confusion as to which step exactly I have some questions on:

The zbrush tools referred to here are the ones Jason Welsh has made available in his www.houseoftutorials.com site that you link in your previous post. He has the male and female SL avatar, with UV maps grouped for different areas as they are in the SL available templates.

OK, here we go:

1:
Tool > Load Tool > SL_Female_grouped.ZTL (this is one of Jason's zbrush files)

Notes:
You say "I imported the AV ztool". I assume you meant you loaded the tool like I describe above, not imported an .obj file, right?

2:
Click Edit or press T to put the avatar in Edit mode (3D editing).

Notes:
After clicking on Edit mode the model can also be turned around because it's drawn backwards at first. Also, the model is drawn with the default red clay material. In Jason's video and in all tutorial videos I've seen for texturing they all start with a model with a white colored material on. Is that maybe because the red clay material is a default only for version 3.1? Is it maybe necessary to change the starting model material to the FastShader one, that seems to be a special kind of material for zbrush but I don't know in what way yet, if it is.

3:
Tool > Polygroups > Uv Groups

Notes: Is there something supposed to happen here, any visual feedback that Uv Groups are now active or defined or selected or anything at all? When I click the Uv Groups button there's no indication in the UI that something has changed.

4:
"Bring the geometry down to 1" Tool > Geometry > ?

Notes: When the SL avatar is first drawn, when starting with the zbrush tool on step 1 above, there's no increased geometry. It's at its default level of 1 already, no additional division has taken place to increase the number of polygons on the model to then bring it down to 1. Here I will assume that you may have drawn the model earlier and had increased its geometry already for other things and you had to bring it down again to 1. So I'm leaving the model at its default level and continue.

5:
Tool > Texture > Colorize

6:
Tool > Paintbrush

Notes: Do you mean to change the tool from the SL_Female_grouped to the zbrush 2.5D tool called Paintbrush? When I do that zbrush asks me to exit edit/transform mode and therefore lose the ability to keep on 3D-editing the model. However if I do exit edit mode then I can't continue with the rest of your steps where you increase geometry and using morphs because the model is not 3D editable any more.


So, this is where I'll stop the walkthrough until there's some clarification on the above step. Thanks again for your help and when you get a minute please chime in.


By the way, this is the video on zbrush I was talking about from their site: Texturing with Photo Reference
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=33715

Hello there
Okay, I'm going to copy what you wrote and add my notes:

1:
Tool > Load Tool > SL_Female_grouped.ZTL (this is one of Jason's zbrush files)

Notes:
You say "I imported the AV ztool". I assume you meant you loaded the tool like I describe above, not imported an .obj file, right?
Yes, correct, I loaded the zbrush tool that Jason provided.


2:
Click Edit or press T to put the avatar in Edit mode (3D editing).

Notes:
After clicking on Edit mode the model can also be turned around because it's drawn backwards at first.
(Yes)
Also, the model is drawn with the default red clay material. In Jason's video and in all tutorial videos I've seen for texturing they all start with a model with a white colored material on. Is that maybe because the red clay material is a default only for version 3.1? Is it maybe necessary to change the starting model material to the FastShader one, that seems to be a special kind of material for zbrush but I don't know in what way yet, if it is.

Yes, you can choose the material in the materials palette, but with this method the material qaulitites (such as the shininess, shadows, etc.) will not be transferred to the texture, so it's only the rgb colors you are going to paint with (as far as I know)


3:
Tool > Polygroups > Uv Groups

Notes: Is there something supposed to happen here, any visual feedback that Uv Groups are now active or defined or selected or anything at all? When I click the Uv Groups button there's no indication in the UI that something has changed.

I haven't noticed anything changing either.

4:
"Bring the geometry down to 1" Tool > Geometry > ?

Notes: When the SL avatar is first drawn, when starting with the zbrush tool on step 1 above, there's no increased geometry. It's at its default level of 1 already, no additional division has taken place to increase the number of polygons on the model to then bring it down to 1. Here I will assume that you may have drawn the model earlier and had increased its geometry already for other things and you had to bring it down again to 1. So I'm leaving the model at its default level and continue.

Yes, when saving the morph targets it should be at the lowest level, but when you start painting you want the highest.


5:
Tool > Texture > Colorize

6:
Tool > Paintbrush

Notes: Do you mean to change the tool from the SL_Female_grouped to the zbrush 2.5D tool called Paintbrush?
Yes.
When I do that zbrush asks me to exit edit/transform mode and therefore lose the ability to keep on 3D-editing the model. However if I do exit edit mode then I can't continue with the rest of your steps where you increase geometry and using morphs because the model is not 3D editable any more.

When it asks you that, choose not to exit, and just keep painting - you should be able to keep painting at this point.

