BodyPaint 4

Introduction

As you can see from the title, BodyPaint 3D is now at version 4. The paint tools have come in for some enhancements and the paint and UV editing layouts have been completely redone to accommodate the new tools and to freshen up the module. Let´s have a closer look at a few of the more noteworthy enhancements. Note that the Release 11 documentation includes mini videos on most of the new enhancements and these were produced by none other than our very own 3DKiwi.

New Layouts

As mentioned Bodypaint 4 now sports new Painting and UV editing layouts. Apparently this is to freshen up and improve the workflow. Click on the images for a full size version.

Click on the image for a larger version Click on the image for a larger version

New Painting Layout

New UV Editing Layout

Blur, Sharpen and Colorize Tools

BodyPaint 4 has 3 new painting tools. Blur Blur tool and Sharpen Sharpen tool work the same as equivalent tools in Photoshop and obviously blur textures and sharpen textures respectively. Both are used in the same manner as using a paintbrush. Both tools use a similar icon to the Photoshop equivalents. The Colorize tool Colorize tool is unique to BodyPaint and is a brush equivalent of the Colorize filter. The way it works is you select a colour and then paint your texture. Higher saturated areas (more coloured) get the paint applied but less saturated areas e.g. gray colours get less. The icon for the Colorize tool is the same as Color Replacement tool in Photoshop. This is a bit misleading as the two tools work differently. The Colour Replacement tool works where you select a colour and then as you paint.

Importing Photoshop brushes (*.abr)

Photoshop brushes i.e. *.abr files can be loaded and used in BodyPaint 3D. There are thousands of Photoshop brush presets available on the Internet with many available free to download. Once loaded into BodyPaint you can load the brush presets from either the Content Browser or from the Brush menu in the Attributes Manager. In addition to being able to load these brushes, you can also edit them in BodyPaint. Below is an image where I loaded in some Photoshop Brush presets that are part of my Photoshop Elements program

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Photoshop Brushes can be loaded, edited and used

Photoshop Brushes can be loaded, edited and used.

Airbrush Option for Brushes and Paint Tools

The airbrush option simulates what would happen if you sprayed a can of spray paint in the same spot with the paint getting thicker and thicker. But it goes further than that. You can use the airbrush option on more than just brushes. It can be used on other painting tools like the eraser, sharpen tool, blur tool etc. To use the airbrush option just enable it by placing a check mark in the box beside the [Air Brush] slider parameter for the particular tool that you want to work with. Holding the mouse left button down or pressing with your tablet has the same effect as pressing the button on a spray can i.e. you get continuous spray. The slider controls the paint flow amount.

Caps Lock Toggles Cursor Shape

Pressing the Caps Lock key now toggles the brush shape from the standard paintbrush style cursor to the familiar 2D paint program cursor of a cross.

Caps lock toggles the cursor shape

Caps lock toggles the cursor shape.

Create UV Mesh Layer

This new command makes it a lot easier to outline your UV´s. This is used most often when you want to export your texture map to something like Photoshop for painting in that or where you have multiple objects all sharing the same texture. Below are 2 images demonstrating the difference. The old workaround was to use the Outline UV command. While this worked reasonably well it meant that your UV´s were outlined on both sides of the edge rather than one line on top of the UV edge, so the new method creates a much cleaner outlined UV´s. The new command creates the outlined UV´s on a mesh layer and labels the layer appropriately.

Outline UV command Create UV mesh layer

Outline UV´s (Old method)

Create UV Mesh Layer (New method)

Summary

There are quite a few other painting tool enhancements. Check out the Release 11 documentation for a complete list. While the Painting tools have seen some much needed enhancements sadly the UV editing tools have not seen any enhancements apart from the new Create UV Mesh Layer command. The problem here is other 3D applications like modo are significantly ahead of CINEMA 4D / Bodypaint when it comes to UV editing. Things lacking include: no grid in 2D texture view, can´t display more than one UV mesh at a time even when using the same material, no UV edge mode. The list goes on and on. Also really lacking is symmetry painting. The only way to currently paint with symmetry is to use a Symmetry object then make it editable and then re-map the texture map. This is a joke compared to just enabling symmetry in modo in Paint, UV editing or even modelling modes. Since Release 10 BodyPaint has been integrated into CINEMA 4D. The only problem is that it isn´t really that well integrated. HUD elements don´t work in BP mode and the lack of OpenGL support in Painting mode again puts BodyPaint behind other 3D applications. MAXON needs to be careful here as BodyPaint has been one of its strengths. One would hope that in the future it receives a lot more attention as the competition is good and getting better. At the moment BodyPaint has the edge because of its ability to paint on multiple channels at once and also the exchange plugins that allow it to work well with other 3D applications like Maya, 3D Max and XSI.