Zbrush Help please :)

Hello all i have been working with zbrush for awhile now i have the sculpting part down ok but my problem comes to texturing i see beautiful sculptures with awesome textures and i have watched all of vlads videos ( thanks vlad ) but that was only for copying textures from one thing to another which i cant always rely on at all i was wondering if there is anyway possible to texture my things nicely with a plugin or something i seen one video that had a guy putting his sculpty picture sort of into photoshop and doing it on there but it wasnt in english and i have tryed to use draw tool and add/sub off and drawing on my sculptys that way but they come out horrible and bad detail thanks all


p.s yes i did not use grammar at all sorry for the run on sentence

i am also in game as we speak if you wish to IM me there thanks!!!

Blah guess no one knows ah well

There are 2 1/2 D plugins for Photoshop and other grapgics software.

GOOGLE "2 1/2d texture" should find something.

Sorry.

Sometimes you'll go a whole 6 hours or more b4 getting an answer

I was asleep, even

Try Zapplink:

http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/zapplink/

It's a free plugin from Pixologic. It lets you use Photoshop (or another 2D editor) to texture in Zbrush.

Here's a Zapplink tutorial:
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-use-zapplink-with-zbrush-3-1-261251/


If you just want to use the 2.5D tools that Zbrush has (and it has nice ones), use Projection Master, which is part of the basic Zbrush package. Here's a tutorial on how to use that:
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-use-projection-master-in-zbrush-261250/

Shame on you.




Filter application too? I need to spend a bit more time on Pixologic's site.

It's not quite up there with Photoshop CS4's ability to use the brushes directly on the model. It works a bit like Projection Master. Zapplink takes a 2D "snapshot" of your Ztool, then opens that picture in your designated 2D editor. You texture away, then when done, it projects that texture onto your model in Zbrush. It's best to stick to the centre of the image and use several rotations/snapshots to get the job done. If you try to paint around the edges, you'll get falloff error.

I'm probably making this seem more complicated than it is. It's fairly intuitive once you see it being used.

Makes sense to me, I usually do like Vlad suggests, I save my texture then bake a new one. I send both of those to PIXIA (supports PS plugins flawlessly) and I stay away from the sides and the top and bottom when adding detail. Your way allows for a lot more versatility. Add detail anywhere you like as long as you have the proper angle. LOVE it

Thank you

Where did OP go, he better not be sleeping!!!!

thank you guys ill look into it and i wasnt asleep just angry so i gave up and got off lol

i am not sure whats the difference with the 2.5D thing you mentioned because i am still pretty noob to all this sculpting stuff though i have modeling them down a bit ok its the texture part that confuses me so much haha i am just wanting to be able to get same results that i see most sculptys with great textures have even if it takes practice just want to know zbrush is able to do that with secondlife because i dont want to have to learn another program

2.5D is basically a 2D image that looks 3D. If you drop a Ztool to the canvas by leaving edit mode and "drawing" the tool onto the canvas, what you are looking at is 2.5D. You can't rotate it, but it responds to light sources, simulated depth of field with fog, that sort of thing.

There are a fair number of tools in Zbrush like the sphere brush, deco brush, alpha brush etc that do really fun things in the 2.5 D world. I highly recommend just playing with them (look for them in your tools palette). You might want to watch this tutorial:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2648632/2_5d_brushes_zbrush_tutorials_zclassroom_com/

But what does this mean for the sculpty world? Well, you can use Projection Master to drop the Ztool you're texturing to the canvas temporarily. Then you can paint away on that texture with all the texturing brushes, including the 2.5D ones. Watch the Projection Master tutorial to see how all that is done.

Zbrush does have some wonderful texturing tools. I'd highly recommend finishing the texture in a 2D editor like Photoshop, however. A dedicated painting program will still outperform Zbrush's paint tools, at least once you've created your base texture. Again, Zapplink will help considerably, and I recommend learning to use it.

i watched the zapp one and projection master i understood the zapp one but not the projection master lol zapp one seems to do fine for i do fairly well in photoshop i think it will be decent enough for now thank you very very much ))))))))))




eep i seem to be having a problem im not sure what i downloaded the zapp and im running cs3 extended i tryed to bake a character sheet and when i did it opened pshop but nothing showed then i tryed going to the zapp in document and did that as well it said opening zapp and such it opens photoshop but yet again nothings showing in photoshop D': know how to fix this?

still no answer..

can someone please help me with the issue above i have not been able to create anything due to it

Snow, please, just post a question. No need to "bump" the thread unless it goes for a day or so. People here are happy to help, but we aren't full time tech support, either.

