polypaint

Polypaint is a digital painting technique and a feature of the ZBrush software by Pixologic. It allows artists to paint color directly onto a 3D model's surface, storing color data on the model's polygons or vertices rather than in a separate texture map. This means painting can be performed without an existing UV layout and can be used to establish base colors, patterns, or texture cues during sculpting and concepting. The color information resides in the model as vertex color data (RGB values) and can be edited with standard painting brushes, alphas, and masking tools. Polypaint can be applied to models at various subdivision levels and across multiple subtools, enabling detailed color work on high-poly sculptures.

To convert polypaint into typical texture maps for games and renders, artists bake the color data into a texture map. ZBrush provides options such as creating a texture map from polypaint or exporting polypaint data for baking in external software. Because polypaint stores data per vertex, the quality of the resulting texture depends on mesh density and UV quality. Polypaint is often used in pipelines where UVs are created later, or where artists want to visualize color directly on topology before generating textures. It can also be used to transfer color to other apps through vertex colors or by baking to textures.