---~[ 3D painting softwares ]~---

funshark · Mar 2008

Hi all,

I would like to do a sort of brainstorming around these tools.

- What do you think about the fact of using a 3D painting software ( or tool ) inside your workflow? and about the future of this sort of tool?
- Are you using one already? which one?
- Do you recommend one software in particular? why?

Thanks for replies

( and i'll post my part later )

Eric Chadwick · Mar 2008

You should post your part first.

I've used Deep Paint 3D, Body Paint 3D, Tattoo, and some others, but I don't paint textures much these days. Body Paint 3D seems to be the best... not buggy like Deep Paint, feature-rich, great integration with Photoshop and 3ds Max, good painting tools.

3D Paint is a must for the artists in the pipeline who paint non-tiling textures (characters, vehicles, props, etc.) where seams are an issue. Also helpful for painting terrain masks, etc.

Do a search or two, a lot has been said already.

funshark · Mar 2008

Right,

Don't worry, i'm not a newcomer on the subject

( and i didn't find a complete discussion about this )

so :

- For me, the necessity to paint directly on the 3d mesh is becoming obvious and vital; of course, specially on organic models with lot of deformations and seams.
I think, like we have displacement painting today becoming part of basic workflow, we will have 3D painting in the future.

- I've tested everything i can find : painter 3d, deep paint 3D, maya 3D paint tool, bodypaint3D, and recently enzo 3D... I'm particularly on enzo3D and bodypaint3d lately because of the efficient they have.
But they are not "perfect" already :
Enzo3d has lot of improvements to do...
Bodypaint3D has a poor brush system...

- I recommend bodypaint3D for now... but i'm waiting for better one ( maybe enzo3D in 1 year? or mud box 2 ?

)
Bodypaint3D is easily plugged into software like max or maya and has powerful 3D painting engine ( especially the projection one ).

pior · Mar 2008

Hehe quite the neverending subject huh ?

Tried alot of them also! But I must state first that I don't care about the model being displayed in fancy 3D; painting in Photoshop on a screenshot that get re-projected on the final model is my thing, plus even the fancy 3d based paiting apps need to do such an operation internally at some point anyways(unless the user enjoys enjoys painting with a brush that warps and does weird things in perspective...)

-Tattoo
Free for personal use. Nice enough to fix seams with. Painting is all 3D and quite limited, and the app is very prone to crashes. Can project .png 'stamps' on the model tho so you can apply logos and even partially painted bits with it

-Enzo (photoshop plugin)
In beta testing since forever, 14 days trial renewable at each new release.
Painting is made on a screenshot but you can then rotate the model from within photoshop which is SEX.
Hated it when it was first released. Loved it later... but tried the latest version two weeks ago with CS3 and it was a nightmare - it gradually degrades the texture even where you don't paint. Simple interface (one button switch) but crappy material editor.

-BodyPaint
Solid painting engine, quite different from PS still. Can paint either in 3D or in 'screenshot' projection mode. But the screenshot cannot be easily exported to Photoshop. I think it's good when working with layers tho. But the interface is way too heavy for my tastes...

-DeepPaint
My all time favorite. Support used to be very so-so, but to my surprise the latest version works flawlessly with CS3 (the 7.01 to CS1 and 2 switch was horrible, I gave up at this time). Can paint in full 3D as well as 2D projection, and can export a screenshot to photoshop with one laye per channel (diffuse spec etc). One can create fancy brushes with material information quite easily and can paint with them from within the app.

-Zbrush polypainting (dense meshes only)
Basically an advances vertex color painter. But gives Zbrush headaches. Demo video available in a Gnomon 'Introduction to Zbrush' dvd I think (Tiki statue texturing)

-Zapplink
Zbrush plugin. Does the photoshop 'screnshot export' exclusively. Been a while, don't remember much of it but there is a nice Caroline Delen demo video available on the Zbrush website.

-Painter3D
Discontinued. Was great since it used an early version of the Painter brush engine. But it seems to have no 3d acceleration - if you give the active viewport more than a few hundred pixels worth of width the program crawls down

Moose demo video availale (if yo uwant it I have it somewhere)

Hope this helps!

funshark · Mar 2008

Oh? there is a new DeepPaint3D ? I thought it was discontinued .
I didn't remember you were be able to link with photoshop; but you said it's crap with CS2... weird

I'll give it a try then.

Thanks Pior :]

Neox · Mar 2008

yep the update was kinda unexpected, and yep deeppaint is also my alltime favorite, never really felt comfortable with bodypaint and had some issues i didn't find a way around

the update was free and can be found somewhere in the righthemisphere forums, don't know if they have it on the main site

Michael Knubben · Mar 2008

If only Enzo's price-tag was more in line with its level of polish, stability and performance.
In which case, it'd be very affordable, and I'd buy it.

funshark · Mar 2008

MightyPea > same here. It's still the very beginning for me... there is a LOT of things to do before it becomes interesting ( to buy and to use into a professional workflow )

Michael Knubben · Mar 2008

Oh no, I actually already think it's interesting. It's just that I think the price is ridiculous for how slow and buggy Enzo can be. For that price, I'd expect something perfect, which this is not. It's exactly what I'm looking for, though, so I hope he starts selling it for less.

funshark · Mar 2008

Oh?
So you don't want the use of '3D layers' and proper projection algorithm ? + work with many objects a time, etc. ?

( like bodypaint does perfectly or almost )

I can use it to make doodles but not into a real working workflow.

James Edwards · Mar 2008

Hey pior, do you have a solution for displaying low resolution meshes as smooth and un-faceted in enzo? The last trial I used in CS I couldn't figure out how to do that before it timed out, and the latest one doesn't work in for me in CS3 and has since expired. I'd be willing to spend the money on it assuming I could get a working version for CS3, and avoid the faceted display of low rez models. It could have just been a material/smoothing issue of the obj file, but I didn't manage to sort that before the trial expired.

I might just hold off in the end and see what mudbox 2 offers, otherwise I think enzo is pretty cool.

funshark · Mar 2008

Gwot > try FBX format rather than OBJ...
OBJ is belong to past..

I don't have any smoothing issue with maya files or fbx.

---~[ 3D painting softwares ]~---

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