Vertex painting in Unity 5

shubham kumar · Apr 2016

Hi Guys, i was watching Escape from Tarkov Developer Diary, I wanted to know how to vertex paint in unity like they did in video ..
skip to 2:30 - Video -- https://youtu.be/vof9Fquazxs
another thing is if we have modular walls sharing one material ..will it effect all the walls at once ?

Eric Chadwick · Apr 2016

It looks like they're using Advanced Vertex Painter, you can see a bit of the UI on the left monitor.
http://www.synoptic-entertainment.com/downloads/item/56-unity3d-advanced-vertex-painter

There are a few other options, since that tool is pretty old and probably doesn't work anymore.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/search/page=1/sortby=popularity/query=category:107

And yeah if models are using the same material, any changes to the material will affect them all. However, vertex colors are per-model, so those are unique. The trouble comes in if you copy a wall to use elsewhere... it won't be batched anymore if the copy is repainted.

A good thing to check with these painting tools, is how do they work with batching and performance? If they disable batching, that's a bad thing.

shubham kumar · Apr 2016

Thanks for replying, How do i paint vertex color in maya ? I can make 4 or 5 copies of my modular model with different masks that would work i think

praesidenter · Apr 2016

An asset that does exactly that kind of blending would be Vertex tools pro:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/55649

I know that it works pretty fine because I did the demoscene for (and with) it

Eric Chadwick · Apr 2016

Oooh, nice job on the demo scene.

Here's some info for Maya (always check the Help file first!)
http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2016/ENU/?guid=GUID-B4706BDE-9B33-43A3-B5E8-F8A56433ACB3

shubham kumar · Apr 2016

I was thinking for modular pieces instead of vertex paint i can use Decals .What do you guys think ?I can use cgtextures.com decals with specular and normal map with alpha and put it on plane and just snap it on walls

Eric Chadwick · Apr 2016

Yes. But this requires more textures, and means less unique-looking models.

StevenP · Jan 2017

Hi guys, sorry for resuming an old post but seems that the Advanced Vertex Painter download link is not working anymore. Maybe someone has a working link or can send me a copy of that ? Thanks in advance.

cptSwing · Jan 2017

This one is free: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/24645

RyanB · Jan 2017

I prefer to do all my vertex painting in a 3D app. That way when I update and re-import a model I don't have to worry about the vertex painting being lost or mis-matched in Unity.

cptSwing · Jan 2017

RyanB said:

I prefer to do all my vertex painting in a 3D app. That way when I update and re-import a model I don't have to worry about the vertex painting being lost or mis-matched in Unity.

I actually do it the same way, saves nerves especially when working with others who reimport stuff incorrectly etc. This is where I regularly long for less cumbersome viewport display of vert colors / alpha in Max, but alas.

I haven't done any vertex painting on terrain meshes though, where I believe you'd need to stay within Unity..

StevenP · Jan 2017

cptSwing said:

This one is free: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/24645

Thanks for the info but I'm looking for Advanced Vertex Painter, not another asset. I already have Ikari and I purchased other 2 or 3 vertex painter. I'm just interested into the shader and some other detail of that implementation. Btw thanks again for your reply.

Eric Chadwick · Jan 2017

I remember this from my research into these tools... Advanced Vertex Painter seems to have been abandoned. More here, including bugs it has (that make it pretty much unusable)
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/vpaint-advanced-vertex-painting-released.192711/page-9#post-2420520

cptSwing · Jan 2017

StevenP said:

I'm just interested into the shader and some other detail of that implementation

What do you need the shader to do?

shubham kumar · Jan 2017

StevenP said:

cptSwing said:

This one is free: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/24645

Thanks for the info but I'm looking for Advanced Vertex Painter, not another asset. I already have Ikari and I purchased other 2 or 3 vertex painter. I'm just interested into the shader and some other detail of that implementation. Btw thanks again for your reply.

Unity's Adam project used some advanced vertex shaders you can free download the project from asset store and mess around with it .
Download - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/74969
video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsQUyb7Ex8M&index=3&list=PLX2vGYjWbI0RtPoeDoBUPnwY8USGra-pD

StevenP · Jan 2017

Thanks everybody for your replies, I'm preparing some levels for an MMO with a city environment and I'm looking for a good solution to paint dirt, crack and other signs of time on my models. I've already prepared tilable meshes for streets but everything seems too 'new' and clean. I saw the Escape from Tarkov Developer Diary, and have the same needings, so here I am.
I've purchased a couple of vertex painter but I've found nothing usable as what is in that video.

praesidenter said:

An asset that does exactly that kind of blending would be Vertex tools pro:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/55649

I know that it works pretty fine because I did the demoscene for (and with) it

I've not purchased Vertex tools pro yet, but I'm thinking about it. The problem is to avoid to restart my work from zero and redo meshes that are already modeled, UV mapped and placed on my levels. The real problem with assets on the unity store is that there is no way to test them before buy.
I'm a programmer so I am interested into the original advanced vertex painter to see how to blend the materials, maybe adjusting something in the code it could be usable and became a good starting point.
Obviously, I apologize for my english

cptSwing · Jan 2017

Blending textures via vertex color isn't voodoo.. In Shaderforge, for example, it would take you 5 minutes to make this: http://acegikmo.com/shaderforge/wiki/index.php?title=Texture_Splatting#Using_Vertex_colors

punchface · May 2017

VTP uses a "Combined Map". In the vids I've been watching, it's obvious that at least part of what Combined Map is is a grayscale Height Map but it seems to me that there's something else in there.

What's in a Combined Map? What is it?

Eric Chadwick · May 2017

Probably this.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/ChannelPacking

Everyone packs different things, depends what you need. Just think of it as 3 or 4 grayscale textures, rolled into one file. You can do anything you want with each individual channel.

punchface · May 2017

Thank you very much, Chadwick! That's what I was hoping it was. I'll take a look just to make sure before purchasing, of course, but if you're right (I think you probably are) then I'll be able to get a log of mileage out of VTP!

Vertex painting in Unity 5

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