Painting textures on 3D Objects.
MimicMolly
Posts: 2,194
Right now, I'm making textures for the Bow Dress because I didn't like its only texture and the add-ons didn't really appeal to me, well maybe only one texture out of that set, but it's not enough for me to buy it. :/ Plus, it's a good opportunity for me to learn texturing. Hopefully, I'd be able to recreate a certain skin texture I can't seem to get out of my mind, but it is above my current skill level...
What I know is that I can paint my textures on GIMP, Photoshop following the texture template and then go back and check if the seams line up, editing and fixing as needed. I also know how to save material presets. This is what I am doing with my dress texture, which still needs work.
Is there a quicker and more efficient method to doing this? I heard you can paint objects on Zbrush, but that's out of my budget. I can't even try with Sculptris because my laptop lags too much. Are there any good programs just for this? Or should I just continue with what I am doing now?
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Comments
That is the way I always work, only I use and old version of PS
http://chohole.ovbi.org/texture_tutorial.htm
I didn't know about the inverse selection, usually I just free select and then paint-over mistakes. I went to check my Photoshop Elements and it's there too. Thank you for the link and for reaffirming that I'm on the right path.
You can also paint directly on an object if you have Photoshop Extended.
Load object in Daz > set textures > save as OBJ to a folder. Check write material library and collect maps. When you import the OBJ to PS Extended, it will have it's textures in place since they were collected to the same folder the OBJ was exported to. When you re-export the object from PS Extended, you'll have new maps with the changes made.
Unless further changes are necessary, you can delete everything in the new folder except the new maps that you made.
I don't, I only have Photoshop Elements and I no longer go to college/uni to have access to CS6, or whatever version they use there. At least I know what to save up for and try later on. Thank you. (:
Zbrush and a few similar programs are the preferred (and very much the simplest) way people usually do this. Unfortunately they all co$t lot$ and lot$ of $$$. I think I did see one of them on a ridiculously low sale offer a year or so back when a new version came out, but it was still way out of my price range.
Blender does have projection painting, and is free, though I've not used it. 3D Coat is relatively cheap, and Carrara has painting tools along with other tools.
I saw 3D Coat, it seems like too much for one thing. I was thinking about using Blender before, but I don't know if it would work on my laptop. (The same way Sculptris didn't want to work. Used up too much CPU.) But it doesn't hurt to try since it's free. I wasn't sure if Blender could do that. I hadn't found any specific information on about that. It doesn't matter if the painting there isn't "perfect" but it will be less editing than what I am doing now.
I use Sculptris for painting my textures. It can only do 2048 resolution but that's pretty good for most things. It leaves seams unfortunately but I've discovered a way around that.
Basically copy the resultant texture map to another layer and delete the grey background then the layer underneath perform a gausian blur. This takes care of the seams on the texturemaps.
I have been using the gaussian blur with my GIMP painting. It's a great quick fix. (:
I've tried Sculptris again and it's still lagging but less which is good. Anyway, is there a color-picker option or something similar in Sculptris? I'm thinking of painting a more complex design but touching it up in Sculptris.
Here's a projection painting tutorial for Blender 2.6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3nS9meV50A
It uses Suzanne (built-in Blender monkey mesh) so you won't need to import your own mesh to learn with.
The current version is 2.67, but I've never done this so I'm not sure if there's any differences in the process.
This one shows you how to do it using images rather than plain coloring:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZDMFkj8GqA
Usually I don't need or use 3d painting for cloth textures, just for wrinkle displacement maps etc. When I model clothes I add visible "seams" in the mesh where I'm going to put seams in the UV. This is more realistic anyway because most clothes are not serged in one piece, but have seams on them where pieces of fabric were sewn together. I don't know what to tell you when you're working with clothes that aren't deliberately seamed, though.
I use Blender for my modeling. My experience, however, is that trying to do realtime projection and painting with it is a massive headache. I spent the money for 3dCoat specifically in order to be able to 3d paint, and believe me, it is worth it when that's what you really need. 3dCoat can paint across UVs (as on a body texture, for instance), and I don't think Blender can do this at all. Further, 3dCoat lets you treat 3d painting like 2d painting, with layers and brushes, which in practice is mind-blowing. There's certainly lag with, say, three overlapping 4096x4096 texture maps (body again), but anything less than that is pretty fluent.
I have been using the gaussian blur with my GIMP painting. It's a great quick fix. (:
I've tried Sculptris again and it's still lagging but less which is good. Anyway, is there a color-picker option or something similar in Sculptris? I'm thinking of painting a more complex design but touching it up in Sculptris.
Yeah that's what I do. I duplicate the layers then do a gausian blur on the bottom on and with a semi opaque eraser brush I go around the edges of the top layer. It does a pretty good job of getting rid of the seams.
