Best way to create a unique color ID map?

TheAxiom · May 2016

Hey everyone!

I need to texture a spaceship. There are 10 parts to it and I need to create a color ID map for each part.
Some details are not geometry based, meaning they would need to be hand painted/masked not by geometry.
If I did this in Photoshop with 3DO it would only be able to look at one map at a time so it would be very difficult.
If I did this in Substance Painter I would only be able to mask by geometry, unless Painter 2 has a way to lasso select?

Here's an example of non-geometry color ID masking that I need to achieve.

Any ideas? Thank you.

Eric Chadwick · May 2016

Why not just paint those? You have Photoshop, which lets you use Paths to get flawless-edged editable shapes.

pior · May 2016

If the UVs are not heavily distorted in that area you can indeed paint it on directly. If not:

- Paint the details on a stencil that you can then project to the lowpoly in a 3d painting environment like Substance painter or 3DCoat, or to the highpoly in Zbrush
- Or, create a secondary set of UV especially for decals, and you can then project the details from one to the other
- Or, project these details with camera mapping (which essentially creates camera based UVs)
- Or, wrap stencil plane/decals around the model and bake them down as if they were your highpoly source and texture.

(when it comes to texture transfer from one set of UVs to another, some programs allow to do the conversion directly, while some others require to cast rays between two copies of the model.)

TheAxiom · May 2016

Eric Chadwick said:

Why not just paint those? You have Photoshop, which lets you use Paths to get flawless-edged editable shapes.

As I mentioned in my post, the reason why I don't wish to hand paint them in Photoshop is that I have to do this for hundreds of UV's. The game I'm creating has modular parts that put together a spaceship and multiple color ID's per part. It would not be a VERY time consuming process, especially when I'm unable to see the whole asset in 3D while painting them, with multiple maps/objects applied.

Eric Chadwick · May 2016

Oh I thought you said 10 parts.

Projection could be the way to go.

TheAxiom · May 2016

pior said:

If the UVs are not heavily distorted in that area you can indeed paint it on directly. If not:

- Paint the details on a stencil that you can then project to the lowpoly in a 3d painting environment like Substance painter or 3DCoat, or to the highpoly in Zbrush
- Or, create a secondary set of UV especially for decals, and you can then project the details from one to the other
- Or, project these details with camera mapping (which essentially creates camera based UVs)
- Or, wrap stencil plane/decals around the model and bake them down as if they were your highpoly source and texture.

(when it comes to texture transfer from one set of UVs to another, some programs allow to do the conversion directly, while some others require to cast rays between two copies of the model.)

I also considered doing a baking method, but manually hand painting them in Substance Painter still seems to be the most efficient and fastest method, but it is still not fast enough. We have to paint a huge block of color then use a circular brush to 'chop away' at it to get the shape we want.

Why that's faster than Photoshop or Baking is because I can see whatever mesh I want, with as many parts and UV's applied in live 3D without worrying about baking, importing, exporting, etc. It's also completely non-destructive so I can create a fill layer and paint on a mask.

But what I want is a lasso tool in Painter, like how I'd create them in Photoshop. It's very annoying there isn't a single perfect solution. Maybe I'll have to contact Algorithmic.

I suppose there just is no software or method that will be faster or more efficient than that.

TheAxiom · May 2016

Eric Chadwick said:

Oh I thought you said 10 parts.

Projection could be the way to go.

On this one mesh alone, then we'll need to have multiple artists be able to do the same thing over and over again for multiple skins and multiple ships. Faffing around with 3DO and only being able to see one map at a time is really not a good method unfortunately. It would be fine if I was doing a portfolio or student piece, but not for a game like this.

Eric Chadwick · May 2016

Is the decal shape the same from ship to ship? Is the mesh shape different from ship to ship? Then you'll need to do them by hand. No way around that. Or else, you need to model in the shapes when you make the ship parts.

JedTheKrampus · May 2016

The alternative is to model out the shapes which is probably not going to be faster.

If you have Mudbox, Zbrush, or 3D Coat you can export a PSD to projection paint on in Photoshop or Krita. That would probably be your best bet. Or you could use Mari Indie for this particular step which has a lasso tool and most of the other things you expect to have from Photoshop (except a good text tool.) Keep a library of common image elements to kitbash.

pior · May 2016

then we'll need to have multiple artists be able to do the same thing over and over again for multiple skins and multiple ships.

Hmm ... if what we are talking about here is painting big, hard edge graphic patterns on the hull of ships ... and finding a convenient, repeatable way to do so ... what I would personally attempt would be to model these patterns as floaters as Jed suggested - using 3d splines with a thicken modifier at a small radius. This would have the huge advantage of being akin to vector graphics: fully non-destructive, very easy to tweak, and just as fast as painting it by hand. Once the outlines are done it would then just be a matter of baking that to texture and filling in the blanks.

Best way to create a unique color ID map?

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