New Features In MAXON BodyPaint 3D R3.5

The latest upgrade boasts a number of new features to make life easier for texture artists. Numerous additional improvements have also made working with the new BodyPaint 3D Release much more comfortable. Included are: Improved HUD functlionality, a configurable Auto Save function, adjustable navigation speed for graphics tablets and much more.

UV Tools - Quicker and Cleaner UV Unwrapping

BodyPaint 3D R3.5 now offers UV unwrapping using the powerful ABF algorithm for quicker and cleaner unwrapping of organic meshes. This new weapon joins an arsenal of UV editing tools available in CINEMA 4D and BodyPaint 3D, including LSCM mapping, optimal mapping and projection-based mapping.

A good UV mesh balances the size of a each UV to its respective polygon while keeping neighboring UVs evenly sized. The ABF algorithm relaxes the UV mesh into a compromise between these two conflicting ideals, resulting in a clean, paintable mesh.

The images below help to illustrate the difference between an LSCM and an ABF solution when unwrapping UVs.

BodyPaint 3D R3.5 - UV Tools

Improved HTML Documentation

The context-sensitive HTML help system introduced in Release 3 has been enhanced in R3.5. It is now easier to find the feature or solution you are looking for.

Improved indexing and a full text search now return more relevant results, and search terms are now highlighted within the help text. Once the desired information has been found it can now be bookmarked for easy future reference - just like in your web browser.

All this makes the help in BodyPaint 3D R3.5 much easier to use and speeds up your workflow even more.

BodyPaint 3D R3.5 - Improved HTML Documentation

Why 2D Painting Is Never Enough for 3D Textures

Textures can make or break your 3D image and experienced artists know the issues involved with creating 3D textures in a 2D application.

Immediate Feedback
Graphics applications designed for 2D do not take into account your scene's lighting or the effect of different material channels. BodyPaint 3D does that and more with its unique RayBrush feature. Rather than saving, reloading and rendering textures you can paint in real-time on a rendered image and see the results of reflection, transparency, bump and more.

Tools, Tools, Tools
More than 200 presets put a wide array of natural media and special effects brushes within easy reach. Clone, Smear, Smudge, Dodge and Burn, Gradient, Magic Wand, transform tools and more are all available within the easy to use interface.

Direct Connection to Your 3D Application
Creating textures using 2D applications and including these in your 3D scene involves a lot of manual setup and a lot of application switching. BodyPaint 3D offers plugins to easily exchange models, textures and UVs between BodyPaint 3D and popular 3D applications like 3ds max, Maya, XSI and LightWave 3D.

32-Bit Color Depth and HDR Editing
With BodyPaint 3D R3 you can work with more depth than ever before. Now you can paint in up to 32-bit color depth, which gives even more texture control and incredibly smooth color gradations. BodyPaint 3D also enables editing of HDR and EXR formats letting you to use these powerful formats in your 3D scenes

Painting Over Multiple Objects
BodyPaint 3D can paint over multiple objects using a single stroke. Projection painting allows distortion-free painting across multiple objects to eliminate seams and get the results you want - which is not possible in 2D!

Painting In Multiple Textures
With BodyPaint 3D you can paint an entire material with a single stroke. Each brush can paint up to ten channels simultaneously, so a single brushstroke can affect Color, Bump, Specularity, Reflection, Transparency and other properties. There is no need to match the various channels in your 3D application.

Free Technichal Support
Our top-notch technical support staff will guide you through the valley of the shadow of deadlines with quick solutions to your issues, free of charge.

Multilingual
"Se habla Espanol" or "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" BodyPaint 3D is available in 8 different languages - your native tongue may be native to BodyPaint 3D, too.

Completely Cross-Platform
Whether you are a Windows wizard or Mac addict, you'll enjoy the same great features and outstanding performance.

Workflow

The interface has been designed for maximum workflow and is now based even more on leading 2D applications in order to offer you optimal comfort and efficiency.

All managers are non-modal and have a real-time preview, e.g. for the Brush tool's settings. Numerous interface tools that have already made headlines in CINEMA 4D can also be found in BodyPaint 3D - the Content Browser, Quick Access menu or the Head Up Display, for example. This ensures a fast workflow at all times.

The Setup Wizard reduces the time required to prepare a model for painting and lets you focus your time and talent on the canvas and the finished result. The Setup Wizard creates basic layers, optimizes UVs and determines the optimal texture map size for an individual model, selected hierarchies or an entire scene. With BodyPaint 3D's Setup Wizard you are just a few mouse clicks away from starting your masterpiece.

OpenGL Optimized
BodyPaint 3D also intelligently switches on-the-fly between OpenGL and software shading, letting you benefit from the speed of OpenGL when moving around the scene and the quality of MAXON's own software shading while painting your models.

Painting With Rays

MAXON BodyPaint 3D's exclusive RayBrush technology allows you to paint directly onto a raytraced image.

RayBrush eliminates the need to continually switch applications or perform test renders. You can see the actual rendered effect while painting in any channel, including reflection, transparency and bump. You can even paint on multiple textures at once when in RayBrush mode. This outstanding feature takes advantage of MAXON's award-winning render engine, known for speed and quality.

