Ok, I coulda swore that I've heard of people using these together, but if I load a figure that uses multiple uv maps (head, body, ect), it seems to confus bodypaint3d's projection painter, and I get garbled results.

Haven;t gotten a good reply to how to do this in cgtalk yet, so figured some know it all here would have the solution, a tutorial somewhere or some such. I'm trying the demo version, and wanted to compare using it, zbrush3 and modo for 3d exture painting.

Anyone have a clue as to how you use figures with multiple uv maps and bodypaint?

Someone must have used this combo before with success...

I've been meaning to try this in the next few days myself and hadn't gotten to it.  I have painted on a figure with multiple material zones (a shirt with three zones), but that is after importing with Kuroyume's plugin, which appears to use OBJ format behind the scenes but I haven't really dug into it that hard.  Hadn't actually tried importing the base object outside of his plugin but I suspect it can be made to work.  I suggest you ask Spanki or Kuroyume0161 via PM how you should go about this in general terms, both are pretty helpful (of course they might just reply here in the thread too).

Well they can have multiple maps, but it seems that bodypaint gets confused if the uv maps overlap, even if they aren't on the same material to be painted.

Al the tutorials I've seen have somethng already loaded, and they go through the wizard, or uv map from ground zero, and that's not what you really want to do.. you just want to use the existing uvs, and paint.

If body paint works about the same (at least conceptually) as deep paint 3D it must be great!. I LOOOOOVE deep paint! It's awesome! Works just fine on Milennium figures, and everything else I threw at it so far.
You paint with photoshop like tools, directly on the 3D model. It's simpler to use then Zbrush, especially if you used photoshop in the past.
I haven't seen it do anything odd with multiple groups (material or polygon groups) on the object.
Well, I hope you guys didn't mind the digression into Deep Paint here :)

They have a free downloadable demo right now.. go download it and check it out. It looks like all the tools are there, but when I loaded something simple like the sl avatar object (3 materials, uvs on each overlapping the next) if choked on it's projection painting. I loaded Digital I's T-rex, (one uv map, no overlaps) and it works like a gem.

I can't believe it can't handle a figure with multiple uv maps, in this day and age, but I'll also be damned if I can find any info anywhere on doing this. it seems to love my wacom, and dual processor system, and the tools all seem nifty, but if finding out something pretty basic liek this is fdifficult, it might not be worth the effort.. might be better to learn zbrsh 3 or modo 3.01 instead.

That's what I was getting at, multiple material zones = multiple UV maps, right?

Well, you can have multiple material zones all on one uv map.. onew of th guys over at cgtalk was confusing that, so I had to be more specific.

Multiple uv maps with multiple materials.

Bodypaint is undoubtably the best 3d painter on the market for handling multiple UV maps. For preexisting .obj models you Should import using the Riptide plug-in though so that you are preserving the material groups with multiple uv maps you need to create a texture for each uv map so open one of the materials on the first map and under color click on the arrow next to texture and hit create new texture, it will give you options for what size and color your texture should be. now go to all the materials which share the same map and go to that texture arrow and select bitmaps and you will see that texture select it. when you get to a material that is on a new map create a new texture for that map, and go on from there. the key is that you need a texture for each uv map.

^^ Riptide by Spanki:
http://skinprops.com/riptide.php

Thanks Will and pjz.. I remember Digital I saying something about riptide when it first came out.

Hope it works with the BP3 demo...

Thanks for that detailed explanation, Will.. hope I can figger it out.. ;)
'

I hadn't got round to look at it, but it makes sense now, Cinema/Bodypaint have poor built-in Wavefront OBJ import/export it seems.  I had heard other people griping about this kind of thing in other circumstances and hadn't connected the dots.

No problem Bodypaint can be a bit daunting to figure out at first but once you get how everything works it becomes a lot easier. Bodypaint does have a Paint Setup Wizard which will do all this for you but if you use that you will end up with every material having its own texture map rather then each uv map, which you don't want.

yep PJ, Spankie's riptide really made things a lot easier for importing and exporting .obj files in C4D/Bodypaint. you could do it before but you had to jump through some hoops. I havn't actually used the native importer exporter for years. BTW for anyone interested in Bodypaint, the purchase options on the new versions can be a bit confusing. Bodypaint was originally a standalone program seperate from C4D, or as a plugin for C4D But now if you buy any level of C4D, Bodypaint is also included. for some reason Maxon is still marketing Bodypaint as if it is a seperate product, but either way you are getting both.