Now, I've gone back into Zbrush to touch up my model, and noticed that this time, I could open my saved ztool with the pixol paint embedded in it (I think it saves automatically when you save your tool) and paint or re-paint. I actually was still able to click on the individual polygroups / uv map without having to do anything with the morph target menu!
I don't know if it's only because I'd already done this with the model / ztool I'm using, but, maybe the morph palette is not neccessary for 3.1?

I'm going to go watch the video in the link you posted

The adventure continues



1:
Tool > Load Tool > SL_Female_grouped.ZTL
Draw the model on the stage.


2:
Click on Edit or press T to enter Edit mode


3:
Tool > Polygroups > Uv Groups

Notes:
Here you say to bring the geometry down to 1. It's already at 1 - there was no increase in geometry yet.

Are you picking material and/or texture at this point or are you leaving the model at its default red clay look?


4:
Tool > Morph Target > StoreMT


5:
Tool > Geometry > Divide 3 times to bring Sdiv up to 4

Notes: Here you say to bring the geometry "back up to 4" so this is where I increased the geometry of the model for the first time.


6:
Tool > Texture > Colorize -- turn Rgb ON, Zadd and Zsub OFF


7:
Tool > Tool icon and pick the 2.5D brush: Paintbrush.
In the dialog window that opens where zbrush asks to switch out of edit mode pick: Do Not Switch

Notes:
Since there was no switch the tool brush has not been changed to paintbrush so I'm not sure what was the purpose of that step.

I did go ahead though and painted the model with a stroke of blue color - the model is still at the 3D Edit mode - just to continue with the process. The color does go on the model (no texture or alpha has been selected yet either).


8:
Tool > Geometry > move Sdiv slider to the left, down to level 1


9:
Tool > Morph Target > Switch ?

Notes:
The Switch button is not available. Only the DelMT is active and the two sliders below it.



I've gone through the above steps a few times and the Morph Target button becomes active after Step 4 above, when the first morph is created, but becomes inactive when the geometry is increased on the next step.

Did I miss something in the above steps?

I appreciate your patience with this but it's probably the last attempt I'm doing to see if I can find a way to use this program even in a small part of its potential. It seems like if I breath the wrong way and if I even move the mouse the wrong direction everything goes berserk in zbrush.

I wonder how people learn this program since it has a unique way of doing 3d modeling and texturing and there's no comprehensive documentation other than scattered tutorials of partial features all over the place by users who more often than not want to impress their peers rather than explain what they're doing for someone who's not already familiar with the program

Anyhow, thanks again for your effort and if this is getting to tiring I'll try to go over the help files again and see if I missed any other basic instructions on applying textures.

I think this link will point you in a better direction for painting with a texture. I just tried it out and it's working

http://www.zbrush.info/docs/index.php/Tutorial:ZProject_Texturing

Okay, big news flash!

I thought I would try polypainting on the AV without even touching the Morph target palettes and guess what - it works w/out that!!!

So, you can basically just start painting on the ztool of the AV that Jason provided w/out having to save morph targets. I tried it using his model straight from his files and it worked fine! So skip the morph target steps, and once you're done painting just click on color>text and you have your texture to export!! Yay!
I really am not sure why this isn't mentioned in any of the zbrush forums - everyone is probably still trying to use the more complicated way not realizing that you don't need all the steps.
Am I right?
If anyone sees an error in what I'm saying please correct me, but I think this is correct.

Also, if you have mrgb mode selected, I think when you save color>text it will bake in the shadows and material - much better results than using the projection master. In fact, I'm wondering what the benefits of projection master are?
Anyone?

I think that last post was wrong - it was very late at night when I posted it and I may have been having some crazy delusional dream - I don't think you can bake the shadows and materials into the polypaint to export the texture w/out using projection master.
What I should have said was, that when I used PM this time, it did not ask to make a texture for me, it baked the shadow/material/colors into the polypaint.
So, I used projection master with color, materials and shadows turned on, simply turning it on and picking it right back up. Once for the front and once for the back.
Once I was done with that I then selected on each polygroup and then finally clicked on color>texture. It seemed to work pretty well this way, the seams were not as bad using this method.

Seems like Jason Welsh's tutorial is no longer there. http://www.houseoftutorials.com/page2.html is a dead link

EDIT::
He uploaded them onto Veoh.com under the name Canned Mushrooms. Unfortunately, its Veoh. Which means you may have to sign up to get ahold of them, or even download their program.

Part 1: http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1824093GkqrBCKE
Part 2: http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1824095sYyA4a83

Another thing. He said he "cleaned the model up" in Maya, it looks like. To make it better for ZBrush. He said something about how ZBrush would actually damage the default secondlife.com avatar .obj mesh. Does anyone have a copy of the "cleaned" one? Is it necessary? The first thing I thought was "How am I supposed to correctly color an avatar when the mesh has been tampered with? Wouldn't that make it even more of a mess?".

