Mari or BodyPaint?
polycounter lvl 10
Hey everyone, I was just curious what you guys and gals thought of these applications? Mari looks amazing but I dont know if it would be the best option for doing game textures(seems a bit over kill but again what do i know 
).
Also what would be some of the benefits using one over the other ? (doing game work wise)
I was also curious if you think a texture noob like me would be better off just painting on the UVs in photoshop or if BodyPaint or Mari would be worth the purchase?
Sorry for being a total nub
).Also what would be some of the benefits using one over the other ? (doing game work wise)
I was also curious if you think a texture noob like me would be better off just painting on the UVs in photoshop or if BodyPaint or Mari would be worth the purchase?
Sorry for being a total nub
Replies
Do a search try your luck I am sure there is some info in here somewhere!
However, if you're really going for the high end stuff, then Bodypaint will serve just fine, and you're after the extreme movie look in minute pore detail, Mari would be your best choice.
I used Mari for a while, and it's impressive, but (at time of testing) there were some issues.
-There is no real-symmetry option, just a fake one of 'Paint -> Apply symmetry".
-ATI is not supported fully.
-Painting Viewport lag is terrible sometimes (projection painting is baked when pressing Alt key, no realtime).
-No layers, only channels (good for movies, bad for Photoshop everyday use).
-Occasional Hard Crash.
Honestly, all these are when I tried it a couple of months ago, so things might have changed. In either case, the easiest software I can think of would be Mudbox right off the bat or 3D-Coat.
Modo is actually good to, but I never delved into further try, export, and look.
ZBrush Vertex painting isn't too bad, use layers to your advantage. Splitting your model in multiple parts also helps a great deal.
Mudbox (as of 2012) has become Photoshop in 3D if it was married to ZBrush. Pixel Texturing and full set of layer options.
The only other thing I would say (if you're strapped for cash) would be Projection texturing with Max is also a valid way to do.
I think Ill hold off for a while and not go all crazy with my cash
I think ill give Zbrush's vertex painting a try since Ive only used that to sculpt. (i know shame on me
Currently I dont have access to Mudbox 2012 (on the sutdents.autodesk.com site) other wise the idea of a good version of Photoshops 3d tools entices me
The reason I asked about the projection apps was because I saw Ben Mathis and Slipgate using it in a few of their videos and it seemed pretty intuitive. Again thanks for all the help!
For example, I always hated vertex painting, reason I didn't want to get into ZBrush and it's standard, albeit archaic nature of 'doing things' in which required years of correcting manually in Photoshop.
A guy from WETA came in, and showed us a couple of Workshop with VTex painting, and it changed my mind about what I thought was bad or good in ZBrush and it's painting tools. Sure, it's still crap from certain points and all, but splitting up your model in different parts and having the right topology will serve you well if you're into technical stuff for modeling.
Another thing you can do in ZBrush is make and bake out masks. Say you have an organic character (Human male, warrior) and he has bodypainted parts on him, and a specific part of him requires a tattoo like patten but ZB simply isn't pushing enough polies for you to be happy.
Simply enough, just 'paint' the areas that you need to paint in explicit hues (RGB helps) on a different layer (ZBrush has layers, use those) and export them out. Export enable the first base layer and export it, then export the masked layer and overlay them in Photoshop. This is useful with small details that you're unable to paint due VText limitations.
Bring in Photoshop, bam, done.
Mudbox- Current gen/next gen its great.. can paint on all channels of your maps (normals, spec, diff, gloss, bump etc) really nice set of tools and brush sets. It also has an online tab where you can quickly download ref images, brushes, tools etc... Once you start trying to work with things that use alpha planes, overlapping UV's or anything below 1k triangles it seems to start behaving badly and doing some wierd things. If you buy the autodesk subscription pack (i recommend it) you get a TON of new things and mudbox really does become similar to photoshop for painting textures, you get all the blending modes of PS and you can paint oppacity maps too, theres some videos on it somewhere... I tend to like using mudbox for higher poly models.
3D coat is an amazing program for the price. I use it for painting textures/fixing seams on almost all my stuff these days some pretty cool features like surface snapping splines and a few interesting layer options. Also has a ton of useful export options for edgebleeding and exporting certain elements of maps. Ontop of being great for painting it has voxel sculpting, auto UV unwrap and best of all... Autopo... I cannot explain how useful this is:P you can completely retopo a character in a fraction of the time of normal techniques.
I must say though, 3D coat would really benefit from some of body paints projection painting functions.
Another program i hear good words about is deep paint 3D, worth checking that out.
IMO you get the most for your money with 3D coat and you'll be putting money straight into the pocket of its only developer (yup, 1 guy made it..).
For those of you who don't want to use vertex painting in zBrush I found a way to make it paint directly to a texture map. I posted a thread on it a few days ago, here it is: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83543
The trick is essentially that you use Projection Master while you have a texture map already applied to it. The drawback is that you need to lock your camera while working and that you can't use Spotlight (why?!?) while your canvas is dropped. But you can use zApplink and project texture with Photoshop.