polypaint a low poly model in zbrush?

kmccarthy197

So I'm not sure if this is possible, but I've been really liking the polypaint and spotlight options in zbrush and was hoping theres a way to do it on low poly models (under 3k tris). I haven't found a way to get it to work yet so I was hoping someone might be able to help me out or give me a definite 'no it can't be done'.

Joopson

Not technically. You need lots of divisions to use polypaint, since it works on a per-face lever.
You could, though, turn off "smt" in the smoothing options, and divide it a bunch of times until you can paint in the details you'd like, then bake them down to the low. I think that'd work the best. You could also start a texture in photoshop, and bring it into zbrush, but then I think you can only paint on it in the projection master.

Awful example with a bad UV map and nonsense texture, just to show it can be done:

thomasp

it can totally be done if you first tesselate your mesh in such a way that you don't distort the silhouette when subdivising (in max the tesselate-modifier set to quads is helpful). then import in zbrush, subdivide as needed for the resolution you're going for and paint away->convert polypaint to texture->flip&export texture.

i used to do this all the time until we picked up mudbox for 3d painting (much better suited for this purpose).

kmccarthy197

Thanks guys, I'll have to give this a try. The main thing I like is being able to paint directly on the model as opposed to flat textures in Photoshop

poopipe

if you're in max why not just use viewport canvas? its really rather good

but yeah - if not just subdivide the model loads of times with smoothing turned off