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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
Vertex colors!
Just add a vertexPaint modifier to your object, paint your map, use the blur tool to blur the areas that are too sharp, and then apply a "Vertex Color" map as a mask in your material...voila! You've now got a dirt map that you can use for anything you like
The downside is that the resolution of the vertex color channel is dependant on the resolution of your geometry, but if you're using it as a mask as I said, you can hide that aspect of it pretty well.
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hype 2,964 posts
wow, cool idea! I never could figure out a use for vertex paint. is there any way to use it to paint actual maps? Or maybe just rough guides for maps?
speaking of painting in Max...
http://www.highend3d.com/3dsmax/downloa ... /4370.html
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
HYPE...MY MAN!!! WHAT THE HECK!!!!
That's seriously one of the best scripts I've ever seen. Tried it out and it works GREAT!!!
Forget my idea...this script is freaking terrific!
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hype 2,964 posts
really? I just found it today, looking around HighEnd3D, didn't really try it yet. wow - now i'm really excited!!
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hype 2,964 posts
how do you install it? i can't even get it open. i'm sure it involves the custom UI thing, right?
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vader_dk 67 posts
neat! - a bit slow, could be my old 850xt card here at work though.
Hype- i've just copy the files over to the folders
maxpaint -> script - the whole folder. And then the ui .bmps to the icons folder etc.
/cheers
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hype 2,964 posts
to the icons folder? ah, maybe thats the problem...
and then how do you launch it, just "run script"?
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
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OutlawJoe 92 posts
Hmm, I can't seem to pick my mesh! Anyone else experiencing that?
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
First you have to give your mesh UV map coordinates (ie...UVW map modifier)
Then you have to assign it a material with a bitmap (of any kind) in the diffuse slot. Be careful though. Once you paint on your mesh, the data is written to the bitmap in the diffuse slot so you could end up writing over the original bitmap if you save it)
Then you can choose your mesh.
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hype 2,964 posts
so you could make a new, blank bitmap (BMP? can it be JPG or something else) in photoshop, assign it, paint in Max, then when you reopen your bitmap it's painted on?
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hype 2,964 posts
i tried it again, and now i have the panel opening, but i'm not sure how to do the bitmap thing.
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
Here's a step-by-step guide to get it working.....
Copy all of the files from the MaxPaint zip file to their respective Max folder (ie...there is a folder called "UI" in the zip file. Copy everything in there to the "UI" folder in your max root directory, etc etc etc)
Open up MSPaint. Save a new, blank (white) file as something.
Open up max. Open up the material editor. Set the bitmap you just created in MSPaint as the diffuse map in your material.
Create an object (or use an existing object) and make sure it has texture coordinates (if not, give it some by applying a UVW Map modifier).
Apply the texture you just created to the object.
Run the MaxPaint.mse script....a panel should appear after a few moments.
Use the "Pick Mesh" button to select your object. Wait for it to load the diffuse map into memory, and then select a paint brush to begin painting!
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
Also note...in order to see what you're painting in the viewport, turn on the "display texture in viewport button" for your diffuse material in the material editor.
I'm also not entirely sure about this...but the diffuse texture you create may have to be a .bmp file. I haven't tested the script with jpegs or anything else yet.
ALSO...your object MUST be an editable mesh. NOT an editable poly (although, you can of course convert your object to whatever you want after you paint your texture).
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
Been learning a bit more about this plugin....
What it does is it takes the bitmap from the diffuse slot, and then copies it and resaves it as a tif. Then it sends that new tif to a temp file on your drive (c:\MP_temp) and uses the version in there as the version that it saves the data to.
Thus, once you're done texturing your object, copy that temp file from that directory to your textures directory and update your paths in your material.
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hype 2,964 posts
thanks for posting all this, T! its certainly gonna help! i gave up after everything i was trying to get the bitmap thing working. i had made a new bitmap, saved it somewhere, put it in a diffuse, applied it to the object... but I never made the object an editable poly! there's probably another step there you describe that i left out, too...
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ivanisavich 4,196 posts
(you mean editable mesh)
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hype 2,964 posts
oh, right, my bad!
