166 chapter 5 ■ Texture Painting
PUV tiles are a combination of GUV and AUV in a single mapping approach. The idea
is to fill 100 percent of the UV space as accurately as possible. According to Pixologic, this is
their most advanced UV solution to date.Importing and Viewing UVs
ZBrush sculpting and painting (when using PolyPaint) are UV independent. This means
that you could take a character from sculpture through to polypainting before laying out
UVs. If you then decide to transfer the color to a UV map, you could add UVs in ZBrush
or import them into the ZTool. You could also swap UVs with the current set by simply
importing a new model with UVs applied and using UV Master to copy the UV set over to
the ZTool. UV Master is discussed later in the section “UV Master Plug-in.”
To check your UV coordinates in ZBrush, you can use the UV Check functions under
To ol → Texture Map. Clicking the New From UV Check button will create a texture map.
The color red indicates areas of overlapping UV. Clicking New From UV Map will create
a map that allows you to visualize the UV layout as well as see where seams are occurring
(Figure 5.7).
ZBrush 4 has added a very nice tool for seeing your UVs in real time as they relate to
the mesh itself. Under Tool → UV Map click the Morph UV button. This causes your model
to unwrap on screen into its UV coordinates. When you want to return to the normal shape,
just click Morph UV again to morph back to the original form (Figure 5.8).The Texture Menus
When working with textures and UVs in ZBrush, be aware that there are four separate texture-
related menus. First is the main Texture menu accessed from the top toolbar (Figure 5.9). This
menu allows you to create new textures, rotate and flip existing maps, and import and save
maps. The main Texture menu also allows you to access as well as add maps to the SpotLight
and provides several other tools for working with file textures. See Table 5.1 for an explanation
of each menu option. This menu functions similarly to the Brush, Tool, and Alpha menus in that
there is a palette for the currently loaded textures as well as several modifiers. The Texture pal-
ette itself is accessible on the left of the UI.Figure 5.7 The
New From UV
Map option
under Tool →
Texture allows
you to see your
UV layout and
spot possible
problems.
Figure 5.8 The morph UV button will unwrap your ZTool into its flattened UV coordinates