Hmm wonder if C4d is built into the bodypaint demo I just downloaded then?

not sure, but if it is you should see a button directly under the file menu that kind of looks like a small window with four orange squares and 3 white ones. click on that and you should see a number of interface layouts. Including modeling 3d paint, uv mapping, and animation.(these layouts are for convenience only, you can combine any C4D tool into any layout).

I'm actually following your instructions right now with the second life avatar mesh..it uses 3 uv maps, one for head, upper body and lower body. (I figured it's be easy to try out on).

I'll report any successes or failures here.

Funny being on the help receivng end for a change... been a while!

Oh, and yeah it looks like the demo has everything built in.

Ok, reading your instructions.. looks like first you need  a material for each uv map.

The obj I'm using only has 3 material groups, head, upper body and lower body, and each already have their own uv map.

I created a color channel for each one.

For this model, that should be it, right?

yes if each one is on a different uv map each should have a different texture in its color channel.

So basically the original wavefront importer was screwed up, and this fixed it then.

Sems they would have fixed thiers by now, or just included his instead. Smells like every other 3d company.. LOL!

Its not a matter of the importer being screwed up as much as a matter of what use the big 3D software think the .obj format is. Most 3D software makers consider the .obj format a rather obsolete format. They all have their own binary formats which are hugely more compact and allow much more information storage. including the ability to save whole scenes with lights morphs cameras animations, and so on. In contrast the .obj format is a bloated text based format which has only one purpose, to store point information. .obj files have in a large part been relegated to a second rate 3rd party mesh exchange format. Even maya the originator of the .obj format considers it a red headed stepchild.

Funny thing to read this now. I've just spent the last week or so trying to overcome a tougher than normal vertex reordering issue in my C4D. The great import/export plugins have always done the trick but this time I finally found the one that even those greats couldn't import/export with the group data intact enough for my MTs. The bugger(the .obj) even thwarted the importation of the UV data from it's original by UVMapper . A real stinker of a .obj this one this time. If the developers just supported .obj fully life would be so much better.

Maybe large numbers of us should all pile into Sigraph to, explain, illustrate, bribe, grovel, beg, and show all the 3D software developers just how important full support for the .obj file still really is. LOL!

It's funny, because it seems to be the only really transportable format between different 3d platforms.

Will.. Colin directed me to a flash tutorial you posted.. any idea how to save that locally, so I don't have to rely on the net connect for it?

Actually it's not, its just that it's the oldest open format, so most commercial software supports it at some level, (often as you noted at a very basic level) I think the most popular format for tranporting between high end 3D suites is DXF. And there are several other new formats on the rise which offer far more options then .obj. Collada, and u3d being two of the big up and comers. as far as the flash tute it requres the .xml and jscript stuff to run, get in contact with me by PM over at DAZ and I will see what I can do.

Quote - Well they can have multiple maps, but it seems that bodypaint gets confused if the uv maps overlap, even if they aren't on the same material to be painted.

Al the tutorials I've seen have somethng already loaded, and they go through the wizard, or uv map from ground zero, and that's not what you really want to do.. you just want to use the existing uvs, and paint.

If you're just talking about painting the figs, not scenes (conformed clothes, parented props, etc.)...let me see here.  It's been some weeks since I did this, but trust me, if you fiddle for a bit you can get it working.

If I remember correctly, you don't need the wizard, and certainly don't need to do anything complex with the UVs.

Go to the materials window (or materials editor, or whatever) and look for a command like "delete duplicate materials).  Depending on which figure you're using, you should wind up with just 2 or 3 material.  Then you can load texture templates or whatever you want to do.

I had practically no experience with 3d (outside of Poser, which hardly counts), and very little experience with Photoshop, and I managed to get things working after a bit of messing around.  If I can do it, you can.  :)

Sorry to be so vague.  If I get the time I'll reinstall BP3D and see if I can't run through the process and give you a better description.

On the other hand, I use it for very simple tasks, just for making skinsuits - never used it for more complex stuff like eyebrows, eyelashes, etc.

The link to the plug in solved the issue, and I've got it working fine now.

Course it remains to be seen if I can duplicate the setup.. LOL!