With BodyPaint 3D you can paint an entire material with a single stroke. Each brush can paint up to ten channels simultaneously. A single brush stroke can be used to affect color, bump, specularity, reflection, transparency and other properties. There is no need to match the various channels in your 3D application.

All your favorite painting tools are available in BodyPaint 3D, including Clone, Smear, Sponge, Dodge and Burn tools. The standard brush tool includes pressure, hardness, size, bitmap, distortion, rotation, jitter and other parameters for hundreds of painting possibilities. The effect of any parameter can be controlled by the pressure, tilt, direction or finger wheel of your graphics tablet. Over 200 presets are provided with BodyPaint 3D, representing a variety of natural media and special effects.

With BodyPaint 3D you can paint in the 2D view, in the shaded 3D view or in the raytraced 3D view. Changes that you make in the 3D view are applied to the 2D view in realtime and vice versa. For the first time ever you can open and edit multiple 3D views. This enables you to quicky switch between views - there is no need to adjust camera settings. For example, you can use separate views for important or difficult to reach regions.

Projection Painting

Projection painting offers hitherto unknown comfort when painting textures onto complex geometry. Visible seams at UV edges are now a thing of the past. The detachable projection layers in particular make this process easier by letting objects or images be placed freely before the projection is applied.

With projection painting enabled, you can paint onto a virtual glass plate over the model and subsequently project this painting onto the actual textures. This powerful feature supports all of BodyPaint 3D R3's painting tools and provides full control over the projection and final appearance of your paint strokes. Say goodbye to unpredictable distortion caused by model contours and perspective - with Projection Painting, what you see is truly what you get.

Paint Across Multiple Objects
Projection painting even allows users to paint across multiple objects with a single stroke to eliminate seams.

Copy and paste paint between layers you can copy and paste between layers while in projection paint mode and you can even join two separate images with perfect blending and distortion.

Getting the results you want without seams or distortion has never been easier than with the new BodyPaint 3D R3.

Layering In the Third Dimension

Layers
This familiar layering system operates much like 2D graphics applications, giving you the power to combine various effects and experiment with confidence. In addition to its own B3D format, MAXON BodyPaint 3D can read and write layers and masks in PSD and TIF file formats. Each layer can be assigned a unique opacity and mix mode. BodyPaint 3D also features a real-time preview of layer transformations so you can easily position, scale, rotate, skew and distort layers until your composition is just right.

You can also define a mask in any layer, work with alpha channels or apply different blend modes to layers. Even .psd files can be read and their individual layers or layersets easily accessed.

The Layer Shader makes it possible to quickly assign filters or procedural shaders to images. BodyPaint 3D is second-to-none when compared to conventional 2D image editing applications, and is ideal for high-end compositing and montage work.

BodyPaint 3D offers a wide variety of intuitive and highly flexible selection tools All the common tools, like Lasso or Magic Wand, can also be used in the 3D view. Even better, you can easily transform UV selections or polygon selections into image selections.

Filters
In 2D image processing you are accustomed to working with bitmap filters such as "blur" or "noise" with which you can modify your image. BodyPaint 3D also offers the most important 25 filters - equipped with some functions that turn these filters into real 3D tools. They offer a real-time preview of the filter's effect in the editor and, even better, an edge mode that guarantees your texture can subsequently be tiled.

If the built-in filters are not enough, BodyPaint 3D offers you even more. You can now use the huge arsenal of Adobe Photoshop®-compatible filters directly in BodyPaint 3D - from simple shareware plugins to complex filters like a pattern generator.

UV Tools

MAXON BodyPaint 3D features an arsenal of UV editing solutions that ensure your models and their materials line up properly.

Painting in 3D is governed by UVs, a set of coordinates that relate polygons to texturing areas. Properly designed UV coordinates are essential to successful painting and quality texturing in 3D. Because almost all 3D models involve contours in 3D space, standard projections like spherical and flat mapping can never provide distortion-free texturing. Each model must be set up with correctly aligned UVs prior to painting, just like taping off the trim in a room prior to painting.

Optimal Mapping and LSCM Unwrapping
BodyPaint 3D includes numerous tools that help you achieve the best UV map for each individual model. You can utilize one of three different algorithms, including Cubic Optimal Mapping, to automatically optimize your UV coordinates and remove overlapping points. The Relax UV tool adjusts the size of UVs in relation to their corresponding polygons, and the UV Terrace tool lets you easily include additional geometry in an existing UV map. The Store and Remap UV features allow you to easily remap areas of UV coordinates to eliminate seams. Using BodyPaint 3D's powerful Interactive Mapping feature you can generate UVs based on standard projection types for different regions of a model. Of course, BodyPaint 3D also includes Move, Scale, Rotate, Shear and other tools to let you manually tweak individual UV coordinates.

The LSCM unwrapping method, which lets you unwrap a model's UVs based on defined seams, also comes in handy when working with complex shapes. Whether adjusting UVs for a low-res game model or a high-res matte painting, BodyPaint 3D provides the UV tools you can rely on when the UV mapping is not as perfect as the model you have built.