Draxxuss
02-10-2009, 10:46 PM
A few guys have been asking around and I thought I would contribute a bit of info as I would have like to have had when getting started with bodypaint. I'm not an expert with it and I probably don't even use half of what it offers, but for what I need it for it is a great tool and one that I would rather not go without. With that said, please enjoy the read and I hope it helps.
Bodypaint Tutorial 101 - The Basics.
1. Create a mesh in the 3d app of your choice. For these purposes we will use Max 2008. Export as an obj and save the file to an area you are familiar with for quick retrieval. I recommend making a folder for each new project and storing all relevant info in here including texture sheets, psd, max files, reference pics, etc. Make sure these are in separate folders to keep organized.
2. Create a PSD file. Keep it simple. Let’s say a 1024 with a background layer and a new layer called “Linework”. I create a linework layer to start as this is my first step in roughing in a character. Save this file to the previously mentioned folders for quick retrieval.
3. Start Bodypaint. Go to Edit/Preferences. Under the Common section make sure to have Graphic Tablet checked on if you are using one or you will have crazy spinning orbits. Also check on reverse Orbit. For most people this will also help to ease navigation. In the Interface section there is a Bubble help that is very useful when just starting out. Make sure it is turned on. In the Bodypaint 3D section you might want to increase the Undo buffer usage just in case.
4. CTRL O to open file. Browse for your obj.
5. Navigation within the windows is sometimes confusing jumping back and forth from app to app. Using a mouse with LMR buttons and hold down ALT for different moves. Left + ALT = orbit , Middle + ALT = pan , Right + ALT = zoom. Of course these button clicks will only work in combination with some form of mouse movement. Using a Wacom Pen with the tip mapped for Left click, the middle button bottom mapped at Middle click, and the middle button top mapped for Right click, you must use the ALT key in conjunction to navigate through the scene. One thing you may find a bit strange is the pan and zoom as you don’t need to have the pen pressed onto the wacom surface, it simply needs to be within a close enough proximity to active the tablet and then while holding down the ALT button and the middle mouse button top or bottom, you simply slide you hand from side to side to get things moving. It is worth mentioning that the scroll wheel will zoom. When using the Middle click on pen or mouse it will change views. Right click will open up a menu. Left click lets you interact with the scene objects.
6. Now that you have the obj in the scene and you have spun around it, zoomed in and out, and panned till you burst, it’s time to set up a few hotkeys to make life so much easier. SHIFT F12 to open the Command Manager. With this window you can customize Bodypaint to similar photoshop controls or make it just the way you want it by mapping any function to any key or key combination. A few very common shortcuts that I use are “B” for brush, “L” for line, “S” for smear, “E” for Erase “[ ] “ for brush size, “F” for fill. These are pretty well the essential ones for getting you up and running.
7. If you need to move your mesh for any reason you will see the MOVE tool near the bottom of the left side buttons. I have mapped it to “W” and Live Selection to my “Q”. Scale and Rotate are automatically mapped to T and R. So all of those mesh moving keys are right in line with each other. I usually hit “Q” to select my mesh when applying the texture. This brings us to our next step.
8. Applying the texture. Hit “Q” if you have it mapped like me or simply use the Live Selection tool and select the mesh. On the right side at the top you will see two tabs. Colours and Attributes. You will go back and forth between these often enough. Looking below those about halfway down you will see 3 more tabs. Materials, Objects, and Layers. All of these tabs are pretty well self explanatory if you have any experience with photoshop so I won’t really go into detail with them aside from saying look through them and experiment. Select the mesh. Go to the Materials tab and CTRL N for new material. You will see a grey material ball has popped in. Double click it. This opens up a material editor window. Beside the Texture slot click the “…” to browse for you readily accessible PSD you have created. When it asks to create a copy at the document location just click No. In that same Material Editor window change the brightness to 100%. Leave the Materials on the left as they are. You can experiment later on. Close the Material Editor. With the obj still selected, right click the material sphere and “Apply”. You will notice the mesh change to the colour of your background layer in the psd. Next to the material sphere there is a red “x”. Click this to activate it. This tells that you are working on the material. You can have multiple materials in one scene and it is important to make sure you are working on the correct one. Select the “Mat” icon next to the “x”. You will notice that above, in the Attributes tab, it appears very similar to the Material Editor. You can adjust things here as well as browsing for a new psd. Make sure to explore these panels and watch how they change when you use different functions.
