I use Vue 9 to Render meshes that I've made in a third party app.

Vue does not have any basic masking tools to allow accurate painting of a material on a specific part of an imported 3d mesh. It seems that any material must coat the whole mesh. I can't just paint part of it one color and part another by using a mask and then filling that masked area with a material or color like in photoshop.

I want to paint or apply more than one material to an imported mesh that is just a single item.

Is there any software that can define regions on a single mesh so that when I import the item into Vue, Vue would treat it like a model made of parts allowing each part(region)to to be selected or deselected and thus have a different mat applied in Vue?

Right now I have to separately make each mesh that I want to have a different material on and group all those into one model then import into vue then ungroup then paint each part. Then regroup to a single looking thing with many mats applied.

Hope this question makes sense.

Any help would be appreciated.

It has to be done in your modelling app, or your modelling app doesn't allow for UV mapping or assigning materials to polygon selections, you need to use a dedicated UV app, like UV Mapper.

So Brono, you are saying that an app like uv mapper can define 2 poly regoins on one mesh and I can take that mesh export it, then import into Vue 9 and  I'll be able to select or deselect the 2 polyregions within vue so I can put 2 vue mats on the one mesh.?

I don't think this is that simple. What is your modelling app?

Quote - I don't think this is that simple. What is your modelling app?

I used Zbrush

I posted the question on the ZB forum on ZB central. heres the answer I got.

Seems to work well.

1. From Lightbox, load the DefaultSphere.zpr project file by double-clicking the icon. When the project has loaded the sphere will be already in Edit mode.
2. Set the Tool>Geometry>SDiv slider to 1. Polygroups should always be created at the lowest subdivision level. Also, for simplicity turn off symmetry - press X on the keyboard.
3. Turn on Polyframes by pressing Shift+F on the keyboard (or the PolyF button in the Transform palette). The sphere will be shown in wireframe.
4. Hold down Ctrl+Shift drag out a rectangle so that some of the sphere is selected. The selected area will be green. Release the mouse button and the rest of the sphere will be hidden.
5. Press Tool>Polygroups>Group Visible. The selected area will change color.
6. Click on the canvas background - this will unhide the rest of the sphere.

You have now created two polygroups. You can repeat the process to define more polygroups if you wish. You can select an existing polygroup by Ctrl+Shift+clicking on it. Ctrl+Shift+clicking on it again will reverse the visibility, hiding it and showing the other polygroups.

Finally export the mesh as an OBJ through the Tool>Export button. (The Grp button in the Tool>Export menu must be on for polygroups to be exported but this is on by default.) Import the OBJ into Vue to apply materials.

Great, glad you sorted this out.