ZBrushCentral

MatCap Tutorial by KOSOVA

This MatCap tutorial is by Fatmir Gjevukaj, known as KOSOVA here at ZBC. You can see Fatmir’s work on his web site: www.fatmiri.com

Thanks for letting us use the tutorial here, Fatmir!

Tutorial: Creating new Materials in ZBrush

For further information about MatCaps and the MatCap tool see ZBrush Online Documentation

[attach=105738]Step1.jpg[/attach]

  1. First import the image you want to use as your reference. Press the Texture:Import button and select the file. Choose the Flat Color material and then presss Texture:Crop and Fill.

[attach=105739]Step2.jpg[/attach]
2. Click the large Current Tool thumbnail then click the MatCap icon in the Tool palette popup.

[attach=105740]Step3.jpg[/attach]
3. Start capturing the material by pressing and dragging in different directions. Try to go for highlights, mid-tones and shadows. Each time you make a selection from the image you will update the texture map.

Note that if you have a MatCap material selected when using the MatCap tool, the material texture will be changed as you sample your image. With a non-MatCap material selected such as Flat Color, a new texture map will be created in the Texture palette for adding to a MatCap material later - the method described here.

[attach=105741]Step4.jpg[/attach]
4. You can adjust the new material properties under the MatCap Modifiers tab in the Material palette. Each time you make an adjustment you will see the result in the large texture thumbnail preview. Here the Gloss is being adjusted.

[attach=105742]Step4-01.jpg[/attach]
You can experiment with the Fall Off curve.

[attach=105743]Step4-02.jpg[/attach]
And adjust specular effects with the MatCap Specular Factor.

[attach=105744]Step5.jpg[/attach]
5. Press the B button under the MatCap Modifiers to add a second shading map to the new material texture. Repeat steps 3 and 4.

[attach=105745]Step6.jpg[/attach]
6. Choose a MatCap material to modify in the Materials palette and under the Material Modifiers tab click the texture icon. From the popup, select the new texture you have just created. Now load a model to display your new material, then start playing a little bit with the Material Modifiers sliders; you’ll see the changes on the model in real time.

[attach=105746]Step7.jpg[/attach]
7. Having the model on a different document Layer makes it easier to see the differences while making changes to the Material Modifiers.

[attach=105747]Step8.jpg[/attach]
8. Different results can be achieved just by changing Noise, Noise Radius and Color Bump under the S1 channel, and also by changing the intensity of other MatCap channels.
It is also a good idea to make changes to other sliders such as Diffuse, Specularity, Reflectivity and so on.

[attach=105748]Step9.jpg[/attach]
9. In this example the rust was achieved by increasing the Noise and Noise Radius so the effect can be seen better. Some effects like this one must use the Best Render before they are visible.

[attach=105749]MultipleChannels.jpg[/attach]
10. To get a shader with multiple channels:
a) Choose one of the MatCap materials.
b) Press CopySH in the Material palette.
c) Select one of the standard materials with multiple shader channels.
d) Select one of the shader channels in the Material palette.
e) Press PasteSH to paste the copied shader channel.
f) Repeat steps 1,2,4 and 5 for other shader channels if needed.

[attach=105750]MatcapSpheresComp01.jpg[/attach]
11. Here are a few captured material textures. Some duplicated, flipped or rotated in Photoshop, some painted. Back in ZBrush replaced the material texture with the new one to see the changes. Sometimes I would make very small changes either inside the sphere or outside, always going back and forth between ZBrush and Photoshop.

[attach=105751]MatcapSpheresComp02.jpg[/attach]
12. This image pretty much shows how I went about making subtle changes of the material textures inside Photoshop. Sometimes creating another Photoshop layer with selective color helps get better results.

Attachments

Step1.jpg

Step2.jpg

Step3.jpg

Step4.jpg

Step4-01.jpg

Step4-02.jpg

Step5.jpg

Step6.jpg

Step7.jpg

Step8.jpg

Step9.jpg

MultipleChannels.jpg

MatcapSpheresComp01.jpg

MatcapSpheresComp02.jpg

1 Like

Fantastic post - thanks marcus and especially KOSOVA. MatCap is simply brilliant.

Sven

Thanks a lot! nice tut :wink:

Nice tutorial, thanks.

The bronze matcap looked very nice. Is it available for download? :slight_smile:

There are lots of MatCaps available here:
MatCap Repository thread