Greetings! Here is my current "list" ordered from highest ranking to lowest, in my humble opinion (subject to change by replies here): Deep Paint 3D BodyPaint 3D (Maxon) ZBrush Flesh V2.0 UV painting using Photoshop Ver. 7 +/- trueSpace 5.1 (I threw in trueSpace because I have it; and without revealing my thoughts, just wondered if in fact anyone actually uses it to paint.) Of course Deep Paint 3D is a little off my affordable chart... but anyway if it's considered the best by most posters, I'd have to figure out how to save up for it. Any suggestions received with much appreciation. Thank you! Norm

The first app to have if you don't own it already is Photoshop. It's the must have application if you are into 2d or 3d art, Deep Paint3d is great but expensive, when you work in it you are always sending the material back and forth to photoshop via the DeepPaint to Photoshop plug-in, some things are just easier to paint flat. These two applications work very well together.

I use UV Mapper Pro and Photoshop together exclusively. Coming from a graphic art background, Photoshop is the only paint program I ever use. Laurie

I've been wondering about Deep Paint 3D and ZBrush myself. Like Laurie, I've been using UVMapper Pro and Photoshop together, but sometimes I wish I could just paint directly on an object without having to go back and forth between two programs, checking if the seams line up, redoing them if they don't, etc. If you're a student or a faculty member, you could get Deep Paint 3D for about $150 at www.journeyed.com, but of course you can't use it in commercial projects then. As for trueSpace, I think I can guess what your opinion is... ;) I love the program, but you can't really paint textures with its 3D Paint tool. It probably depends on the graphics card and the capabilities of one's computer, but mine gets really slow if I try to paint on a denser mesh. I think the tS 3D paint tool is only good for adding little details here and there.

I vote for Photoshop and UV Mapper also. The only other program in your list that I've tried is ZBrush, which has the most confusing, unnecessarily complicated interface I've ever seen in any type of program.

Having both Deep Paint 3D and ZBrush, I can add a few comments ... While ZBrush has a great set of tools and is fantastic for doing morphs and such, its interface is very "non-standard" and takes some getting used to. The interface in Deep Paint 3D is more like that of Photoshop, and as someone else said earlier Deep Paint and Photoshop work very well together. Another thing that Deep Paint 3D can do that I'm not sure you can do in ZBrush is project a photograph directly on the model ... that is what makes it great for making photoreal textures. If you can swing the money and are having a hard time deciding between Deep Paint 3D and ZBrush, I'd say go with Deep Paint 3D.

Corel Draw 8..heh, wasn't expecting that one, eh?..;) Also MS Paint(yes)..have uvmapper classic, tried to use it with both..

I have bodypaint 3D and its pretty nice, though I havn't done a whole lot with it yet(got it as part of the C4d package)

painter, painter, painter.... If photoshop can make texture, then get painter and you will see what you can do with it.

Well I just couldn't face waiting umpteen months for enough to get Deep Paint 3D, however I did have enough for my strongest alternative - BodyPaint 3D. Deecey made a good point about DP 3D, in that it can project another image right on the object being painted; i.e. a face. So I went back to Maxon's site and discovered that BP 3D can do the exact same thing with the clone tool (or stamp; I forget now). Plus a lot of fairly deep stuff. It behaves more in concert with what I already know, a la Photoshop, and does not require learning how to do stuff the ZBrush way. So far I'm stumbling through tutorials. They really stress body textures, but all of the tutorials and manuals are liberally sprinkled with other objects, such as cars, mufflers, and whatnot. Anyway, I got it overnight shipping, and so far so good. Thanks for all your replies. You helped me make sure I knew what I wanted! Norm

You'll love painting in 3D ... it really makes a difference 8-) Congrats!

is body paint a stand alone? or does it just work with cinema?

BodyPaint comes in both versions; same price for either version. Incidentally, I looked around, and couldn't find a price cheaper than at Maxon's on storefront website. They shipped same day. The manual is slightly over 500 pages. Norm