Polypaint a Head in ZBrush - Color Theory

[@JoeBissell]

your channel has been a great help for me as a self taught game dev you've filled holes in my practices that are very helpful!

[@CircusOfBedlam]

You guys are fantastic. By far the best zbrush content. I’m a complete noob and love your style of teaching.

[@DStash]

this is the best art channel I've found on YT as far as content and practicality. You guys are really entertaining to listen to and you concisely go over critical information.

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks a lot! Really appreciate it :D

[@Makakogod]

I totally agree 🤝

[@rafikiidendrophile5638]

I'd love to see those color zones for the entire body. It's incredibly helpful.

[@mickseegobin]

Every episode is filled with so much amazing content, and love the tone of these videos. Great great job guys, thank you.

[@DannyMac3d]

Thanks for another great video! Interesting thoughts on texture resolution. Made me realize I've been falling into a "bigger means better" trap. Any thoughts on best practices to calculate required texture resolution?

[@josephbrandenburg4373]

I think he was just talking about Poly Painting (or vertex colors), and I don't entirely agree. If you are baking to a UV mapped model, then chances are you want to keep editing in a painting app or Photoshop or whatever you choose to use, in which case the level of detail should be based on how far you plan to place the camera. Moreover, if your model has any wasted space in the UV, you'll need higher resolution to get detail for every vertex. I have been working on a full character which I decided to unwrap into a single map (Blender doesn't support UDIMs at this time.) and I have to crank the resolution to get clean detail all over the face.

[@FlippedNormals]

Hey Danny! For me it really depends on what it is you're doing and how close to camera it is. For a model like this, it's a complete waste to do more than 2k, simply because the polycount isnt high enough to support it. Sure, there might be unwasted parts of the UV, as not all parts of the UV map is being utilised. That said, like we show in this video, the texture is incredibly soft, as it's all hand painted. You can see the same if you export a displacement map; the map is really super soft. If you're doing really stylized work, really dont need a lot of resolution compared to if you're doing photo realism, as you then mostly want areas with softer colors and some patterns, while in realism, you need just a lot higher fidelity in your map. Instead of working up the resolution (above 4k), I prefer to split it into multiple UDIMs. Remember that a 4k map is 4x bigger than a 2k map; 4million pixels vs 16 - and an 8k map has 64 million pixels. To Josephs point, you can always upres your map in Photoshop if needed afterwards. if I was rendering this model directly, you'd never see the difference between a 2k and a 4k map - as the map is just so soft. I usually overshoot my work a bit, just so I know I'm not working at the breaking point always. So in short: - Depends on how close to camera - How complex the texture is. Let me know if this helps! /Henning

[@DannyMac3d]

Thanks to both of you for the responses. I also spoke to Vince Dromart about it and from what he said I'm realising is that as well as how close up it is, it also depends on the rsize/res of the final image - which seems really obvious and something I definitely should have picked up on by now! It makes a lot of sense now and I think my workflow will improve as a result - Thanks a lot!

[@BoldBrainWay]

Thank you! I will be adding this to my learning materials!

[@ledo.imanghorbani]

I really apreciate your good channel because the movies are so useful and I did'nt find this tricks that you share in almost any other channel in youtube. so thank you

[@pmvac]

Hi guys - first of all, great video! :) I thought I'd mention a book I personally really like regarding this topic :ZBrush Character Creation: Advanced Digital Sculpting, by Scott Spencer. The chapter he has on this approaches a lot of what you're doing there and has some great tips and tricks as well, so I thought I'd mention it. Keep up the good work!

[@thanostimestone6813]

So far great reference for this. I was watching a how to mix oils to get a skin tone. So many colors violet/reds/greens/yellows. It made my head spin.. thank god for layers in zbrush.

[@HiredGunGames]

Awesome tutorial! They did make a Paint only brush the hotkeys is B(Brush)PA(Brush type)

[@dodruku]

Thank you for constantly widening my horizons. Awesome video.

[@Virtual_Production]

Super helpful guys! Thank you.

