Modo Painting Questions
polycounter lvl 10
This should hopefully be a quick and simple question.
I'm getting fairly decent at painting meshes in Modo, and am actually getting to the point where I prefer doing my UV texture work inside it instead of doing things piecemeal inside of Photoshop. One thing is keeping me away though, and that's being able to paint a normal and a diffuse at the same time using image ink. I wanna know if there's a way to do that.
See, I could take my textures, both normal and diffuse, tile them, say, 6x6 in PS, then use a mask to color in my texture, but that seems to be the overly difficult way to do it, and I don't have as much control. I could also greyscale down my painted diffuse, but sometimes I have textures that have certain normals that I'd rather use. Being able to paint a normal and a diffuse at the same time on two separate layers seems to be the be all end all of good model painting for games.
I know NWN2 does it. You paint a texture and get both the diff and normal applied, fades and all. Oblivion does it. Hell, plenty of games do it Question is, does my super expensive high tech modeling program do it? This is something I'd love to know, and it would help out my texture work tremendously.
And if Modo doesn't do it, are there any (preferably very cheap) programs that do? One complete with all the features Modo offers on the painting front (custom brushes, image ink, masks, ect)?
I'm getting fairly decent at painting meshes in Modo, and am actually getting to the point where I prefer doing my UV texture work inside it instead of doing things piecemeal inside of Photoshop. One thing is keeping me away though, and that's being able to paint a normal and a diffuse at the same time using image ink. I wanna know if there's a way to do that.
See, I could take my textures, both normal and diffuse, tile them, say, 6x6 in PS, then use a mask to color in my texture, but that seems to be the overly difficult way to do it, and I don't have as much control. I could also greyscale down my painted diffuse, but sometimes I have textures that have certain normals that I'd rather use. Being able to paint a normal and a diffuse at the same time on two separate layers seems to be the be all end all of good model painting for games.
I know NWN2 does it. You paint a texture and get both the diff and normal applied, fades and all. Oblivion does it. Hell, plenty of games do it Question is, does my super expensive high tech modeling program do it? This is something I'd love to know, and it would help out my texture work tremendously.
And if Modo doesn't do it, are there any (preferably very cheap) programs that do? One complete with all the features Modo offers on the painting front (custom brushes, image ink, masks, ect)?
Replies
3D Coat
Latest Builds and Change Log
PTex
Though when it comes down to it, I'd rather have the option available to me in Modo. I already own it, I'm comfortable with it, and, being a poor starving hobbyist type person who doesn't make a living off this, I find it hard to stomach paying $300 for just one feature (voxels and sculpting aside, I can't use either for much of anything yet).
It's a handy thing, and I did rather like it, but for now I gotta stay on the cheap side of things. Like I said, I can always lay out texture sheets and use masks for my blends. While not the most optimal method, it does work at least halfway decently, and won't cost me a dime extra.
Still, I'll play around with 3D coat for the next 30 days and see what all it can do. Who knows, I might change my mind. But in the meantime, if anyone knows how to get this working in Modo, I'm all ears.
The problem with using masks is I'll have to have two layers and the mask on the shader tree for each bit of detail I want to add. Like if I want a rocky grassy field, I'll have to have one the rock texture scaled down and tiled up, the corresponding normal beneath it, and the mask. Same for the grass. One diff, one normal, one mask. Want to add dirt? One diff, one, normal, one mask. What if I want to add some scale differences to my rocks, grass, and dirt textures to break up the monotony? More textures. As you can see, it's doable, but alot more work.
Now if I could tie a diff and a normal to the image ink (basically I'd be painting whole materials instead of single textures) and get them to copy immediately to their appropriate texture on the shader tree, I'd only have to worry about those two sheets. I could scale the texture up and down, fade and blend with ease, mix and match and it'd plant the appropriate normal in right along with the diffuse. Things would be considerably easier. Problem is, I don't think Modo can do it.
edit: I just thought of something. Maybe I'm approaching this all wrong. As soon as I said materials, I realized I probably shouldn't be trying to do this with image ink, and instead use the material editor. I haven't tried that before. Let me see what I can do.
...if this works, I'm dumb. :P
Thanks for the help everyone.