Deep
Paint 3D can be an incredibly useful
tool to aid in texture mapping your
object. (They have a free trial period,
too. You can download the program here:
http://www.righthemisphere.com/products/dp3d/index.htm)
Most people I know use Photoshop for
painting texture maps, but it can get
difficult detailing every little surface
of an object, especially if it's chopped
up into a puzzle like my space ship.
:)
As
far as I'm concerned, that's where Deep
Paint is most useful. It allows you
to paint directly onto the surface of
the object. Or more precisely, it can
render out a still shot of the object
from any view, which you can import
into Photoshop. There you can paint
on top of the rendering, and when you're
done, send that back to Deep Paint,
which translates your changes back onto
the texture map. When you're all done,
you can send the texture back into Max.
This means you don't have to be nearly
as precise when setting up mapping coordinates
- a simple "Flatten Mapping"
will almost always suffice.
I'll
walk you through the procedure of exporting
to and from photoshop, since Deep Paint
has a lot of other features that can
make this less than straightforward.
First, in Max, I'll apply a new material
with a rough-looking texture map to
the ship, just as a starting point.
(We're not going to do a real detailed
texture here, I'm just going through
the motions.)
If
you've installed Deep Paint correctly,
you'll find a "Right Hemisphere"
listing under your Utilities tab - click
"More" to find it. Double-click
on it, then click on the button labeled
"Paint Selection" - that'll
load up Deep Paint, and send the object
and materials over to it. You'll see
a "Material Import" dialog
- hit OK.
Your
object should be loaded, texture and
everything. Deep Paint 3d is a fully
functional paint program, but personally,
I like photoshop a lot better. So there
are only a very few tools I actually
use in deep paint. In the toolbar is
a Rotate tool. This is essential, but
pretty self-explanatory. The zoom tool
is handy too if you're going to be doing
any detail work. So rotate and zoom
your object around until you find an
angle you like, and I'll show you how
to get it into Photoshop.
Click
on the brush tool. (it's just an odd
effect of the interface that you can't
export unless you have a painting tool
selected.) Next, up at the top of the
screen, click on the "Toggle Projection
Mode" button - this lets the program
know you want to paint directly on the
mesh. Then just to the left of that,
click on the "Export Material to
Photoshop" button. If it's not
already running, Photoshop will load
up, and your texture will appear. (Depending
on your operating system, you may get
a "Server Busy" error message
hidden under the photoshop window -
just click on "Switch To"
to continue.)
Once
the texture is loaded, you're pretty
much ready to paint on it. If you look
at your layers palette you'll notice
a lot of layers. The top one shows the
geometry of the object - hide and unhide
that as you need it. Under that is a
layer labeled "Paint layer: Color".
Do all of your painting there. When
you switch back to Deep Paint, it'll
take whatever's in that layer and apply
it to the mesh. To be honest, I haven't
experimented much with the other layers
(bump, glow, etc) but they shouldn't
be too hard to figure out, if you need
them.
3DTotal
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One
other useful note, if you want to rubber
stamp something from the reference layer
to the paint layer, check "Use
All Layers" in the stamp tool's
properties - this will keep you from
having to change layers every time you
want to set a different clone source.
Once
you're done adding details, switch back
to deep paint, and click on "Fetch
the Material from Photoshop". (Click
"Yes" when it warns you that
the operation will not be undoable.)
If you switch back to the rotate tool,
you'll be able to see your new details
applied to the object.
Go
back and forth as often as you need
to, rotating the object and drawing
more details. When you're all done,
you'll want to send the material back
to Max (this saves the texture map back
out to the original texture file - so
be careful, if your file was a psd,
it'll overwrite all your layers!) To
get the material back into Max, get
out of projection mode by clicking the
same button as before, then click on
the "Send Materials to 3D application"
button. Back in Max, your texture should
load automatically.
Conclusion
I
hope this tutorial was helpful. With
any luck, you've learned how to navigate
the Unwrap UVW interface, how to apply
automatic mapping coordinates, and how
to map an object manually when you need
to. Keep experimenting, though. By no
means did I cover every detail and every
feature of the Unwrap UVW tool, just
the ones I felt are most useful for
my work. You may find you prefer other
tools over the ones I showed you. If
you have any questions, feel free to
e-mail me. Until next time!
