BODYPAINT 3D R2.5 Reviewed By Kathie Berry

BodyPaint 3D™ provides artists with a set of tools for texturing that really is hard to beat. If you are like me and are tired of constantly switching back and forth between your modeling program and 2D texturing software, you are going to be ecstatic about the capabilities that BodyPaint has. Paint in 3D directly on your model? Absolutely! With layer, filter and even tablet support, BodyPaint 3D R2.5 has topped the charts with a set of tools that will become indispensable to your texturing work. Included is a set of UV tools that make it easy for the first time user to completely UV map their models for texturing.

Image courtesy of MAXONTM

When opening the program for the first time, you will find that the same easy interface that you're used to in
CINEMA 4D^TM is utilized. By clicking on the setup wizard icon you are able to easily create UV's for your models with a few clicks.

THE SETUP WIZARD

The Setup Wizard now has support for multiple maps, materials and objects, as well as automatic creation of UV's. You are able to choose materials as well as channels and rescale existing materials. This function really enables the new user to get their models set up for texturing in the easiest way possible.

Setup Wizard

 

As an example, I used one of my chocolate chip cookies to show you how easy it was for me to set it up for texturing in BodyPaint 3D. After making the model editable, I took it into BodyPaint and ran it through the wizard shown above, choosing a texture size of 1024x1024. Selecting Tools/UV Tools/UV polygons, I was able then to select my polygons for mapping. This presented me with a map view which then allowed me to choose which method of mapping I felt was best. Here you will see that I chose flat projection for the mapping.

The UV Layout

 

EXPORTING YOUR MAP

The process is very easy and quick. You can now highlight the polygons and with a black 1-point pixel brush, outline the polys for export as an image to be textured in your favorite paint program. Or you can paint in 3D projection mode directly on your object using your texture material or one of the many included in BodyPaint 3D. BodyPaint 3D includes many methods of unwrapping and mapping your models including the new Optimal Cubic Mapping function. You will also find support for n-gons in BodyPaint R2.5 now.

Setting up your map image for export

Another very handy tool involves the "UV Terrace" command. If you need to add new polygons to your model by doing an extrusion or other revamping and you have already mapped the UV's, you can select the new polygons, go to the UV Commands and click on UV Terrace. This will then combine the new polygons with your existing mapping. Once they are merged into your existing map, you can then smooth everything by selecting any overlapping areas and pressing the Relax UV button several times. If the new polygons are on the outside edges of your mapping, you may need to move some individual UV points by hand either before or after relaxing, then relax once more.

 

THE MATERIAL MANAGER BodyPaint 3D R2.5 has reworked the material manager to provide you with improved handling of procedural shaders, a more intuitive camera handling function, and a Heads Up display that provides total control of attributes at your fingertips. One of the best improvements includes the layer manager. Just as in Photoshop™, you can now control your textures and materials with layers. Sixteen new blend modes also allow for the blending of layers thereby giving you even more options for creating unique materials. You are also able to define a mask in any layer, work with alpha channels and apply different blending modes to layers. Release R2.5 has added several more blending options. Another great addition is that .psd files can now be read and their individual layers are accessible.

Creating your layers

 

Accessing the bake function under the render tab

BodyPaint's new Baker is one of the features that I found to be a necessity for the way that I like to work. With Baker you can create new shaders, textures, UV and normal maps and the option to continue painting on layers that you have altered with filters is exceptional. You will find the Bake function under your render tab with the settings residing in your attributes panel.

 

The active tool manager has now been integrated with the attribute manager for ease of switching back and forth between the two, and the full screen mode which we have come to enjoy in CINEMA 4D has now been added to BodyPaint 3D. There is also improved support for WACOM™ tablets, which I found to be an added bonus. Full support for tablets such as the Intuos2™, Cintiq™ and Graphire™ provides full control over your painting. All brush settings can be adjusted by the pressure, tilt, direction and finger wheel of your tablet pen.

All attributes are easily accessible

 

THE NEW CONTENT BROWSER

You will also have access to the new content browser, which catalogs all files including 3D files and much more. Brush preset as well as all other materials and textures are accessible from the browser.

