3dmax with Bodypaint - Advantage???

iceman30 · Mar 2012

Hi Guys!!!
I got a question and if somebody can help me I'll be very Grateful.
Here's my question..
I'm using 3d max(creating meshes,assets for game engines)
I'm trying to understand because when i'm unwraping in max and texturing in photoshop is ok but is it going to be a big advantage(for texturing) to learn "Bodypaint"software?
Because sometimes it takes a lot of time to fix seams and finding the exact directions.

Kindly waiting for your opinion.
:0)

Umar6419 · Mar 2012

If you are using 3ds Max 2011 or 12.. you can use viewport canvas.
tools/viewport canvas

Bigjohn · Mar 2012

If all you want is to just fix seams, then yeah, Max has that built-in with viewport canvas.

If you wanna do actual texturing in 3D, then it's not sufficient, and you'd need a tool like Bodypaint.

Justin Meisse · Mar 2012

3DCoat is a pretty good alternative - especially for the price and functions that go beyond 3d paint. It paints a little differently than photoshop but I've found something appealing about the brushes - to the point where I find myself painting stuff in 3dcoat that I could easily do in photoshop.

Ace-Angel · Mar 2012

I can vouch for 3DC too, just don't try painting Normal Maps with it, and you should be fine.

iceman30 · Mar 2012

Thank you very much for the help!!!
:0) :0) :0)

a-k-m · Mar 2012

what about painting 3d in mudbox... is this sufficient or are the results not so good?

Asyme · Mar 2012

It's fine - but has a few weird glitches that I recall annoying me when I last tried it (things like stuff importing back from Photoshop oddly).

Overall it's a pretty robust package - but 3dcoat is generally better. It's link with Photoshop is good, it's easy to pull in textures and the development of it is still fairly fast. Ugly interface but you can't have everything...

Viewport canvas is (as mentioned) good for seam fixes and the occasional bit of direct painting but it has a few horrible flaws. No link to PS, horrible way of importing textures and masks (limited file format) and so on. It's frustrating because with a few tweaks it could be much more powerful - the layer system is superb and the brushes feel responsive. You get the feeling autodesk deliberately hobbled it purely to push Mudbox.

Ace-Angel · Mar 2012

Mudbox is perfectly fine ONLY if you start and keep your workflow in Mudbox, and any texture importation should be temporary, as in import it back ASAP in mudbox before kicking off for the rest of the day from photoshop.

I know it sounds weird, but for all the 'progress' they made on it, it seems like the guys at Autodesk forgot that some of us already have normal maps and textures in Photoshop, which are symmetrical and 32 bit, which we would like to import into Mudbox to spruce them up a little bit and/or correct certain things.

On the other hand, 3DC allows to do everything and anything with all kinds of textures from about 10-20 releases ago.

cptSwing · Mar 2012

Asyme wrote: »

Viewport canvas is (as mentioned) good for seam fixes and the occasional bit of direct painting but it has a few horrible flaws. No link to PS, horrible way of importing textures and masks (limited file format) and so on. It's frustrating because with a few tweaks it could be much more powerful - the layer system is superb and the brushes feel responsive. You get the feeling autodesk deliberately hobbled it purely to push Mudbox.

This. I'd actually be surprised if they really extend its functionalities, unfortunately. I have experienced some horrible brushstroke lags with very small brush sizes and various jittering/random options on, though.

iceman30 · Mar 2012

What about Zbrush(for painting textures) is it similar as 3d Coat better or worst?
Because most of the people in the forums comment ZB,also I could not find much tutorials for 3d coat,instead for Z(LOT).

Kindly waiting for your replay.
Thank you!!!

Ace-Angel · Mar 2012

ZBrush is a different beast altogether. You cannot paint Specular, Gloss, Emissive, or any kind of special maps. You can only paint the Diffuse, and the diffuse relies on your vertices, meaning it stories the color information on your model instead of UV or textures.

Look up Vertex Painting to see what I mean, ZB does that, but on millions of polies instead.

I personally use ZB since getting your other maps is pretty easy once you have a proper AO, Diffuse, Displacement and Normal Map, especially with xNormal/nDo2 involved, but if you can get your brain wrapped around 3DC, I would suggest that.

Ofcourse, with 30 day trials for 3DC, ZB and Mudbox, you could always try and see which one fits you best.

iceman30 · Mar 2012

Thank you very much!!! :0) :0) :0)
I'll give a try -3dcoat.

bugo · Mar 2012

didnt read this whole thread, but, 3dcoat student version has 7 layers limitation and 2048px maps, but its good enough to learn it. It's about $99 only if you finish your trial.

3dmax with Bodypaint - Advantage???

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