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View Full Version : DeepPaint or BodyPaint3D or Zbrush2?: Need help on my purchase for a 3d model painter

kiwisheep
11-16-2004, 07:44 PM
I'm in the process of deciding which of these products is better for painting/texturing a model.

1. Zbrush 2
2. BodyPaint 3D R2
3. DeepPaint

Both are at the same price level but ZBrush 2 seems to offer more because it also allows you to model. I am bit wary about it whether the texturing part is better or comparable with BodyPaint 3D. My goal is to get a 3D painter software but if the software can also be used to model then I'll take it as a bonus.

Is Zbrush 2 painting/texturing capability superior or inferior to BodyPaint 3D or DeepPaint?

I'm just learning to texture and I find the traditional way (using Photoshop) to be primitive. Surely, if you are modeling in 3D - you should be able to paint in 3D as well. Also, once I painted the object the software will allow me to bring it back to the original 3D software I used to model it and render it from there.
EricChadwick
11-18-2004, 02:22 PM
From my experience, BP3D2 is the best all-around for 3d paint.

ZB has 3d paint, but the program was designed from the start to work in 2D (or 2.5D as they call it, the idea of "pixols"). Often I found myself accidentally knocking the 3D model down into the 2D realm, from whence it cannot be retrieved into 3D again. In ZB1 the projection paint was a ZScript called Texture Master, and it was kind of "tacked on." I haven't tested ZB2, so I can't really comment on whether the 3d paint interface has improved. Many people seem to like the modeling features, like the quickness of ZSpheres and how they create a nice quad topology, also the displacement/normal map extraction (although I've heard that's not as easy to use as other extractors).

DP3D has a simple easy-to-learn UI, and uses keyboard shortcuts similar to Photoshop, as well as decent translation from/to it. But the painting tools are vastly inferior to Photoshop's. Many artists I know use DP3D merely for fixing seams, doing all the rest of their painting in PS. I can't wait for Right Hemisphere to roll out a major revision of this tool, maybe someday. ;)

BP3D has a more complex UI. It took more time for me to figure it out, but once I got the hang of it I found the UI vastly superior to ZB and DP3D. Extremely customizable. I felt the painting tools were a step up from DP3D, and the projection paint a tad faster, but still PS painting tools have more refinement. I found I have better control in the darks with PS than with BP3D.

Both DP3D and BP3D allow you to paint simultaneously in several layers, like color and bump at the same time. I never really got the hang of this though, it seems like I needed to very carefully set up each brush, otherwise one layer would end up screwy. I'd love to hear if anyone ever got this working to their satisfaction, seems like it could be a real improvement over the traditional method of just retouching the color map. Hmmm, may be time to start a thread about this.

Well, hope that helps. Just one person's view of course.
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