[@Dumbanana00]

Once again, really enjoy your videos. And once again, this is something I can immediately take into action on a project I'm working on--though using Substance Painter and clone brush. Thanks!

[@FlippedNormals]

Fantastic! Glad it's useful.

[@tionanima]

just what i need at the right time ! I swear you guys read my mind every upload

[@xMarrilliamsx]

Another excellent video! Thanks for sharing! :)

[@stanimirgeorgiev.87]

In ZBrush you also can project with spotlight tool. otherwise good tutorial. But i think you can use more of ZBrush ways of painting.

[@jps8678]

I am new using Zbrush and looked lots of sculptures and I noticed they always look like sculpture even when painted. I guess that is the point because it might be impossible to get softness and luminosity like paintitngs. But they look so good in that 3D genre and want to learn.

[@kostasfassoulas6915]

I wonder if this technique is applicable in real miniature painting... Is there any tutorial specifically testing polypainting before 3d printing and real miniature painting? I mean any specific differences to have in mind?! Thnx!

[@y.s.9881]

hahahah I use skin shader or just 1-2 color to colorize skin and I feel there is something wrong espesially when I see more advanced artist's colorizing. Thank you for explaining how you do this, I'll try it in my next work

[@atomicshrimpFT]

how did you get symmetrical topo? When i remesh with symmetrie both sides are also the same sahpewise. I loose all my detail on one side

[@mae2309]

Great stuff!!. Am gonna watch this now.. Thanks keep them coming

[@FlippedNormals]

Great, thank you!

[@gherat]

Can you add a tattoo for example, on a different layer? And do some blending modes on it?

[@FlippedNormals]

In ZBrush the layer system is pretty old, so no blending modes unfortunately. I really dislike using layers for polypainting. When I do advanced textures, I'll use Painter or Mari. /H

[@yolandawang9046]

Hi, I would like to ask, the character style Polypaint color, will take into account the lighting and shadow? Will it be like 2D color in 7 order: Highlight - light - intermediate - Chiaroscind - dark - reflective - projection? Can I draw the 7th order color with front light and then BPR render?

[@louismonsef7173]

@FlippedNormals Where can we see the final render ?

[@nueva_construccion]

Muy buen video. Gracias!!!

[@OneImmortalStudios]

It is so weird how you guys always seem to post something new that is relevant to what I'm needing to do currently for Uni work. Any upcoming videos on dissertation writing?

[@FlippedNormals]

Haha! Glad we can help. Best tip for dissertation writing is to do the bare minimum you have to do in order to pass and spend all your time on your reel and portfolio (if you're in CG, that is).

[@miguela.migallon5055]

For this kind of work which is better zbrush or substance painter? Thanks!!!

[@ahmedH-v6n]

Great tutorial, thank you!

[@jurandfantom]

there is my like share and subscribe! I'm so glad that I found Your channel.

[@NakedSageAstrology]

Thank you.

[@alexport5419]

Googled Purescans as I thought it was another texturing resource site, was pleasantly surprised

[@blenderratt3692]

Great information. I wish that you could do one for Blender to see which tools you'd use. Thx.

[@thomasrodda3677]

Would you recommend painting in zbrush or is there a better program to do it in?

[@josephbrandenburg4373]

I think your final product for the video looks a lot like a subsurface map. I'm interested in your views on how to create maps for multi-layer skin shaders. I have been working with a shader that has three layers, deep scattering, middle scattering, and shallow scattering (subdermal, dermal, epidermal). Each layer has an albedo map and a 'weight' map that essentially multiplies the albedo. I like doing things this way because it makes it easier to create a lot of detail and depth, since I can alter the color in many subtle ways. Since each texture has its own set of details, and each layer scatters the light in a unique way, it's easy to make tiny details as well as larger changes in tone. I'd like to know what you're workflow is for skin shaders. How do you separate the albedo and the subsurface textures? Do you use a diffuse shader anywhere, or do you layer SSS?

[@artoras9748]

Hi i have some questions

[@aprendendocomgames]

Do you guys prefer texturing/paint in Zbrush or in Substance Painter?

