Final Thesis about Photoshop 3D-Painting tool.

#1

Hello!

 I am a 3D Visualisation and Animation student in Finnish University of Applied Sciences Metropolia. I'm on my final year and it is time to write my Final Thesis. A 30 to 70 page study about some problem, solution or workflow that is related to our field.

 Last summer I bought the Adobe Premium CS6 package and I have been using the newly re-written 3D Painting tool ever since. That is also my final thesis topic. It goes something like this: "Effective Texturing Methods in Photoshop CS6 Using the 3D-painting Tool".
 I think it is a great little tool for quick and efficient texturing (Especially cartoony/stylized/low-poly stuff)

 I have about 4 months of time to write it.

 
 Why am I telling you this?

 I want to hear your experiences of it.. ANYTHING.. Positive.. Negative.. Tips and tricks. Did you notice something interesting about it? What kinds of problems did you have with it? What do you wish it would be like?

 I can show my own workflow here if anyone is interested.
 Lets share all knowledge we have and write a great thesis together!

 Here are some examples of the stuff I've done with it.

 [https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/1st_PS_3dPaintTest.png](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/1st_PS_3dPaintTest.png)

 [https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/Little_GarbageRobo_forDA.png](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/Little_GarbageRobo_forDA.png)

 [https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/PlayerTank_3d.png](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/PlayerTank_3d.png)

 [https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/PlayerTank_3dPaint.png](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/PlayerTank_3dPaint.png)

  I am writing about Photoshop CS6 3D painting tool because I love Photoshop, its brushes and layers. Photoshop is the most user-friendly and easy to use software that I've ever used in my life. I have been using it since PS 7 came out.
 I will also probably say something about alternatives like painting inside Blender.. and Mudbox.

 MARI is more about hardcore movie and CGI stuff texturing.. So I don't think I will cover much of it though.
#2

Hi

If you do decide to look at Mari then please get in touch. I’d be really interested to read an in-depth comparison of PS 3d vs Mari. I can sort you out with a long eval of Mari if did want to do this.

Jack

#3

Hi!

That’s awesome. I will have to think about it.
“in depth” sounds like a separate thesis on its own… I was thinking of concentrating specifically on texturing techniques with PS CS6 3D tool. Especially focusing on low-poly and hand-painted texturing!
MARI is quite hardcore for those kind of things. you know…
But feel free to contribute to this thread in any way. Obviously you have knowledge of Mari… so you could comment from its point of view or something… :slight_smile:

#4

At the very least you should also have a look into 3dCoat and Maxon BodyPaint. And zBrush. Painting a 3D model involves much more than just a diffuse, specular and bump map these days: normal map creation is just as important, cavity maps, AO maps… Photoshop is a way too limited in this regard. A tool like 3dCoat delivers these, and more, and works well together with Photoshop.

Myself, I dislike the 3d painting tools in Photoshop, because they seem slow, cumbersome and much less effective than the other solutions out there. 3DCoat is my “weapon of choice” currently.

Photoshop’s 3d painting is insufficient on its own. You may also want to check out n-do.

#5

Yeah… I forgot to mention those software…
I’ve received quite a lot of rage in Photoshop 3d direction… :confused: Kind of makes me feel I chose a bad final thesis topic. But I had to make a decision since time was running low and now I must go with it.
I’ve been using it for over half a year now and at least I’m liking it :slight_smile:
I’ve tried Blender, Mudbox and Zbrush 3d painting but they don’t come even near the ease of use compared to PS. At least to me…

What restrictions are there in demo versions of 3DCoat and BodyPaint?

#6

While I agree that Photoshops 3D painting is limited, I have to say what it does is so easy and intuitive to use. It’s hard to fault Photoshop for that.

#7

Just showing you some more stuff…

Here is some testing and playing around with the 3D painting tool..
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-7b5GOZCJs&list=UUkUbtb_4fW7oqmIGewsl7EQ&index=5](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-7b5GOZCJs&list=UUkUbtb_4fW7oqmIGewsl7EQ&index=5)
Some artifacts and lag as you see..
Some 400 poly + 2K texture and FullHD Canvas.
But nowadays I do 1K textures with 5k poly object and 1600x800 canvas no problem.

Here is one enemy from a game that I was making.. but I had to freeze the project for reasons.
This is a screenshot right after projecting the original concept painting directly on the 3D model:
[https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/07.01.2013_3.png](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/07.01.2013_3.png)

Here is a screenshot after some 1 hour of cleaning up and painting some details:
[https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/07.01.2013_3_2.png](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3139165/PS3D/07.01.2013_3_2.png)
#8

No, you certainly did not choose a bad thesis topic. But there are mor specialized tools that allow to work much more efficient with 3d models than photoshop. I did use Body Paint a lot and, though sometimes buggy, it was (is) a highly professional tool. I tried the 3d tool in PS 4 and 5.5 (though not in 6) and it was terribly slow. Also it doesn’t give you the range of options you have with Body Paint. Probably it will take some time until 3d professionals do use PS for their 3d painting needs. So your thesis topic may be ahead of time :slight_smile:

#9

Thank you :slight_smile:

Yes… those CS4, CS5 ones were just the 1st baby steps… “testing” if you want.
They completely re-wrote the 3d tool for CS6.
I’ve been using it for half-a-year now and I like it :slight_smile:
Also… I am a beta tester for the next Photoshop (Can’t say anything else now). So I will try to give Adobe some direction for making the 3D tool better for 3d artists.

I do feel a bit like I’m ahead of time and this could be a useful tool in the future! :slight_smile:

I will post some more examples that I did when I get to my workstation PC.

#10

Here is a quick texturing test I did one day.

TOTAL TIME: About 1h on 3D + About 2h on 2D = about 3h

Quite a slow process… but at least it gave me an option to rotate the camera and find new camera angles and I didn’t even think of.

#11

It looks like you didn’t get an answer to this question. I can’t answer about bodypaint but 3D-Coat has no limitations for the 30 day trial. After the 30 days you can still use it but some limitations are applied like limiting it to 2048 textures and no export.
http://3d-coat.com/download/

I used to be excited for the idea of Photoshop for 3D texturing but was very disappointed when I tried it, then 3DC came along. Even before it had sculpting features the texture painting blew me away. Much better tools than anything else I had tried, most of which duplicate Photoshop tools, even blending modes for the layers. If you do need to jump out to Photoshop you can just click one button in 3DC and pop out to Photoshop then jump right back to 3DC to continue working.

#12

Sounds interesting!
I shall try it out! Thanks.

#13

Hello.

Here is a timelapse where I tested out how PS 3D painting would perform in a low-poly game asset making workflow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFFTSikSHKM

3D Coat is actually very cool program. Thanks philnolan3d.

#14

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.