Painting vertex color maps 3dsmax.
polycounter lvl 10
I am trying out vertex color painting in 3dsmax. say u paint a vertex color map after asigning a vertex paint modifier, is there a way to get the initial vertex color map to display as you paint a new vertex color after applying a new vertex paint modifier especially if u need to paint with reference to the previous one in the viewpoint in 3dsmax.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Replies
Duplicate the model, and choose Reference mode (instead of Copy or Instance). Then add the new Vertex Paint above the Reference line in the modifier stack. This way you have them side-by-side in Max, but you're painting on one of them.
Or, you can just add a new Vertex Paint on top of the old model.
Problem is, I noticed switching the map channel numbers from the modifier stack does not reflect in the viewport after doing this for some reasons but works fine in the vertex paint brush tab display channel.
I do get why polypainting isn't an option for games bc of polycount but with movies and cinematics where photorealism is the sole aim, I wonder why polypaint isn't being used even for animation friendly topology of characters, especially as u would require displacement maps to simulate skin details. Of recent I am beginning to see a lot of renders from zbrush central where polypaint is used, and the renders look photorealistic.
It may be as a result of the textures not looking right when the vertices move around during animation or memory being used up due to the high polycount. I do feel someday in the future when cpu becomes way powerful, uvs might become a thing of the past. Ptex seem to have become very unpopular these days.
While there are solutions in the form of external apps I do feel that its a bit shameful that devs of 3dsmax and Maya have made little to no attempt to add better uv tools in their apps. I can understand this from a sales perspective as they want ppl to purchase a new version when it is released hence the slow efforts to provide efficient tools in one category or the other:modeling, texturing, uvmapping e.t.c.
That brings about the conclusion that there is no one way of getting things done especially when it comes to the workflow that u are most comfortable with. There are artists these days who prefer to get all their textures right using polypaint and bake them to textures for games and film. Ptex seems to work for the film/movie aspect of CG. To be honest, I am more interested in film than games workflow.
Having said that, I do feel UVs seems to be the easiest way to get things done, and most artists prefer to take their uvs to Photoshop and paint their textures and they are most certainly those whose tablet pen have never experienced 3d painting as PS is their preferred app of choice.
For me tbh, I do have problems painting textures directly in PS because of the seams and knowing where faces in 3d are represented in the uvs. 3d painting makes u worry less about all that. I understand fully while uvs will always be a thing in games. Movies not so much.Renderers are now more realistic and way faster than they used to be. Disney no longer use uvs. I have been thinking though, if u have a 3dsmax file where vertex painting is used for all the models, highpoly and a scene where high res textures are used with displacement maps for all the models. This is for a film or cinematic, I am pretty sure they will be about the same file size and take about the same time to render.