[@new-mech]

This comes just right in time! Mari follow-up tutorial incoming? :P

[@FlippedNormals]

You bet! No promises as to when, but I'm definitely eager to do Mari tutorials soon. /H

[@nxtlvl2116]

u guys are the best

[@FlippedNormals]

Thank you! :)

[@devasissamantry9324]

what is the difference between poly painting (painting on 3d model) and texturing the model which one is used in the industry game and movies and why so

[@FlippedNormals]

Polypainting is painting directly on the verts, which means that every single vertex has a color. This is really useful for concepting, but it would be far too heavy for production, as you'd essentially need one material per polygon. It's also tired to the polycount. In a texture map, youre painting directly on a map, which is completely independent from the polycount. You could have an 8k map on a single polygon for instance.

[@zaiobaio4957]

Hotkey C select meterial color not the one ive polypainted.How to fix?

[@martintse958]

really helpful！

[@AndaDeng]

Hey how about painting a creature that has a different tone? Does that color theory still work?

[@nilifaraji9703]

Big thank you👻

[@FlippedNormals]

Thanks for watching!

[@ADI-xp4qe]

Will you ever do any full game character from scratch course? :)

[@sculpo3d520]

is standard better than paint brush?

[@murrowboy]

It's just so confusing because Zbrush has texture painting too when it's for sculpting. I do all my stuff in substance painter, but the overlap can get confusing as hell. What does Zbrush texturing have to offer Substance or Mari doesn't?

[@heloizad]

great vide, thanks for that!

[@chaztrammell123]

Hello gentlemen, how do you dock PureRef in the window so that it doesn't disappear when you click inside of zbrush?? For some reason when I do that it minimizes PureRef.

[@FlippedNormals]

Right Click - Mode - Always On Top

[@RexArtTv]

How would you rig and animate in Maya after zbrush?

[@famanxdreal6337]

Thank for tutorial.

[@santiagosuarez8479]

Awesome guys, i am in the next step, which is exporting to keyshot. How do I export polypaint and mesh to keyshot? thanks guys!!

[@rishikeshnayudu6412]

hey how do i restore my matcap materials in zbrush in the materials palette..?

[@Oldduketree007]

Think we counted around 10 diffrent solid colours in the skin of a caucasian and a variation of those 10 was a bit high for us to count. You can say Humans are a bit like Rainbows we got alot of colours in us it also changes on if we are cold or hot.

[@SkyyWalkerr28]

30:44 how do you UV something like that in Zbrush?

[@teamagile4035]

There's a zplugin for that, in the top ribbon menu

[@douka3993]

awesome, any plans on future courses??

[@FlippedNormals]

Oh, you bet! We are definitely doing texturing tutorials in the future.

[@culibarri7]

FlippedNormals awesome!

[@rlsvid]

When I export my Polypainted model to Blender (UV unwrapped and everything done like the video), the colors appear totaly bland. I painted over the Basic Material, and when I open it in Blender it's like it was the type of ''skin shader'' color. Does anyone knows what I'm doing wrong?

[@sh4dow2a]

Hey, I have an issue when coloring a character ears, I want the inside to be of a color, and the outside of an other color. But it seems each time I'm trying to pain to paint, the colors goes through the model... How can I fix that ?

[@Sozick_]

maybe enable backface mask

[@danielevans3165]

Definitely going to check that out! Completely unrelated question but is it possible to not do retypology of scenery assets from zbrush which won't be animated. This might be a dumb question

[@FlippedNormals]

For sure, proper retopo is *mostly* for assets which are deformed. We have a whole video on the topic where we discuss it in-depth :)

[@josephbrandenburg4373]

I think its a bad idea to fill your scene with hipoly assets if you can get the same effect with lopoly assets, simply because you will run out of RAM and increase render build time. Depends on the render engine of course, but you'll have to wait for all of that data to copy from disk to RAM or VRAM (or maybe both) and then you'll have to wait for the Render BVH to build (for a path tracer, at least). Messy topology can be a problem with tesdelation/deformation at render time, also. If you're using some sort of adaptive subdivision, you'll want to keep your meshes clean.