 

PROJECTION PAINTING Projection painting is a wonderful way of painting objects without distortion. If you take the time to create a clean UV mesh, you will find that projection painting is the perfect tool for painting across multiple objects while maintaining a distortion-free texture. Not only can you paint with color, you can also paint in this way with textures and across multiple objects as well. You can also now detach the projection plane and click on the "Apply Projection" button to apply the texture or the "Discard Projection" to discard it. This last function is irreversible. Undo will not reverse a discarded projection layer so be sure that is what you really want to do. I think that you will find the detachable projection layers make for a much easier workflow in that objects or images can be placed anywhere before the projection is applied. You will be painting on a virtual plate in front of the model. When you are finished, you will then project your painting directly onto the model or models.

Projection painting across models

Separating the models shows detail

 

The same methods of customization of menus exist in BodyPaint 3D R2.5 as is featured in CINEMA 4D. As you can see, you can customize your layouts and even detach menus to suit your own preferences.

Layout is fully customizable

 

SOFTWARE COUPLING

BodyPaint 3D R2.5 now posesses the ability to integrate easily with other software so that you are able to exchange models, textures and UVs with other popular 3D applications such as 3ds Max^TM, Maya^®, LightWave 3D^®; and XSI^®. CINEMA 4D users will enjoy seamless integration between these programs and CINEMA 4D.

CONCLUSIONS

I found BodyPaint 3D R2.5 to be just what I needed as a complement to the base program as well as for sharing data with the other software I use. The UV mapping function was intuitive and quick providing me with a good map that I could use as a base in any other painting software that I wished. The 3D painting mode was wonderful with full channel support as well as layers, plus the blending modes and filters that I am used to using in Photoshop™. The program has such a full set of features that it may take you some time to learn all of the functions that it contains, however you will find an excellent reference manual as well as tutorials on CD that accompany the program. These will help you get up and running in no time.

If there was any downside that I found, it was that occasionally the Baker function produced artifacts in my baked image. However, to get around this, I duplicated the object after the UV mapping was created and in place, subdivided the new mesh so that it quadrupled the number of polygons as the original mesh and then baked the new object. Then it was just a matter of transferring the baked texture to the original lower polygon model. If there are miniscule amounts of artifacts after doing this, they are easily cleaned up in Photoshop.

All in all, I am thrilled with the new BodyPaint 3D R2.5 version. It has become a necessity for UV mapping and texturing all of my models. As a standalone program it can't be beaten either.

In order to see all of the new developments in BodyPaint 3D R2.5, I have provided the list of new additions below. I believe you will find that the new tools, functions and interface elements are intuitive and allow for even more control over mapping and texturing your models and scenes.

New features in Release R2.5

Interface & Handling

• Improved Material Manager
• Easier navigation in editor
• Handle highlighting
• Configurable camera rotation
• Heads Up Display (HUD)
• Extensively configurable viewports
• New display modes (e.g. constant shading)
• Detachable menus
• Advanced search tool
• Improved support for WACOM tablets
• Active Tool Manager merged into Attribute Manager
• Hierarchical shortcuts; for quicker access of functions
• Full screen mode; have more space while you paint
• New Content Browser; catalogs 3D files and more

Features and Functions

• Support and creation of Normal Maps
• Baker; 3 click baking (incl. Light, UV and Normal Maps)
• N-gons supported; for a better overview of geometry
• Layer manager; imports/manages .psd files with layer sets
• 16 new blending modes
• Detach Projection Plane
• New Layer Shader
• Easy image compositions within BodyPaint 3D
• New Spline Shader
• Projects splines onto surface

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Minimum System Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.3 or Windows 2000 / XP
• 512 MB RAM
• CPU 1GHz

Recommended System Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.3 or Windows 2000 / XP
• 1024 MB RAM
• CPU 2 GHz
• QuickTime
• OpenGL

Supported 3D Applications:

• Lightwave 3D (PC, Mac)
• 3ds Max
• Maya (PC, Mac)
• XSI
• CINEMA 4D (PC, Mac)

It's been a pleasure to review BodyPaint 3D R2.5 Keep watching as next month I will be reviewing three more of CINEMA 4D's modules, Dynamics, Sketch and Toon and Net Render. As we delve even deeper into the modules you will see that the possibilities are endless for creating high-end studio quality work with the tools at hand.

