| Painting
in 3D |
Artisan Tools: 3D Paint Tool
Usage
1. Create a polygon object.
2. Activate the 3D Paint Tool by going to Rendering Menu set > Texturing > 3D Paint Tool option box. Once the 3D Paint Tool is activated, you may notice that there is a big X through the brush. Maya is telling you that this surface is not ready to receive any color maps yet.
3. Select the surface you wish to paint in Maya.
4. Under File Textures, make sure Attribute to paint is selected for Color. Image Format isn’t important at this point but leaving it as a Maya IFF or selecting Targa (TGA) format will be fine.
5. Under File Textures click Assign Textures.
6. A window will pop up asking for Size X and Size Y. These setting will determine you texture map resolution. Maya’s default is 256 by 256. This value will be fine what this exercise. Click on Assign Textures. The shaded surface will lighten a bit and the brush will now be free from the big X. You are now ready to paint on this surface. As you begin to paint you may notice that your paint strokes are acting a bit odd. The reason for this is because we have not laid out the UVs of this surface. We can quickly resolve this by going to the Modeling Menu set > Edit Polygons > Texture > Automatic Mapping. Now your surface won’t act as funny when you paint on the surface.
The 3D Paint Tool breakdown
Function: The 3D Paint Tool allows Maya users to paint color and other image maps within the program.
Brush
There are two types of brushes Maya users can use:
- A brush that paints color and other image maps.
- A brush that loads the Paint FX brushes that allows users to paint MEL scripts that is found in the Paint FX Tools as 2D image maps.
Resizing the brush
- Users can use the keyboard shortcut ctrl-b+MMB to resize the brush.
- Radius U allows users to resize the brush with numeric inputs or moving the slider.
- Radius L limits the Radius U size to its value.
Artisan brush types
- Each brush paints differently, just like a paintbrush one would load in Photoshop. If you click on the Browse button, you can load specialized shapes into the brush type.
Rotate To Stroke option
- Enabling this option will rotate the brush as you paint around the surface in 3D space.
Color
Color
- Click on the color chip to select which color loads into the brush.
Flood Color
- Click on the color chip to select which color loads into the flood options.
Opacity
- As the name states, you can paint with less opacity if you change the value down from the default of 1.0000.
Flood All
- Clicking on this button will cause the select surface to be completely filled with the color in the Flood Color option.
Flood Selected
- This option works best if you are working with polygonal objects and have one or more faces selected. This tool acts as just like a Photoshop fill option with a marquee selection.
Paint Operations
Artisan Paint
- Using this option (default) allows the user to simply paint.
Artisan Erase
- As the name suggests, this option erases back to the default shader color.
Artisan Clone
- Pick a region to clone from and paint away with the same surface the originally chosen area.
Paint Effects Paint
- This paint operation only works with the brush type used for Paint Effects tool. Click on the double brush icon to open up the Visor window and select a MEL to be loaded into the brush.
Paint Effects Smear
- As the name suggests, this brush smears the colors you have previously painted onto this surface.
Paint Effects Blur
- As the name suggests, this brush will blur the colors on the areas you brush.
Blend Mode
- The Artisan brushes allow for blend modes (just like Photoshop’s blend modes).
- 3D Paint Tool users have the following options to choose from: Default (acts just like a regular brush), Lighten, Darken, Multiple, Screen, and Overlay.
File Textures
Before you can paint on a surface, you must load an attribute to paint onto and assign it to the shader the surface is currently using.
Attribute to Paint
- Users can paint to any attribute the shader uses. But, you cannot see any one of them but the Color attribute. If you wish to paint to another attribute, I would suggest loading a Color attribute and painting it as if were the attribute you want to paint anyway. Next disconnect the node and reconnect it to the location you originally wanted. In the bigger picture of things, this cuts down on guesswork down the road.
Image Format
- Users can choose a wide variety of Image Formats to paint to but I would recommend using one that Photoshop could read (like Targa or Tiff). We can export this image map later and manipulate it in a 2D paint program.
- I would recommend working with Maya IFF, Targa (TGA) or Tiff (TIF) formats. These formats are lossless which means they do not compress on save and therefore do not lose any information over time.
Assign Textures
- As we have discovered earlier, this button assigns a texture map to the surface we are working with. If you have a big X through your brush, you will need to assign a texture to it.
Save Textures
- Clicking on this button will save your texture map as a 2D file that any good paint program should be able to read (as long as we chose the proper Image Format).
- When you hit this button, Maya will automatically save it
in a default location which would be something like the following:
- i. C:/Documents and Settings/User/My Documents/maya/projects/default/3dPaintTextures/objectName_color.tga
Reload File Textures
- If you export the map and want to reload it back into Maya, you can use this button to do so.
Update on Stroke
- Enabling this function allows users to see exactly what they are paint in real time. Only use this function if you video card can handle it.
Save Texture on Stroke
- As the name says, it saves the texture map each time you create a stroke. I rarely enable this function because it can eat up a lot of memory.
Stroke
Screen Projection
- Enable this function it you wish to paint using a mirror-like function.
Reflection
- Select which way for the brush to mirror.
Stylus Pressure
One of the truly great options with the 3D Paint Tool is that you can use a Wacom tablet to paint you surfaces with. This saves hours of work by using the opacity sensitivity of this great input device. I strongly urge you to use this tool whenever possible. Maya can use this tool throughout the entire program!