[@danielevans3165]

Joseph Brandenburg sounds like a pain then. But usually you can cache it so it only needs to processed once, obviously with deformations that's not going to work out but on a static object in a scene it usually works out fine. Thanks for the advise (:

[@josephbrandenburg4373]

Caching is great, just make sure to have an external hard drive to hold the cache files (which can get pretty big) and of course it still uses the RAM. I use Blender, and it saves the cache in the Roaming App Data hidden folder, which means I sometimes run out of disk space and don't know where to look. Be sure to check hidden files. It doesn't really matter how much RAM you use or how much disk space you eat up if you are just doing still renders. The problems arise when doing animation, because little problems get multiplied by thousands. It's a good idea to retopologize and UV unwrap stuff and bake the hi-res data onto it. That way, you can reuse it later. You want to save yourself the trouble later when you have a client and a deadline. Moreover, if you can convince a client that you can do things fast and efficienty, even in animation, it might make it easier to find a job. I don't know, it's still a hobby for me.

[@danielevans3165]

Joseph Brandenburg completely agree. I'm only 17 so you probably know better than me. UV mapping is something I'm currently learning in Maya but oh my god it's tiresome. At least with rigging and retypology there's some visible progress on the model itself

[@valyseb3225]

Which software do you use to display your reference photos always visible ?

[@ilustradsn]

"pure reference" thats the name of the software.

[@dawidwyborski3753]

So which software is better for painting model ? Zbrush or Substance Painter ?

[@FlippedNormals]

Painter is a much better tool for texture painting. For pure color map painting, ZBrush is a bit faster and immediate, but you can really only do the base there.

[@dawidwyborski3753]

@@FlippedNormals So why you not make video about painting model in Substance. I really need this.

[@msimon1984]

Can you do a noncaucasian color scheme?

[@GrbesicM]

Hi guys, one question, what is the best tool for texturing character modeled in z brush?

[@FlippedNormals]

Mari or Substance Painter :)

[@jeffbecket2311]

what does it mean "subtool skipped no uv assigned"? zbrush is not creating any maps because of that, can anyone help?

[@NeixTiMe123]

When i hit the little brush icon in the subtool to edit the paint, it turns my subtool all white again What should I do?

[@MrDarling1502]

Is there a video of the face sculpt?

[@FlippedNormals]

Yup! flippednormals.com/products/the-complete-zbrush-to-modo-workflow/

[@MrDarling1502]

FlippedNormals awesome, thanks!

[@EricKalsbeek]

Great stuff guys. Would love to see your Substance Painter workflow for this technique too.

[@dbexodia10]

I'm red green colorblind and this has always been tricky.

[@mostrandomnerd]

Skinshade 4 is not a matcap ;) matcaps have lighting etc "baked" into it. nice video guys.

[@FlippedNormals]

Fair enough - well spotted!

[@bueasink7650]

so which is preferable, Polypainting or using Substance painter?

[@FlippedNormals]

Both are good! Polypainting is better for experimenting but Painter is better for final maps

[@bueasink7650]

@@FlippedNormals by final maps u mean the end product right? Like the finished model?

[@belphh3d]

What is the name of the tool for the image ? I'm not an English speaker :( couldn't understand:(

[@FlippedNormals]

PureRef

[@chosenideahandle]

If anyone who went to art school is confused, you are correct that this isn't actually color theory. This is a theory of coloring (faces). A very cool episode, I'll add 👍.

[@venubamandla6496]

When I'm poly painting and trying to blend between 2 colours by using smooth brush (by holding shift) it's actually turning on zadd but the guy in the video is doing it fine blending the colours, how?

[@minminoot6419]

just hold shift and click on the Zadd.

[@5daysastranger]

You probably have the zadd option enabled when using the smooth brush. So press shift to use the smooth brush but first make sure that the zadd option is turned off(while still pressing the shift button).

[@vietcyco5726]

When I Create Displacement texture, With Smooth UV, It will be normal , But ,Create Texture no Smooth UV function . Cant Create Texture map Smooth. Where is the problem ?

[@danskizz7272]

Can anyone suggest any tips for paining darker skin tones?

