Painting accuracy on Merged model

[cl-apps]

I'm wondering if someone could enlighten me.

I have a very simple blob man model which consists of a body with limbs and some insets for eyes. On another voxel layer I have a pair of eyes (spheres) and on another voxel layer I have a set of pupils (spheres, again).

I have created custom shaders for all these pieces and everything looks how I want in the voxel room.

Now I would like to retopo for animation. So I would like to merge all the voxel layers into one, do an autotopo and then paint. All goes well up until the painting bit where I get a bit stumped to how I paint my model.

Because it was originally made with such sharp pieces I would like the painting to be sharp as well, like how it was shaded before the merge.

How do you paint without paint 'bleeding' over bits of the model. It would have been good to preserve the individual layers before retopo but I've had limited success. I seem to be in a sort of chicken and the egg situation when I begin to solve the problem.

I have even tried the latest beta to transfer the colour from volumes to a merged volume but that comes out a bit blobby.

Surely there is something I've missed as in ZBrush I would just paint all my sub tools and then merge which would save the polypaint but then you could retopo in ZBrush (sounds simple but its point and click tedious, hence trying 3dCoat) and bake the textures. Is there a similar process in 3DCoat that someone could point me too?

Hopefully this made a little sense and someone could push me in the right direction

[T.H. ROCK]

To control bleeding and I'm not sure what you are asking on the other parts, but for painting you can use the "Freeze Tool" using any of the brushes or masks just like you can in Zbrush. The "Freeze Tool" is the same thing as masking in Zbrush.

Here is a building where I selected freeze, used the rectangle brush. I then inverted the freeze so only the area I designated would be painted. I then used a stenciled "mask" to guide the paint as a pattern. (image 2)

Edit: If you are comfortable with Zbrush, you can use the APPLINK from Zbrush to 3Dcoat and back to work with subtools, say for instance to paint in Per Pixel Painting and then send it back to Zbrush.

Here's the link for APPLINK's: http://3d-coat.com/applinks/

Here's a subtool "Vest from Demo Soldier" that the APPLINK was used from Zbrush to 3DCoat and back. (image 1)

[Javis]

A couple ways, the best way though, would be to export the mesh after the retopo process and assign the areas you want to be separate for painting their own unique materials and then re-import this into 3DC.

The next way, and this would keep it inside 3DC, is to create retopo groups in 3DC, then select the polys you want "separate" and move them to their own retopo groups, rebake/merge to the paint room, done.

[cl-apps]

Thank you both for your replies I had totally missed the freeze tool! doh...

I did also figure out a crafty way to retail sharp coloured details from a multi part voxel model using the latest beta:

Create your model in voxels with different layers (i'll call them layers instead of sub tools).

Create a new shader based on Lamblight and make it primarily white. Set all your layers to this new shader.

Now go over to the paint room with the Vox panel open and show voxels in paint room option selected in the view menu.

Now create a new paint layer and select the voxel layer you want to paint then select the paint bucket and a colour and just fill the part. Do the same for the other box layers till your happy would model had all the required colours.

Uncheck show voxels in paint room again from the view menu to hide your voxels and go back to the voxel room.

Create a new voxel layer and Res+ it twice so its 4x. I work on relatively small models for speed so this option is variable. The reason i want such a high res empty layer is because voxels seem to go a bit blobby when there merged and I want really nice sharp edges from my normal map after retopo.

Now right click on the empty layer and select merge visible. This will preserve my individual parts for editing in the future but make a merged copy on the new layer. Make sure the white shader is selected from earlier and then right click and bake all colour to volume option which will set your merged layer with all the colour (not sure if this is required but i got a crash if I didn't do it)

Then your off to autopo. Right click on the layer and then Autopo for PPP and then next, next, set your setting how you like and then eventually your'll end up in the Paint room with a single mesh with all your colour, a nice crisp normal map and a low poly cage for painting more or just exporting out.

At this point I would have like to create custom seems but I fear I suffer from the latest mac beta bug of not be able to select anything in the retopo or uv room?

Hope this may help someone.

[The Candy-floss Kid]

Sounds good and as you say you still have your original voxel layers should you need to make further changes.

Could you post an example of your results it would be nice to see?

Can you merge volumes accurately with more than just flat color i.e detailed textures?

Is the Lamblight shader pertinent to the results?

[cl-apps]

This first screen shot shows the model (yes it is rubbish...) in the voxel room, at this stage I have created a simple paint layer in the paint room and coloured the parts the way I want them, you could have been more detailed and created more complex textures I don't think voxel painting allows as much detail as once you have retopo'd but you can create texture borders easily.

I chose the Lamblight shader as a base for my other coloured shaders because it is the easiest to work with for a beginner like myself and it accepts colour how I like.

Then the auto retopo process is done and you end up with this:

This was auto retopo'd to 500 poly's and with the baked normal map looks really nice as a game asset obviously as this was a game asset the poly count and detail is pretty low but you could imagine the more poly's the more detail that can be retained. Also you can continue to paint this how you like but as a starting point, for me at least, this is exactly what I want.

Also as a note this evening I imported the mesh into modo601 and did a quick rig and animated a run cycle then imported it into Unity 3d and all works great.

This may be of some use to others wanting an easy way to create low poly game characters with minimal effort indeed... I didn't even use any guides in the retopo I was that lazy...

[The Candy-floss Kid]

but you could imagine the more poly's the more detail that can be retained

Yes it would be interesting to find where the tipping point is for poly reduction over texture transfer quality.

I don't think voxel painting allows as much detail as once you have retopo'd but you can create texture borders easily

indeed it's a sweet solution you've found to quickly delineate color areas per voxel layer into a merged form and texture- thanks for posting.