So, you were trying to get a multiple view PSD file of your image and it didn't export to Photoshop, correct? To be honest, I've never used Zapp to bake a character sheet, it just doesn't seem very useful to me (I like to tweak lights and all that individually for each image). Is Zapp working for you other than that? If so, it might just be a memory issue-- Zbrush can be a bit of a RAM hog. Try closing all applications other than Zbrush and Photoshop. If it still doesn't work, just do what I do and take each "snapshot" individually.

sorry didnt mean to double post and it was about 1-2 days and yeah when i press the zapp which it should bake it and put it into photoshop, photoshop opens but there will be nothing there im not sure if its cause im on cs3 or something but it just doesnt work and as for taking snapshots i dont know what you mean about that

By "snapshot" I mean working on only one view at a time, not a whole "character sheet".

Here's the basic workflow (I'm skipping over a fair number of details here, just checking to see that you've got the basic idea).

1) Make a nice, high poly Ztool to polypaint. Use at least a few hundred thousands points or you'll get blurry results.

2) When you want to use the 2.5D tools or Zapplink, start up Projection Master and drop the tool to the canvas.

3) To use the tools in Photoshop (instead of the Zbrush tools), click on Zapplink in the document palette (the one on top, not on the side). Click "ok" when it asks you if you want to use it. It will open your image in Photoshop. Paint on that image, then save it. Open up Zbrush and click where it asks you if you want to return to Zbrush.

4) When you are done using the 2.5D tools/Zapplink, click on Projection Master and select "Pickup Now".


Is that what you've been doing?

yeah i didnt make awhole character sheet just faced it where i wanted and went to zapp and hit ok and ok and it opened pshop but the image didnt go in and when i go back to zbrush it says continue editing or something or to come back to zbrush

Did you drop it to the canvas first using Projection Master? If it is still in edit mode, there is no image to transfer.

Once you get the image into Photoshop and finish working on it, that's when you click on the return to Zbrush (it will also give you a menu asking which edits you wish to keep)

nope didnt touch projection master maybe thats why? all i did was sculpt and when i was ready to text i went to the zapp after dividing it up

Aha. There we go. Won't work unless you drop the image to the canvas. Projection Master lets you do that AND pick it up again (otherwise, you can't return to edit mode)

Turn on Projection Master, drop to canvas, turn on Zapp, texture, save the image, renter Zbrush, pick it up using PM.

just tryed still same problem i dropped it went to zapp link it asked if i wanted faded etc and i just clicked ok before i did the projection master thing and tryed it asked to enable coloryize polygon or something i clicked to enable it and tryed but still soon as i hit ok it loads up photoshop and nothing appears then when i go to zbrush it says ok ( unchanged ) or continue editing




i give up i cant even try to build when i want to cause of stupid problems like this its no wonder why i always quit secondlife

Well, I honestly don't know what to tell you. If you're following all the steps, it will work. I just double checked right now to make sure I wasn't missing an operation.

If you're feeling frustrated, what I would recommend is taking a step back from Secondlife sculpting for a moment and really learn to use Zbrush, including all the texturing and 2.5 D tools. Just get comfortable with it first, just having fun making things. I'd highly recommend the book "Introducing Zbrush" by Keller. The tutorials on the Pixologic site are also invaluable.

You paid good money for that program, take a deep breath and come back to it in a couple of days. In six months, you'll wonder what was giving you so much trouble

i have zbrush down i can sculpt the models well etc its projection master that i dont like the brushes dont suit it for me im more of a photoshopper



gonna reinstall zbrush see if that helps






reinstalled and now its working sorry for the trouble and thanks for the help!!!

I am also learning zbrush and all your tips are invaluable (so thanks to Snow, too, who asked
I will download zapplink, hoping that it works with gimp, too. I'm trying sculpted clothes, not the easiest thing lol... but I'll get there one day

Oh, good, glad to hear I was of some help And I won't lie, Snow, Zbrush can be glitchy. I've never had to reinstall, but I've had more than one screaming moment when I've ended up having to restart it (and lost 20 odd minutes of work). Save often, and try to minimize the number of other programs you're using at the same time.

I wasn't trying to be dismissive when I suggested spending some more time with the texturing brushes. Really, once you get the hang of them, they can be quite powerful. And I know you don't care for Projection Master, but it really will open a whole new set of brushes with unique abilities. Besides, sometimes, when I'm banging my head against the proverbial wall with one project, the best thing to do seems to be to work on something else for a while.

I don't know if it will help, but I wrote a mini-tutorial on using the brushes in Zbrush. Nothing detailed, but it should give you the basic idea:

http://labicyclette.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-skull-in-zbrush-texturing.html

i will def look at it its not that i dont care for it i am not sure of the power of projection master i tryed it and it was just really hard/weird and didnt seem like id be able to use it to make anything good but if i can i will learn it ;D