Kathie Berry
Websites: http://www.planit3d.com ¦ http://www.berry-designs.com
Email: kathie@berry-designs.com

TESTIMONIALS "BodyPaint is a must have for any 3D or texture artist. Whether it be painting directly on the surface of a 3D object and creating a texture map, painting 2D textures that are immediately mapped onto 3D geometry or a treasure of other features that are in BodyPaint 3D R2.5, this a great addition to any 3D Artist's production pipeline. The overall toolset is impressive although one can never have enough features and I am sure future updates will make BodyPaint even more attractive. I hope we will see more advanced UV-Tools as I think they are needed." Thomas (Tank) Pasieka CEO 3D Attack http://www.3dattack.net "Whether it simply be UV editing for procedurals, editing seams and artefacts in our ZBrush normals and displacements, or full on painted textures Bodypaint is always in the thick of it in our production line. Personally, I’d like to see the UV paradigm change to more of a special 3D view using real geometry, thus allowing editing of UV’s using all the 3D tools we are used to like stitch and sew and slide etc. We also have a big need for Adjustment layers before our studio could ever consider removing Photoshop from its arsenal. A bridge connection to photoshop like it was with the 3D apps would be cool too, imagine clicking a send to photoshop and then when done in photoshop a send to bodypaint, no saving somewhere and reloading or updating manually.The new ability in 2.5 to detatch projection layers, freeze them at a certain resolution, save that projection, edit in photoshop and update back in bodypaint before applying the projection is uncanny, makes me want to do more matte painting and camera projection work." Kai Pedersen C.E.O. Technical Director LucentDreams Animation "I think BodyPaint is the best 3D painting program on the market bar none, and it's especially nice having it integrated in Cinema 4D. Naturally it's excellent for texture painting, but it's also quite useful for things like Thinking Particles, Hair, and MoGraph, where many parameters can be driven by bitmaps. The 2.5 update answered a long-standing wish of mine for more layer transfer modes--overlay is so incredibly useful for painting bumpmaps. In future updates I hope to see an LSCM UV tool and improved editor display for alpha and transparency painting." Adam Trachtenberg Freelance 3D Artist Miami, FL "What I've always liked about Body Paint is its fairly straight forward approach to painting on 3D models. They only thing I wish it would have is the ability of painting displacement maps in real time. While I know tools like zBrush offer this as a solution, the workflow in Body Paint is so much more intuitive that I would love seeing this feature implemented so I could stay in C4D even longer throughout the day." policarpo | visual designer http://www.policarpo.us "I'm a Cinema 4D user and Bodypaint 3D really enhances the workflow when working with UV textures. Although I wish they would make it an actual standalone application instead of tying it into Cinema 4D like it does now. But when you get around the initial confusion you won't be able to live without it anymore." Bram van Gerwen, Multimedia Designer "This is a fantastic product but it does take a little bit of time to fully get to grips with the workflow. Texturing is always a key part to any visualisation work but using BodyPaint made it easy and lifted images by adding that extra touch of realism, painting on dirt and generally making sure the image textures are not too crisp adds so much to any image. The manuals are well written but the video tutorials were the main thing used to get us up to speed quickly." Fitzy Professional Max User Site Owner - PlanIt 3D "Bodypaint is an industry leading application from Maxon with compatibility not just with Cinema 4D but Max/Maya/XSI/Lightwave. The ability to paint in three dimensions without worrying about UV seams is excellent, then add painting multiple channels at once which is a major plus and time saver. Its initial texture setup wizards also prove useful, add to that photoshop filter support and you have a world beater. What constantly impresses me about Maxon is their ability to absorb customer feedback and deliver these requests back to the customer in new functionality year on year...in short they listen. Fortunately we can all rely on the good people at planit3d to keep us up to date on these new features and developments with their latest review. As always they remain impartial and focus in on detail of what users can expect from an application." Christiaan "flingster" Robinson