Texture Painting

In the last tutorial we learned how to assign UV coordinates to a complex surface. Now it's time to paint the texture.

1. Loading a mesh
The first thing we have to do is to load a mesh. You can find the mesh of the Pig in the "Examples" folder which comes with Cheetah3D.

Now change the window layout to "UV Editing". You should now have a 3D view and a UV Editor.

After selecting the mesh of the pig in the object browser the UV coords of the pig will be displayed in the UV editor. Now we are where we left the last tutorial.


2. Create a texture
Now select the pick material from the material browser and expand the color texture property. Since there is no texture yet we create a new one with the "Create texture" button. A save panel should open.

In the save panel we set the texture name to "pig_tex" and choose a pink background color for the new texture.

The usage of file formats like .tiff is recommended since they are loss less. So you can save the texture various times without loosing image quality.

Now click on the "Save button".

When you create a new texture the new texture will automatically become the current drawing target.


3. Select the paint tool
You should already see the new pink texture in the UV Editor. Now it's time to start painting. Make a "CTRL+Click" into the UV Editor and select the paint tool.

The properties of the paint tool are now visible in the tools properties editor. Select the "fence" brush shape.


4. Painting
Now we can start painting. Just use the mouse to draw onto the texture.


5. Finished
When you are done with painting click the "Leave Edit" button of the texture property we painted to. Now you will be asked if you want to save your changes. Save the changes and you are done.

Later if you want to paint again onto the texture just click the "Edit" button of the texture properties.



Now it is your turn. And I'm sure you can draw a nicer texture ;-)

© 2001-2010 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.