3DCoat Projection Paint Issue

Tom Ellis

Hey all,

So I'm checking out 3DCoats projection painting, and I'm getting some patchy mess on my mesh once I'm done editing inside Photoshop.

Example: Notice the bits on the cheek and nose.



I'm currently doing this;

Click 'Edit Proj in Ext. Editor' > Paint a bit in Photoshop (CS4) > Save file in PS, swith back to 3DCoat > witness jacked up projection as above.


I'm painting on a super low poly mesh, and I'm not moving the camera in 3DC before saving in PS. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong, or what is going on?


Also, is there a way to get 3DCoat to not export the lightmap with the projection? I'm using flatshade in 3DC and the lightmap is irrelevant and annoying. And can I send a wireframe with the projection to PS?

Thanks

Tom Ellis

Ok update on this...

ZBrush appears to be behaving in a similar way when using ZAppLink.

Any idea what's causing this?

MagicSugar

I suspect your uv map is pooched

Tom Ellis

I thought that too, and it looks like it but I'm sure it's fine.

I just did a quick test unwrap and layout to make sure the projection painting was working.

Here's the layout;

MagicSugar

You could try this test to figure out if it's bug in your 3dc version or maybe a graphics card driver one or it's with your model (maybe overlapping or stray faces not apparent in your unwrap view).

Load your model but let 3dc apply it's own auto uv mapping. Then try to paint per pixel or projection.

Tom Ellis

Thanks for the reply man.

Unfortunately, auto UV's in both 3DC and Zbrush don't help.

I'm beginning to think it may just be the fact my mesh is so low poly. Unless there's any other suggestions.

EDIT: yep, it's the mesh.

Just tried it with a head base with about 2000 tris and it's working fine. I guess it's just not gonna work trying to project onto
a mesh with like 100 tris.

Calabi

Could be something like not correctly connected verts. Something wrong with the retop mesh basically, thats usually been the problem when I've had this.

Tom Ellis

Nah the mesh is completely watertight.

I can only think it's down to the fact it's trying to project onto such low detail. If I paint directly onto the mesh either in Zbrush or 3DC, it paints clean with no problems, it's only when I project from Photoshop I get the problem.

James Edwards

You should post this on the 3dc forum for andrew. If he knows about it, chances are he can fix it, and fast.

spitty

in zbrush you should try dividing your low poly mesh a couple times with "smt" turned off. this will keep the low poly shape, but add a bunch of polys and help with painting.

Tom Ellis

Thanks guys.

James - Yep, posted a topic over there, just waiting to see what is said.

Spitty - I tried that, unfortunately the same thing happened which is what's got me stumped. I'm beginning to think it's the 'faceted' nature of the mesh that is causing the problems. I'm not sure how projection painting works technically but I guess when I imagine the image being projected onto a low res mesh, or at least one that looks like it's low res, I can see how the errors occur.

Would be interesting to know if anyone has done it successfully to prove my theory wrong, as it still may well be a problem with my mesh of some sort.

Thanks again for the replies.

Noors

isn't it because of your uv symmetry ?

Tom Ellis

Noors wrote: »

isn't it because of your uv symmetry ?

Nah, I tried with a new layout and also 3DC's auto-uv and the same happens.

ceebee

Try a different version of 3DC or Photoshop. Could be some compatibility issues between both of them.

bugo

yeah, i had the same issues

Tom Ellis

Thanks Ceebee, Bugo.

I found an old 2.08 version of 3DC on the web (I'm currently using the latest trial) and I couldn't even get a low poly mesh imported properly. It insisted on smoothing and subdividing it.

Unfortunately the only other version of PS I have is CS3 on the Mac, I've only got CS4 for Win.

I've just tried straight triangulating and also tesselating the mesh before I export and interestingly, the results were marginally better. There was still some nasty spots but it was an improvement, certainly on the tesselated version.

More reason to believe it's just the faceted nature of a super low res mesh which doesn't take well to projection painting.