Question: UvMapping & paint software

[GCL]

Need to add here Zbrush 1.55 as well. Looking for application that would compliment my software.

[leigh]

Well, it's really difficult to make any outside judgement calls here, because so much depends on the users themselves - ie, in this case, you.

Lightwave does work well with Aura, but that is no substitute for something like Deep Paint 3D or ZBrush, since the latter two are both 3D, whereas Aura is simply a communication across the Hub that is entirely 2D only.

The best I can recommend is for you to get some demos of these programs, and try them all out extensively. That way, YOU can see for yourself what suits you and your workflow best.

Deep Paint 3D is a cool program, although a little user-unfriendly at first. However, the advantage to a person like you is that they have a LightWave edition that plugs into LW really well, and gives you the ability to paint straight onto your LW objects with little fuss.

Of course all the vendors claim that their product is best, but in the end, each program is usually offering very similar, if not the same, tools, and it's really up to you to decide which one you want to stick with.

With regards to actual UV unwrapping, in my personal opinion, LW
s own UV toolset is more than adequate to deal with any UV mapping situation. It's just a time consuming process, that many users get frustrated with.
I really feel that very often people feel that they are doing something wrong with their UV mapping, simply because it is taking a long time - the important thing to be aware of is that no matter how you do it, it is going to take a long time to edit your UV map to perfection - whether it's an hour or a day or longer. UV mapping is not a quick solution to things, and is really an art unto itself.

And then painting textures.... another entirely complex chapter. If you are investigating 3D painters and stuff to try and make the process easier, I will warn you that that isn't necessarily the case! Creating textures to look really good is not simply a matter of making brush strokes, whether it is in 3D or 2D - painting texture maps requires a good knowledge and understanding of texturing theory, which you cannot avoid if you wish to create textures that are effective and realistic. 3D painters might make the process somewhat simpler, but not easier.

Just some things to think about :)

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