Best texturing program for hard surface?
polycounter lvl 8
Hi
I could use some feedback on what people's preferred program is to 3D paint textures onto hard edge objects; I'm a weapons modeler and have been using 3dsmax's Viewport Canvas for a few years now, but its just getting way too laggy as I'm now going onto 2048 sets for weapons.
Even when it works, it's not the best as there are some pretty major drawbacks, i.e. no brush falloff on polys facing away from the camera, and also not the best way of handling alphas as I have to create yet another library of them in just TIFF format.
Some people at work have recommended bodypaint 3D.
I would just need the program to not freak out at overlapping faces or polys that are mapped beyond the 0:1 uv space (mirrored polys, cloned objects, as is standard with weapons), also pretty seamless communication with PS/ using PSDs would be a great bonus.
Thanks!
I could use some feedback on what people's preferred program is to 3D paint textures onto hard edge objects; I'm a weapons modeler and have been using 3dsmax's Viewport Canvas for a few years now, but its just getting way too laggy as I'm now going onto 2048 sets for weapons.
Even when it works, it's not the best as there are some pretty major drawbacks, i.e. no brush falloff on polys facing away from the camera, and also not the best way of handling alphas as I have to create yet another library of them in just TIFF format.
Some people at work have recommended bodypaint 3D.
I would just need the program to not freak out at overlapping faces or polys that are mapped beyond the 0:1 uv space (mirrored polys, cloned objects, as is standard with weapons), also pretty seamless communication with PS/ using PSDs would be a great bonus.
Thanks!
Replies
3D coat gets really good resolution to paint on, I painted this on a 4096x4096, bunch of layers. And this was done in an older version, i would imagine that its faster now and more features to play with.
I can recommend Mudbox as well.
But compared to other software, Photoshop is really lacking when it comes to anything but lowpoly graphics (mobile games, browser games, etc) due to lag at higher polycounts.
Limited layers, blending modes, and no specular
I will definitely check out 3Dcoat! Nice model and texture
Also I tried Mudbox 2013, getting smoothing groups functional in there is a pain in the ass (FBX), but the worst thing about it seems to be it handles "stretched" polys and tris really badly when you paint across diagonal lines. The paint breaks along those diagonals, making the program unsuitable for low poly game assets, especially hard edge objects with no soft skinning, thus having "stretched" polys all over the place.
It's a shame because mudboxes tools and layer dialog look very user friendly with good looking UI. Unless there is a fix for this I guess I'll go with 3dcoat. (I've searched and all people say is subd the model in mudbox, which is a convoluted step I'm not interested in doing, with the amount of objects I have to deal with).
I'll post a pic of the mudbox issue once I'm back home
Cool thanks, I'll check that vid.
In the meantime, I just uploaded mine
http://youtu.be/NPDUb0pq9FE
Here you go. FBX was used for Mudbox as its the only way I know that mudbox will take smoothing group info. OBJ was used for 3D coat, you can also import the obj into mudbox, I got the same results with painting.
I also tried painting without the mirrored surfaces, i.e. without overlapping UVs.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6651308/3D%20Files.rar
Here is the same mesh, obj, in 3d coat
http://youtu.be/0z5AlJWzQhw
**Edit: I guess Mudbox just really hates stretched polys like they say
http://youtu.be/VlVP3h6ZUOs
Mudbox or 3D Coat I'd say!
dude, you do all your everything in mudbox :P
It's ugly, but its the program with the least bullshit (stuff just works and fast).
Until Mudbox fixes their low poly painting solution which I'm guessing is never.
I'll see if there's a way I could pressure them to fix it from work (Ubi Montreal-Autodesk).
Check the vids I have posted.
Mudbox is fine for game characters where the topology should be pretty even, but it suffers on hard edge or environment objects where topology is more strictly optimized, i.e. having "stretched" non-square polys. It doesn't really have a problem with ngons or high valence verts, just really long tris/polys (like the polys around an arrow, or a sword).
There is a way to fix all this which is to tesselate or quickslice the object until you get an even topology for your game asset but this is time consuming and a step that is there to counter what I think is a major issue in the program, that other programs just don't have an issue with (Viewport Canvas, 3Dcoat, Bodypaint3D don't really give a damn about your topology).
Again, it's a shame the program has this issue because it has by far the most inviting and clean UI, with the most straight forward PSD link and layer dialog.
I'm definitely sticking with 3D coat for good, I just tried 3D coat V4, bought a 3dcoat license, its a major improvement on what was already a very powerful program.
Even if the slowpokes at Autodesk end up fixing viewport canvas in a newer version of max (highly unlikely as max never gets "fixed"), or fix the low res painting problems of Mudbox (unlikely as well), I won't go back to either of those as 3D coat offers pretty much what viewport canvas did but with exponentially more options.
Think good parts of Viewport Canvas mixed with the good parts of zbrush polypainting, drag-drop, spot, stencils, drawing with splines, selection and pen tool for fills, easy fill of sub objects, masking/freezing, seamless PSD communication with hotkey to send layers to PSD and once saved in PSCS, PSD in 3dcoat gets updated.
Another major bonus is that every tool, whether its the brush or eraser or freeze/masking, works with all types of painting, i.e. freeform, dragdrop, stencil, or splines/polygon/pen tool, so you can create extremely precise decals on your model with higher level of accuracy as pen/selection tools in PSD.
And of course most importantly, handles low polys or "stretched" polys/tris without a single problem or lag, effortless handling of 2048 PSD with many layers, so its great for mechanical/other game assets.