9. So now the texture is applied. Let’s check out the Layers tab to make sure everything there is as it should be. You should see the same layer names that you had created in photoshop. Great huh? Transparency is controlled with the grey slider above the layers as is the layer blend modes. Something to note is that not all blend modes will work directly with photoshop. You will see which ones as you work with it. This is one of the flaws of Bodypaint for sure. Try right clicking on one of the layers. This brings up functions very similar to photoshop.
10. One last thing I do before I start my linework is to change my display. Initially, I prefer to see my wireframe in conjunction with self illuminated mesh so it gives me accurate feedback on what is going on my texture. Many times people create textures in max or others programs and they leave the shadow on the model. This can be distracting and give you misleading result. It is best to see the texture how it is on the sheet. At the top of the navigation window under the View tab, click Display and then the long row of dots to break it off for now. You can close this later. Click around to see what you prefer. Currently the background colour of my layer is white to it isn’t that great for showing the white wireframe. I will fill it with grey by selecting a grey in the colour picker press “F”, select my layer, and then click on the object. Now use these settings in the Display – Constant Shading (Lines) and Isoparms. Close the Display window if you haven’t already.
11. It’s time to try out some drawing. I know it may seem like it took awhile to get to this point but it gets much faster the more you use it. Press “B” for brush and select a colour to draw with. Experiment different brush sizes etc in the attributes tab at the top right. Increase the brush size by using the brackets “ [ ] “. Try “L” for line and adjust the size in the attributes window or select Stroke instead of filled and you can use the brush settings for the line. When Filled is chosen, notice the endings drop down menus. Experiment with those to see what they do.
12. So that is about it. You are now navigating around the window, importing and applying a PSD to an obj you made in a modeling app. Drawing and laying out initial linework that you can either work with in bodypaint or resave the psd and bring it back into photoshop to continue on there which you could again bring back to bodypaint at a later date. Whatever you like. Speaking of saving there are lots of different types of save functions in the File menu. You’ll figure it out.
Bodypaint Tutorial 101 - The Basics.
1. Create a mesh in the 3d app of your choice. For these purposes we will use Max 2008. Export as an obj and save the file to an area you are familiar with for quick retrieval. I recommend making a folder for each new project and storing all relevant info in here including texture sheets, psd, max files, reference pics, etc. Make sure these are in separate folders to keep organized.
2. Create a PSD file. Keep it simple. Let’s say a 1024 with a background layer and a new layer called “Linework”. I create a linework layer to start as this is my first step in roughing in a character. Save this file to the previously mentioned folders for quick retrieval.
3. Start Bodypaint. Go to Edit/Preferences. Under the Common section make sure to have Graphic Tablet checked on if you are using one or you will have crazy spinning orbits. Also check on reverse Orbit. For most people this will also help to ease navigation. In the Interface section there is a Bubble help that is very useful when just starting out. Make sure it is turned on. In the Bodypaint 3D section you might want to increase the Undo buffer usage just in case.
4. CTRL O to open file. Browse for your obj.
5. Navigation within the windows is sometimes confusing jumping back and forth from app to app. Using a mouse with LMR buttons and hold down ALT for different moves. Left + ALT = orbit , Middle + ALT = pan , Right + ALT = zoom. Of course these button clicks will only work in combination with some form of mouse movement. Using a Wacom Pen with the tip mapped for Left click, the middle button bottom mapped at Middle click, and the middle button top mapped for Right click, you must use the ALT key in conjunction to navigate through the scene. One thing you may find a bit strange is the pan and zoom as you don’t need to have the pen pressed onto the wacom surface, it simply needs to be within a close enough proximity to active the tablet and then while holding down the ALT button and the middle mouse button top or bottom, you simply slide you hand from side to side to get things moving. It is worth mentioning that the scroll wheel will zoom. When using the Middle click on pen or mouse it will change views. Right click will open up a menu. Left click lets you interact with the scene objects.
