ZBrush Polypaint to Texture

Conk

Hello!

I'm currently working on my first character model and I've got a little stuck and I don't want to continue in case I go wrong, thought I'd pop a thread on here just to get an idea of my next step.

So far I have my character sculpt done and I've finished my retop. I have my retop in 3DS max as well as my decimated sculpt, I've just unwrapped the retopped model and done some test normal maps and AO renders.



So my next step is using spot light in ZBrush to paint photo reference on my sculpt, but I don't want to start this until I know what I'm doing will eventually go to the unwrap of my retopped model.

So my question is... How do I get the polypainted texture onto my retopped unwrap? Thanks in advance!

cryrid

If you're polypainting on top of the retopo'd mesh, then zbrush will convert it to a texture well enough.

If the polypaint is on a completely different mesh, I prefer using xnormal to transfer it.

Conk

Hmm, ok, so you're saying, I can just go ahead and start polypainting my sculpt, then when I'm done, take both objects (sculpt and retopped with UVs) into xNormal and render the vertex colours to the retopped UV coords... Brilliant! I may return if I struggle with xNormal (not used it before) but a part from that, thank you very much!

EDIT: Should I polypaint the original sculpt or the decimated sculpt?

CheeseOnToast

The original will have more verts to polypaint, go with that. You'll find that Xnormal can handle some pretty insane polycounts, so you may not even need to decimate your high poly.