I've made UV sets for the genesis figure that put all the basic UV maps (V4/M4/K4 Gen-Male Gen-Fem) into a single non-overlapping map.
Then I do a basic paint job to get the shading in all the right areas. I cut the face, torso and limbs maps out and resize them to 2048 images. Then I have objs prepared of my model that are just the individual torso, face, and limbs The other maps I have as well but I find I'm usually fine just using the default mouth and modified eye maps that came with the M4/V4/K4 models. I load the objs for the different body parts into Sculptris and then load the resized separate texture map. Then I do all the fine detail work and any clean up that needs to be done.
It's a bit of a procedure but it gets easier and faster with time.
The lack of a colour picker and saved pallet in Sculptris is definitely a negativity. I usually work with one colour, then switch to the next obj with that colour so that I'm painting all the body parts with the same colour. I cycle through face, torso, limbs, new colour - limbs, torso, face, new colour - face, torso, limbs.
It's a pity we'll never see another update for Sculptris. Pixologic only bought the software to prevent it from going open source and the agreement of the sale was that they have to make it available for free but sadly not that they have to update or maintain it. With a few more tweaks to its interface it would be a truly great program.
Yeah that's what I do. I duplicate the layers then do a gausian blur on the bottom on and with a semi opaque eraser brush I go around the edges of the top layer. It does a pretty good job of getting rid of the seams.
I've made UV sets for the genesis figure that put all the basic UV maps (V4/M4/K4 Gen-Male Gen-Fem) into a single non-overlapping map.
Then I do a basic paint job to get the shading in all the right areas. I cut the face, torso and limbs maps out and resize them to 2048 images. Then I have objs prepared of my model that are just the individual torso, face, and limbs The other maps I have as well but I find I'm usually fine just using the default mouth and modified eye maps that came with the M4/V4/K4 models. I load the objs for the different body parts into Sculptris and then load the resized separate texture map. Then I do all the fine detail work and any clean up that needs to be done.
It's a bit of a procedure but it gets easier and faster with time.
The lack of a colour picker and saved pallet in Sculptris is definitely a negativity. I usually work with one colour, then switch to the next obj with that colour so that I'm painting all the body parts with the same colour. I cycle through face, torso, limbs, new colour - limbs, torso, face, new colour - face, torso, limbs.
It's a pity we'll never see another update for Sculptris. Pixologic only bought the software to prevent it from going open source and the agreement of the sale was that they have to make it available for free but sadly not that they have to update or maintain it. With a few more tweaks to its interface it would be a truly great program.
Shortly after replying, I ended up finding my own answer about the color-picker. You hit "C" and then click on the color you want to use. To use the bottom color, you click the Alt button. I agree with it getting faster. It took me too long for the dress and less than 2 days for both boots. I have almost completed my own project thanks to this thread. I just need to adjust the material settings.
When I color, I don't usually save palettes. I just eyeball the colors and mix until "it looks good". Besides, going back and forth between programs isn't a problem for me. I'd just save my palettes elsewhere and even things out in Sculptris. I need to try that - painting a character in Sculptris - to get a gist where the markings could go since I've yet to find a "creature" texture that suits some of my characters.
That's sad, I'm starting to like Sculptris now, even though my PC is too weak to actually model with it. :/
Hi.
I notice that the Education Version of 3D-Coat is available for $99 and is available to all hobbyists, senior citizens, etc. (i.e. not just students). The restrictions are: No commercial vendors, only 7 layers and textures restricted to 2048x2048.
What's your opinion - are the latter two restrictions serious or not for the hobbyist such as myself? I'll never be a vendor so I'm very tempted.
Hi.
I notice that the Education Version of 3D-Coat is available for $99 and is available to all hobbyists, senior citizens, etc. (i.e. not just students). The restrictions are: No commercial vendors, only 7 layers and textures restricted to 2048x2048.
What's your opinion - are the latter two restrictions serious or not for the hobbyist such as myself? I'll never be a vendor so I'm very tempted.
I haven't often used more than seven layers so far given that I mostly use it for cleanup rather than, say, painting the kind of monster textures Rawn does (which is better done in Zbrush or RealityPaint anyway). But 2048x2048? I guess it depends on what you want to use it for. It'd be pretty hard to do good body textures at that size, but if you want to mod for a game engine or use it to apply clothing decals, etc. that might be acceptable.
Yeah, I guess that most skins on sale here are 4K so buying a product limited to 2K doesn't make sense does it?
Ah, well. I can't afford the full price and now that I'm retired I don't have access to software like ZBrush any longer. I tried Blender on a couple of occasions and got completely bamboozled, but Blender is in my price range:)