Export Polypaint from Zbrush to Blender
Rico Cilliers writes:
Quite a few people have asked about this, here’s a video that explains how I get polypaint color information from Zbrush to Blender.
You can download MeshLab here (it’s free and open source)
https://youtu.be/yqzuRU125S0
Thanks for sharing!
There is a PLY importer/exporter for ZBrush so you can skip the Meshlab step.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?193288-PLY-format-plugin-for-ZBrush-4R8
There’s an easier way to do this, without the need for Meshlab: just export as an FBX (Zplugin ➔ FBX Import/Export) and import the file in Blender. FBX contains vertex colors.
This also works the other way round: you can export a vertex-painted mesh from Blender to ZBrush using the FBX format.
An additional remark: ZBrush uses a different way of vertex painting than Blender. Blender’s method is true vertex painting, while ZBrush uses polygons to store paint data. This may cause slight differences when importing a vertex-painted mesh from Blender into Zbrush, but not the other way round, because Blender’s vertex color method is more accurate and maintains all of ZBrush’s vertex color data.