3d skinning

[Green Hornet]

Is there any program or way to color a skin while it is on a mesh: such as 3D?  :rickbm

[murs47]

Interesting, I didn't know CS3 could do that. I'm going to have to do some more exploring, I've pretty much been using it the same way as CS2.

[Lunarman]

I know someone with CS3 so next time I talk to them I'll try and remember to ask.

[Cyjack]

I'm not aware of this feature, as I understand the OP's implication, being available in Photoshop Cs3, unless its via third party plugin.  I haven't come across it in the documentation, and its something that they'd likely make a big deal out of, because it would let them compete with dedicated 3D painting apps costing hundreds of dollars.

If I understand the OP, he's looking for 3D painting..."painting" directly onto the texture on a mesh in real time interactive fashion, like you'd paint a miniature or something in real life.

The programs I'm aware of with this functionality, listed cheapest to most expensive, are as follows:

Daz Hexagon 2, Pixologic Zbrush, Luxology Modo, Maxon Bodypaint.

With specific regards to this functionality, you tend to get what you pay for.  Bodypaint would be the best for this  (costing near $1000), but it's dedicated to this functionality, while the other programs on the list have a much more general toolset, and can do many other useful things in the 3D realm.

There was also Deep Paint, but I'm not even sure if thats still being made, nor what the extent of it's functionality was in this area.


[Edit]Ah, I see.  Its not in Vanilla Cs3...its the new live preview functions in CS3 Extended you're talking about. Lets you preview the images on 3d objects. Yeah, that is neat.  Pricey though.  Its not interactive 3d painting though...it just alllows you to preview the texture on an object the same as any 3d app with quality preview would.  Its just really convenient because you can do it right there in the program that many people use to work on the image maps.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshopextended/features/

I'm not sure if it supports sophisticated UV mapping coordinates or not.  The fact that its a simple cylinder in the example makes me suspiscious.  A character in a Tpose or a face would have been more encouraging.

[ow_tiobe_sb]

What would you say to a free application (for personal, non-commercial use) that's worth examining?  Try Tattoo.  The programme will load .3ds, .b3d, .x, and .obj 3D file formats.  Notice that Wavefront OBJ is one of those formats, and notice also that NIFSkope can export a mesh to OBJ format (of course, 'twould take further tweaking to remove bits that NIFSkope automatically exports as visible, such as the bounding and selection boxes, to prepare the mesh for use with Tattoo).  gmax users can export directly to .3ds (and export only the necessary parts of a mesh, I might add, without the unwanted hidden bits) for use with Tattoo.  Below is a screenshot of male_hulking exported to OBJ and painted in Tattoo:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
In .3ds or .obj formats, UV map coordinates are maintained and faithfully imported into Tattoo.  The resulting texture created can be applied to FF and FFvTTR meshes without distortion or mess.

One has a number of painting tools at one's disposal in Tattoo (e.g., airbrush, clone brush, etc.), none of which necessarily will yield the same level of control that, e.g., Photoshop will, IMHO, but 'tis fun to experiment with.  I believe it saves textures to PNG files that one would need to convert to TGA (or DDS, if desired, for FFvTTR; IrfanView is a free programme that will allow one to convert between PNG and TGA formats).  I don't use it, personally, but those who use Wacom tablets might like to try it.

Major Drawbacks:

1. Tattoo is very memory-intensive.  I would not recommend using it with less than 512 MB RAM and a high-end video card.  I have 1 GB ram and a 256 MB nVidia GeForce card, and I sometimes experience low framerates and slow response times (Of course, I'm running hefty anti-virus and anti-spyware applications at the same time with Firefox and Tattoo running as well.).  If you have the hardware capacity, give it a go.

2. No layers (some of you illustration experts may scoff at this limitation and think of it as no true limitation).  If you are accustomed to using layers in the gimp or Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, etc., you will not have the capacity to do so with Tattoo.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and The Prat in the Hat

[Green Hornet]

Thanks to everyone.  I've downloaded tattoo and a trial version of Maxon Bodypaint  and I'll try these out and see what I come up with.  :rickbm

[Green Hornet]

I tried the trial version of bodypaint and could not get it to import nif files or would it let me save any work I did.  :eek2:  I tried Tattoo and it would not let me import nif file.  :doh:  So I was unable to get a 3d model to skin.  So if anyone knows of a way to take a 3d model from Freedom Force and skin the model in 3D I weould like to know.  Doing it 2D is like trial and error but I guess it takes time and practice.   :rickbm

[UnfluffyBunny]

there's a plug in for photoshop called enzo which imports 3d models, it's $300 for a single license, but if your serious about working with 3d and you can afford a copy of photoshop in the first place, look into it
(or atleast the 30 day trial)

[ow_tiobe_sb]

I tried the trial version of bodypaint and could not get it to import nif files or would it let me save any work I did.  :eek2:  I tried Tattoo and it would not let me import nif file.  :doh:  So I was unable to get a 3d model to skin.  So if anyone knows of a way to take a 3d model from Freedom Force and skin the model in 3D I weould like to know.  Doing it 2D is like trial and error but I guess it takes time and practice.   :rickbm

If you would review my post above carefully, you would know which file formats Tattoo can read.  Moreover, you would have a lead on which tool might help you get a NIF file into Tattoo, namely NIFSkope.  Here is an impromptu-torial, which I seem apt to produce these days (WARNING: some large pictures):
[spoiler]
Step 1 - Exporting to OBJ Using NIFSkope
Open the mesh you would like to paint in NIFSkope.  For this tutorial, I have selected GNI's alien mesh.  Left-click on the body of the mesh in the 3D rendering display located on the right side of the NIFSkope window.  You will see the edged faces of the mesh display in brilliant white against the off-white of the non-textured mesh.


Make certain that you have selected the NiTriShape block ("Alien:1") in the "Block List" located on the left side of the NIFSkope window.  The node tree should open to this block automatically if you have correctly selected the trishape mesh in the 3D rendering window.


Once you have selected the trishape mesh, left-click on "File => Export => Export OBJ" in the NIFSkope menu bar.


A dialog box will pop up, asking you to verify that you want to export the NiTriShape block, which is the trishape mesh geometry.  Left-click on "OK."


Select the location in which you would like to save the exported OBJ file.  Left-click on "Save."


Step 2 - Opening the Mesh in Tattoo

Startup Tattoo.  Left-click on "File => Load 3D Model" on the Tattoo menu bar.  Select your OBJ mesh and left-click on "Open."


Your mesh should load into the Tattoo editor window.


Paint the mesh in 3D. (NOTE: For the purposes of this tutorial, I did not bother to finish the paint job on all facets of the mesh.  This can be accomplished by using the arrow keys to rotate the 3D mesh so that it might be painted on all of its sides.)


Left-click on "File => Save Modified Textures" on the Tattoo menu bar when you are done.  A PNG file should be save to the same file folder in which your OBJ mesh is located. 


This file should be converted to TGA for use with the original NIF following the skin naming convention (in this case, "Alien.tga").  You will need to figure this step out on your own.

For the skeptics, I have posted this composite texture + wiremap from the original Alien mesh to show how Tattoo accurately assigns the paint applied in the 3D environment to the 2D texture.


Finis.[/spoiler]

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and The Tutorial Guy