6. Now that you have the obj in the scene and you have spun around it, zoomed in and out, and panned till you burst, it’s time to set up a few hotkeys to make life so much easier. SHIFT F12 to open the Command Manager. With this window you can customize Bodypaint to similar photoshop controls or make it just the way you want it by mapping any function to any key or key combination. A few very common shortcuts that I use are “B” for brush, “L” for line, “S” for smear, “E” for Erase “[ ] “ for brush size, “F” for fill. These are pretty well the essential ones for getting you up and running.
7. If you need to move your mesh for any reason you will see the MOVE tool near the bottom of the left side buttons. I have mapped it to “W” and Live Selection to my “Q”. Scale and Rotate are automatically mapped to T and R. So all of those mesh moving keys are right in line with each other. I usually hit “Q” to select my mesh when applying the texture. This brings us to our next step.
8. Applying the texture. Hit “Q” if you have it mapped like me or simply use the Live Selection tool and select the mesh. On the right side at the top you will see two tabs. Colours and Attributes. You will go back and forth between these often enough. Looking below those about halfway down you will see 3 more tabs. Materials, Objects, and Layers. All of these tabs are pretty well self explanatory if you have any experience with photoshop so I won’t really go into detail with them aside from saying look through them and experiment. Select the mesh. Go to the Materials tab and CTRL N for new material. You will see a grey material ball has popped in. Double click it. This opens up a material editor window. Beside the Texture slot click the “…” to browse for you readily accessible PSD you have created. When it asks to create a copy at the document location just click No. In that same Material Editor window change the brightness to 100%. Leave the Materials on the left as they are. You can experiment later on. Close the Material Editor. With the obj still selected, right click the material sphere and “Apply”. You will notice the mesh change to the colour of your background layer in the psd. Next to the material sphere there is a red “x”. Click this to activate it. This tells that you are working on the material. You can have multiple materials in one scene and it is important to make sure you are working on the correct one. Select the “Mat” icon next to the “x”. You will notice that above, in the Attributes tab, it appears very similar to the Material Editor. You can adjust things here as well as browsing for a new psd. Make sure to explore these panels and watch how they change when you use different functions.
9. So now the texture is applied. Let’s check out the Layers tab to make sure everything there is as it should be. You should see the same layer names that you had created in photoshop. Great huh? Transparency is controlled with the grey slider above the layers as is the layer blend modes. Something to note is that not all blend modes will work directly with photoshop. You will see which ones as you work with it. This is one of the flaws of Bodypaint for sure. Try right clicking on one of the layers. This brings up functions very similar to photoshop.
10. One last thing I do before I start my linework is to change my display. Initially, I prefer to see my wireframe in conjunction with self illuminated mesh so it gives me accurate feedback on what is going on my texture. Many times people create textures in max or others programs and they leave the shadow on the model. This can be distracting and give you misleading result. It is best to see the texture how it is on the sheet. At the top of the navigation window under the View tab, click Display and then the long row of dots to break it off for now. You can close this later. Click around to see what you prefer. Currently the background colour of my layer is white to it isn’t that great for showing the white wireframe. I will fill it with grey by selecting a grey in the colour picker press “F”, select my layer, and then click on the object. Now use these settings in the Display – Constant Shading (Lines) and Isoparms. Close the Display window if you haven’t already.
11. It’s time to try out some drawing. I know it may seem like it took awhile to get to this point but it gets much faster the more you use it. Press “B” for brush and select a colour to draw with. Experiment different brush sizes etc in the attributes tab at the top right. Increase the brush size by using the brackets “ [ ] “. Try “L” for line and adjust the size in the attributes window or select Stroke instead of filled and you can use the brush settings for the line. When Filled is chosen, notice the endings drop down menus. Experiment with those to see what they do.
12. So that is about it. You are now navigating around the window, importing and applying a PSD to an obj you made in a modeling app. Drawing and laying out initial linework that you can either work with in bodypaint or resave the psd and bring it back into photoshop to continue on there which you could again bring back to bodypaint at a later date. Whatever you like. Speaking of saving there are lots of different types of save functions in the File menu. You’ll figure it out.