Either way, I'd really like to get my hands on the cleaned up versions he made. He said they are packed with the video, which I'm assuming was on his website before he took it down. I sent Jason an email and a message via second life in attempts to contact him. Maybe he'll send me the .zbj files

Also, if anyone can send them to me at nerolus-at-gmail-dot-com I'd be greatly appreciated. Feel free to contact me inworld too!

WARNING!!!
I wouldn't downlod Veoh. For some reason, I thought it was kinda fishy. Now every time I open my Videos folder, explorer.exe crashes. Other people that run a live antivirus have the same problem and it tells them malicious code is being run. So, just warning you. Veoh are bastards.

I believe on the Veoh pages where Jason has his video tutorials there's also a button called *download options* and when you click it, the applet opens up to reveal a link to download the original .MOV file by *right click - save as*. I've saved most of his videos this way to hard disk without the need to use the Veoh player or sign-up.

Ahh, I see.

Has anyone been able to get a copy of his zbrush avatar files? It looks as if the email from his website is dead, I receive an error back from the daemon saying it wouldn't go through.

Anybody?

The avatars mentioned in Jason's tutorials were only available to paid members in his members only section. Now that his site is defunct and only the videos are hosted elsewhere, I'm wondering if he may be agreeable to the files being publicly shared. I do have the exercise files for those lessons including the meshes but am hesitant to post anything until confirmation from Jason is obtained. If you really want them I'd suggest contacting him through Veoh.

Jason's avatars weren't pay only, I downloaded them with his tutorial while his site was working. If anyone wants them, feel free to message me in world.

This link works for me today::

http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/cleanmodels.zip

As far as painting ON the avatar, I don't know how some people get it to work.

I mean I do, but I don't.

I understand how to do it, I have no issues USING zbrush. However, when I paint on the avatar, be it Jason's meshes or Nam's meshes, my lines are jagged and entirely unusable. The mesh themselves are not right, so when I paint across them instead of getting results that will look good in Second Life, I only get results that are usable in Zbrush. Once they are IN Second Life, the perfect lines are jagged and horrible.

You should be able to JUST open up any model, select colorize, and start painting, using the same method you use to sculpt, keeping in mind that most of the brush types will NOT work for this so use the Std brush. Also, keep in mind to turn off Zadd and Zsub to prevent any sculpt work from taking place that you didn't intend for (but don't forget, sculpting the clothing is the best way to get wrinkles that you can later bake into the texture using projection master.
Projection master is a funny beast. With projection master used right, you don't need to do anything but drop your object multiple times from multiple angles to get a really nice lighting on your texture. If you use projection master wrong, it's going to give you some really nasty results, with lines and seams that are extremely hard to play with. Make sure you don't havea texture sitting on your object before you bake your object using projection master. Make sure your object's texture is at least part of the color before you run projection master over it. That's the way I found of making sure I never get bad projection master results.

You can most certainly paint on the SL avatars in Zbrush. There are a few different techniques. Polypainting which is painting directly on the Ztool only happens when you delete your UV's. I spent a LONG time thinking that you couldn't do that, but you can actually re import them. When I start a new project I delete the UV's right off the bat, and make sure that colorize is on. The key to this is exporting a copy of your Ztool as an OBJ. You must have it on the lowest division before you save it. That was when ever you are ready to export your textures or use projection master all you need to do is drop your avatar to the lowest division once more, and import your saved OBJ version. This will not replace the Ztool you are using, it will only bring your UV's back.

Anaema,
I haven't had to save the mesh out as an object for the painting to work. Actually I paint using polypaint on the AV in the highest resolution, and then choose "color to texture" to create the texture file. There might still be a few jagged lines, but for the most part it is pretty smooth. I do think you will always have to take the texture back into Photoshop or something to smooth things out. Making sure there is no texture applied to begin with of course.
the only big problem I have been having, is that the seams seem to 'shrink' once the texture has been exported from Zbrush. I do hit the "fix seams' button, but it always seems to leave the texture with not enough of a seam. I know that Jason said he had fixed the AV mesh and made it thinner, I wonder if that is what is causing it?
Does anyone know if there is another AV mesh file that doesn't cause this seam issue?

Violaine,
Nammsour was kind enough to tell me that UV map on the SL avatars are very "tight" and SL samples about 3 or 4 pixels outside the template seams. Try downloading the free Solidify filters from www.flamingpear.com. This will fill all transparency with the closest color to your seams... hard to explain for me. Their are a few tutorials on the net about using them for seam problems. And yes, you will always have to fix the seams in PS. I'm not sure if Jason's AV causes the problem. I think it's just the UV maps that we are stuck with for now.


Edit. By the way, what resolution have you been working with as far as the AV? I still haven't figured out how that translates to the resolution or the textures.