[@FlippedNormals]

I'd suggest just observe reference of people with darker skin tones. Really observe it and sample the colors.

[@crimsonBen]

when i paint, it takes the color of the right field (instead of the left), so when i colorpick with "c" i have to switch the colours with "v" every time, anybody knows whats the problem here?

[@JCGCompositions]

I believe it's because ZBrushes colors are backwards. The secondary color is on the Left, and the primary color is on the Right. So you're doing it right, it just feels backwards.

[@rakshith_4eal]

would you please do a zbrush intro video,pls

[@FlippedNormals]

flippednormals.com/downloads/introduction-to-zbrush/ :)

[@culibarri7]

Maybe you could do a vid on environment modeling. I know you guys do creatures but I'd love to know your insight. Maybe invite a guest

[@FlippedNormals]

That's a great idea! Thanks.

[@culibarri7]

FlippedNormals thanks for listening!

[@PedramVossoughi]

I am really frustrated. Every time I click the (fucking) create all maps button, it says that it exports it but there is no (fucking) file in the folder. How am I doing this wrong? I only have 2 monitors and I will start breaking them. Please save them(me).

[@baneapplelog2617]

please make some Mari tutorials as well

[@nikkovacs]

Why does my model become white again after selecting 'Fill Object'?

[@exil3dlivecom]

Why is my paint going on very hard, on this vid it goes on softer like less opacity. I have the same brush and specs.

[@noor96498]

Im facing the same issue!

[@exil3dlivecom]

@@noor96498 that's zbrush... I guess you just got to keep practicing to figure it all out. It's worth it though.

[@tomaszneosapiens5111]

link to resource ?

[@FlippedNormals]

What resource are you talking about here?

[@CharlyHendrix]

When I render the lights just ruin my model, it look al plastic....

[@marcfont97]

awesome :D

[@professorsucc2255]

Does this work for black or dark skin??

[@limettedesigns2136]

Why not in mari? :(

[@FlippedNormals]

We'll do mari tutorial in the future, I promise :D

[@limettedesigns2136]

FlippedNormals awesome, I'm already hyped for it :D

[@badkitty3559]

Maybe a comparison video follow up to that! See the same model being paint in Mari :-) I know how painful it is but... want to see... am I the only one struggling with Mari's "bake"? ;p~ Nice video btw! Thank you guys!

[@misamalirizvi1610]

Wow

[@DominikV235]

Do you guys need a roommate?I want to laugh with you!You always make me laugh at some point of a video especially on the last one with Emilia Stabell.:)

[@airbrushingbynick6071]

What’s Bayssshhhhhh? Blinking Irish... 😂

[@joshuaradloff1070]

wow it looks nothing like what u done in substance painter

[@Effy._]

yasssss

[@truegamer2819]

his nose looks broken at the top 😂

[@bakeqamza8907]

Can you do tutorials in more organized way, plz?

[@kyonas6047]

Nob i will stick with 2D art Thank you

[@jeanbombeur697]

so you watched lots of granny and chubby stuff to learn this ? eww... xD good video btw i subscribe

[@FlippedNormals]

Hey, you gotta take one of the team and explore some weird areas :D

[@wingit7602]

just looked at Mari. £500 for a year. What a farce.

[@FlippedNormals]

It's great for studios but for personal use Painter is much more achievable

[@GameDevAraz]

BrU

[@omar.moktar]

Hi I want to get human skin with high accuracy

[@FlippedNormals]

Stay tuned! We'll soon be releasing something that might help you out

[@omar.moktar]

@@FlippedNormals i love you thank you

[@RenanFigliuzzi]

What a waist of time.

[@majorbrighton]

It was a shame that you were seemingly overwhelmed by this subject and explaining the reasons for a technique three times. I think too many cooks. Yet you might have tried to touch on too many aspects of color in one season. Ambiance lighting should have been your first thought and then maybe the number of light sources for the final scene, asking questions like, is he cold or angry, hot or embarrassed? These emotions are triggers to color of course. A nice sculpt to play with, yes old people are very forgiving when it comes to setting your number of colors.